美国国家公共电台 NPR A Wounded Warrior's 80 Surgeries — And Record Of Resilience

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

An Army major named DJ Skelton retired¹ on Monday at a ceremony in Arlington, Va. In attendance were family, friends and fellow soldiers, also a former chairman of the Joint² Chiefs of Staff and senior Pentagon officials. A four-star Army general presided - not the usual crowd when a mid-ranking officer leaves service. NPR veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence brings us the story of Major DJ Skelton, retired.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE³: DJ Skelton shouldn't even be here. He enlisted⁴ in 1996 after flunking⁵ out of college. In the Army, He learned Mandarin⁶ Chinese at the Defense⁷ Language Institute. But he wasn't on a path to becoming an officer.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MIKE LWIN: Good afternoon. I'm Colonel Mike Lwin, United States Army, retired.

LAWRENCE: Mike Lwin and others pushed Skelton to apply to West Point. Lwin was the MC at Skelton's retirement⁸ this week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LWIN: And less than 24 hours ago, Major DJ Skelton asked me to take on this duty.

(LAUGHTER)

LAWRENCE: Skelton got into West Point, but he really shouldn't have made it through there either. Four-star general Robert Brown explained at the ceremony.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEN ROBERT BROWN: He joined the class of 2003. Now, I couldn't believe this when I read it. I thought it was a misprint. But I checked the facts.

LAWRENCE: The facts were a horrible rap sheet of misbehavior.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BROWN: Four hundred hours walked on the area - I didn't think that was possible.

LAWRENCE: Those were hours of punishment. But somehow, he still graduated and became an officer. But the real reason DJ Skelton shouldn't be here was the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004. He told me the story in his kitchen.

DJ SKELTON: The back of the road just lit up like a huge flashlight. And it was just a barrage⁹ of RPGs, mortar¹⁰ rounds. And it was clear that we were ambushed¹¹.

LAWRENCE: He was leading his platoon. Two rocket-propelled grenades hit the overpass¹² they were defending.

SKELTON: One exploded. I think one did not. The head broke off, went through my leg. And then I got shot quite a bit...

LAWRENCE: Right.

SKELTON: ...For that. My medic was with me. He got shot. My RTO was with me. He got shot. Both lived.

LAWRENCE: Skelton was blasted in the left arm, right leg and chest. What really should have killed him was a piece of shrapnel that entered his right cheek, destroyed the roof of his mouth and exited out his left eye.

SKELTON: I could hear people screaming, and then all of a sudden the pain, the most incredible feeling of pain.

LAWRENCE: And just like that, his Army career should have been over.

SKELTON: And then I remember waking up at Walter Reed. And then I have doctors that are telling me, well, you're never going to rock climb. You're never going to run. You're not going to do half the things that were a source of happiness for me as a kid that were part of who I was. And now the Army is saying, yeah, you're not fit for duty. You cannot serve. I had a hard time with that.

LAWRENCE: At the time, Walter Reed Hospital was getting overwhelmed with casualties that the military clearly hadn't planned for. No one was there to show someone like Skelton that life could go on. Luckily, his rock climbing friends did.

SKELTON: Some friends showed up and kidnapped me...

LAWRENCE: He'd been in the hospital nearly a year.

SKELTON: ...And threw me in the back of a Jeep and drove me out to a local rock climbing crag place. And we had a great time. But that was just this very powerful moment in my life. There was this community that just felt motivated to not give up on me.

LAWRENCE: And that's one of the reasons DJ Skelton says he is still here. He stayed in the Army despite the loss of his left eye and his palate and lasting¹³ damage to his right leg and left arm. And in 2007, he co-founded an organization called Paradox¹⁴ Sports so other vets¹⁵ could have the same experience.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SKELTON: Hello.

LAWRENCE: That's how I met Skelton about five years ago. He and a team of professional climbers took a group of disabled vets up an 800-foot cliff called the Snake Dike¹⁶ in Yosemite National Park. NPR interviewed him dangling¹⁷ off the ropes.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

LAWRENCE: I'm about to pass you in just one second to DJ Skelton.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Hi, this is Audie Cornish. Are you in a safe space to talk (laughter)?

SKELTON: (Laughter) Of course. How are you doing?

CORNISH: Great. Now, people have talked about obviously the camaraderie¹⁸ of being in the service. How is this similar to that?

SKELTON: As a veteran, it's amazing. I've never served with any of the other brothers and sisters-in-arms that are out here, the other vets. But we speak the same language. And we sit around the campfire at night, and we tell stories that only we can relate to and the climbers around us. And in turn, the climbers talk a different language. So to combine all of that experience that brings us all together is pretty powerful.

CORNISH: Well, DJ Skelton, thank you for your service and thank you for talking with us.

SKELTON: You bet.

LAWRENCE: Skelton's work with wounded troops and his desire to show that they could still be useful to the Army landed him a policy job advising the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But his career didn't end there, which is another reason Skelton shouldn't be here. In 2011, after dozens of surgeries and still dealing¹⁹ with, for example, the shrapnel holes in his mouth that sometimes let food slip into his airway²⁰, Skelton asked to be sent back to war. He passed all the physical tests and joined his old unit in Afghanistan. His commander was then-Colonel, now-General DA Sims.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEN DA SIMS: DJ had this really hellish town.

LAWRENCE: Skelton was leading foot patrols in the infamous²¹ Panjwai district. Taliban shot at them almost every time they left the outpost.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SIMS: He had instant credibility with the young men that he was leading at the time. This is leadership by example.

LAWRENCE: Sims says any disability was overcome by Skelton's ability to lead. Skelton doesn't completely agree with that. His men all made it home, but the thought that he might lose one of them because he wasn't physically²² 100 percent haunted him. And here's the last reason he maybe shouldn't be here.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SKELTON: So let me just get this over with.

LAWRENCE: At his retirement, Skelton read the names of fellow veterans who weren't there. Some died in battle, but a lot of the names he read died back here at home.

SKELTON: Lieutenant²³ Ben Larsen was my fellow South Dakotan classmate at West Point. Died from his struggles with dealing with his combat tours when he came back.

LAWRENCE: And Skelton was honest about his own issues right there in front of General Brown, about drinking way too much when he got out of the hospital to the point where his men locked him up, dried him out and made him get therapy. And there's the physical toll²⁴ of more than 80 surgeries and dealing with the red tape as he becomes a veteran.

SKELTON: Take a look at me, 17-plus years of active duty, I should be celebrating. Instead, I'm bitter. I'm upset. I'm frustrated²⁵. I'm angry.

LAWRENCE: His palate still isn't fixed²⁶. The last attempt was a 17-hour surgery to graft²⁷ a piece of his good right arm to the roof of his mouth. But that hasn't completely worked. Right now, Skelton eats mostly through a feeding tube in his stomach. And last year, the VA told him to change the brand of nutritional²⁸ liquid he puts in that tube and then told him later that the VA can't pay for that brand. To their credit, his VA physician did show up at his house with an envelope of cash for him to buy what he needed. All this is wearing him down.

SKELTON: The psychologist diagnoses me with recurring²⁹ sustained trauma³⁰. And the source of the trauma is my inability to navigate³¹ the VA and the DoD health care systems.

LAWRENCE: And that's what Skelton says he wants to tackle next. He's pushing for a congressional commission that would look not only at VA but how to connect veterans with all the resources in their home communities to head off issues like drug abuse or homelessness or depression. He also wants to focus on his 3-year-old son and be supportive of his wife, who's a marine³² biologist now doing an MBA. They were there at his retirement ceremony, along with his mom, dad, and sister and lots of others he thanked by name.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SKELTON: Reggie Hemerger saved my [expletive] a lot in Afghanistan. Where's Eric Ikener - Battle of Fallujah?

LAWRENCE: There are lots of reasons DJ Skelton shouldn't be here.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SKELTON: So thank you. This is my family.

(APPLAUSE)

LAWRENCE: But the room was full of the reasons he still is. Quil Lawrence, NPR News, Arlington, Va.

(SOUNDBITE OF HINT'S "COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS")

1 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

2 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 enlisted   

adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
• He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 flunking   

v.( flunk的现在分词 )；（使）（考试、某学科的成绩等）不及格；评定（某人）不及格；（因不及格而） 退学

参考例句：

• Is there some school of the ear I'm flunking out off right now? 我是不是被什么听力学校淘汰了？ 来自电影对白
• Twelve freshman footballers were flunking classes and had to leave. 当时有12名高中一年级的美式足球（即橄榄球）队员没有通过考试而不得不离开。 来自互联网

6 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

7 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

8 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

9 barrage   

n.火力网，弹幕

参考例句：

• The attack jumped off under cover of a barrage.进攻在炮火的掩护下开始了。
• The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。

10 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

11 ambushed   

v.埋伏( ambush的过去式和过去分词 )；埋伏着

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The military vehicles were ambushed. 军车遭到伏击。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 overpass   

n.天桥，立交桥

参考例句：

• I walked through an overpass over the road.我步行穿过那条公路上面的立交桥。
• We should take the overpass when crossing the road.我们过马路应走天桥。

13 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

14 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

15 vets   

abbr.veterans （复数）老手，退伍军人；veterinaries （复数）兽医n.兽医( vet的名词复数 )；老兵；退伍军人；兽医诊所v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的第三人称单数 )；调查；检查；诊疗

参考例句：

• I helped train many young vets and veterinary nurses too. 我还帮助培训了许多年青的兽医和护士。 来自互联网
• In fact, we've expanded mental health counseling and services for our vets. 实际上，我们已经扩大了退伍军人的心理健康咨询和服务。 来自互联网

16 dike   

n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水

参考例句：

• They dug a dike along walls of the school.他们沿校墙挖沟。
• Fortunately,the flood did not break the dike.还好，这场大水没有把堤坝冲坏。

17 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

18 camaraderie   

n.同志之爱，友情

参考例句：

• The camaraderie among fellow employees made the tedious work just bearable.同事之间的情谊使枯燥乏味的工作变得还能忍受。
• Some bosses are formal and have occasional interactions,while others prefer continual camaraderie.有些老板很刻板，偶尔才和下属互动一下；有些则喜欢和下属打成一片。

19 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

20 airway   

n.空中航线，通风口

参考例句：

• Lay them on their side and ensure the airway is unobstructed.让他们侧躺着，并确保呼吸道畅通。
• There is a purple airway in London Airport.伦敦机场里有一条皇家专用飞机跑道。

21 infamous   

adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的

参考例句：

• He was infamous for his anti-feminist attitudes.他因反对女性主义而声名狼藉。
• I was shocked by her infamous behaviour.她的无耻行径令我震惊。

22 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

23 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

24 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

25 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

27 graft   

n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接

参考例句：

• I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
• The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。

28 nutritional   

adj.营养的，滋养的

参考例句：

• A diet lacking in nutritional value will not keep a person healthy.缺乏营养价值的饮食不能维持人的健康。
• The labels on food products give a lot of information about their nutritional content.食品上的标签提供很多关于营养成分的信息。

29 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

30 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

31 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

32 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。