Battleland

Back Home: Traumatic Heart Injuries

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Traumatic brain injury — TBI — is one of the current plagues affecting the U.S. military. Medical care has gotten so good that troops can survive even a penetrating brain wound. But they’re never the same. That’s what led Shannon Maxwell to write Our Daddy Is Invincible for her two kids, 7 and 10, after her husband — their father — Tim was wounded in Iraq. “Telling the children that their father had been wounded was hard,” she says of preparing to leave them to hustle to her wounded Marine in Germany. “Leaving them so soon afterward and seeing the fear behind their little eyes was heartbreaking.”

She has written this 36-page book to help others come to grips with such changes and the realization that life will never be the same. “There are many families around the nation experiencing these types of tragedies and yet find ways to live full and enjoyable lives together,” Maxwell says. “Due to the severity of some individuals’ injuries, the level of interaction between children and their parents compared to that depicted in the book may vary, however this book seeks to instill hope and acceptance so that in large or small ways, children can find ways to continue to find their wounded parent a part of their lives.”

“This is the first time that there’s recently been some publications that are aimed at children, which has historically been a forgotten group when people are navigating a TBI journey,” says Kathy Helmick of the Pentagon’s brain-repair shop (more formally known as the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury). This is what happens after a decade of war. Not only are these terrible, insidious wounds, but there is enough time to inspire (is that the right word?) — books — children’s books! — about them. Semper Fi, Lieut. Colonel Tim Maxwell, U.S.M.C. (ret.), and your family.