Genuine Sacrifices In Real Wars

Jonathan Gurwitz on Help for the Intrepid in today's WSJ (sub req):

SAN ANTONIO -- The word "sacrifice," like the word "war," lends itself to political and rhetorical excess. There are symbolic sacrifices in metaphorical wars. Then there are genuine sacrifices in real wars.

The latter was on display last week at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, as representatives of a grateful nation dedicated the Center for the Intrepid and two new Fisher Houses to those wounded in the global war on terror.

The center is a 65,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation facility. The Fisher Houses are homes away from home for the families of military personnel being treated at military medical centers and Veterans Administration hospitals. The center and the houses were built entirely with private funds. More than 600,000 Americans contributed $50 million to construct the Center for the Intrepid. Thousands more donated the $8.3 million needed to build the new Fisher Houses for Brooke Army Medical Center, home to the sole Army Burn Center and one of two Army Amputee Care Centers. BAMC has treated more than 2,600 service members injured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. has cared for more casualties.

As the dedication ceremonies commenced, 300 wounded military personnel walked, staggered and rolled beneath the drawn swords of an honor guard to take their seats in the front rows. One of them was Staff Sgt. Jon Arnold-Garcia.

Staff Sgt. Arnold-Garcia of the 101st Airborne Division lost the lower half of his right leg to a grenade when insurgents struck his convoy in Hawija, Iraq. Not yet fitted with a prosthesis, Staff Sgt. Arnold-Garcia was on crutches.

As the Joint Service Color Guard of the Military District of Washington presented colors, Staff Sgt. Arnold-Garcia rose to attention, without crutches, on one leg.

Next to him was a soldier I knew. Staff Sgt. Steve Bosson of the 1st Cavalry Division is a bear of a man. Looking at his frame, you wouldn't know he's been through three years of surgeries, prosthetic fittings and rehabilitation. Staff Sgt. Bosson lost the lower half of his left leg to a grenade in an ambush west of Baghdad.

At moments during the National Anthem, Staff Sgt. Arnold-Garcia would teeter a bit. To keep his balance, he would occasionally touch the elbow of his right arm, drawn up in salute, to the shoulder of Staff Sgt. Bosson. It was a fleeting yet moving portrait of genuine sacrifice.

A few have actually had the temerity to question this private effort, saying that it's something that the government should rightly be doing.

Arnold Fisher, the philanthropic force behind the center, who saw it through from groundbreaking to completion in fewer than 15 months, provided a rhetorical answer: "Why would we want our government to do that which we could do ourselves in half the time, at half the cost and twice the quality?"

Well said.