FISHER HOUSE - HELPING MILITARY FAMILIES

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They arrive from the savagery of Afghanistan's theatre of war to the best of First World medical care and comfort — the walking wounded and those who will never walk again.

Over the last five years, more than 350 Canadian soldiers — casualties of the U.S.-led war against the Taliban — have passed through this town in southwestern Germany, their bodies broken, sometimes their minds as well.

They have been blown up, shot or simply suffered an accident of one form of another. Their grievous injuries are of a kind seldom seen at a big-city Canadian hospital.

From his bed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital outside the U.S., Cpl. David Laflamme grits cracked teeth through a wired jaw.

"I was supposed to shoot a M72 rocket launcher, (but) unfortunately, there was a malfunction on it and the blast came from the side from the tube and shot me on the face," he says.

Knocked cold by the blast, his jaw, nose and teeth broken, Laflamme's journey to Landstuhl from the improvised firing range in Kandahar province before going back to his home base in Quebec is typical of the path injured Canadians have been taking for years.

They are initially treated at the Role 3 Hospital at Kandahar Airfield. From there, they are flown to the U.S.-controlled Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan, and then on to Landstuhl, arriving by C17 or other transport at the massive Ramstein Air Base just to the north.

As the plane taxis to a halt, a blue or white converted school bus with a red cross prominent on each side backs up to the lowered aircraft ramp.

The ambulatory shuffle off, some on crutches. Those on stretchers, medical equipment attached, are carefully carried off the airplane for a bus ride to the hospital about 15 minutes away.

Padre Jean El Dahdouh is part of the eight-member team that is Canada's casualty support team stationed in Landstuhl.

Dahdouh will spend up to 16 hours a day with the patients — comforting, consoling, and offering a shoulder to cry on.

Some have nightmares and simply want him to sit by their beds until they fall asleep. Others want their hands held as they wheel into surgery.

"I never ask about religion," Dahdouh says. "I look at them as a person."

The casualty support team, set up about five years ago, provides no medical care. Instead, it offers a familiar Canadian face and flag in what is otherwise an all-American world, albeit one shared with other coalition casualties.

The team also provides support to close family members, who are brought to their loved one's bedside whenever it's recommended by a Canadian doctor stationed a few hours away.

"It can be an absolutely tragic experience for them and we have to be there to support them," says Lt.-Cmdr. Joni Forsyth, a nursing officer who leads the team.

Relatives typically stay at one of two Fisher Houses next to the hospital — free accommodations paid for through donations and designed to mimic the usual creature comforts of home.

About 40 Canadian families have spent time in the houses, which have private bedrooms, a living room, TV, kitchen and laundry facilities and a play area for children.

"There is some kind of normalcy in the worst of times," says Fisher House director Vivian Wilson.

Wilson remembers the Fitzpatrick family, whose son Cpl. Darren Fitzpatrick arrived at Landstuhl a year ago, having sustained horrific lower body injuries. He died a few days later in an Edmonton hospital.

"They brought their boys and had to maintain a sense of normalcy," she says.

The Saeed family also rushed over from their Ottawa home after learning their diplomat daughter, Bushra, had been brutally wounded by a roadside bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers and a journalist on Dec. 30, 2009.

Bushra Saeed, who was fighting for her life, remembers little of Landstuhl. Her mom will never forget it.

"I was numb and nervous," Neelam Saeed recalls as she arrived at Fisher House for a briefing before visiting her daughter.

The medical care was exemplary and everyone was supportive, she says. But her voice cracks as she recalls the shock of seeing her daughter in the intensive care unit.

"For me, she was kind of dead," says. "I didn't know what to do."

Neelam's husband Amjad took comfort from others who were there in a similar plight.

"There are other people in the same situation as we are: That becomes a bit of a support system," he says. "Misery likes company."

His only criticism is that he believes his daughter should have been allowed to stay a little longer for more treatment at the Landstuhl hospital, but they seemed determined to get her on her way as soon as possible.

The 142-bed Landstuhl Regional Medical Center has more than 3,000 staff members, and resembles any large, modern general hospital in North America. Birth, death, and most every illness are seen daily.

It is the patients from "down range," as the Afghan and Iraqi war theatres are referred to here, that separate the hospital from its civilian counterparts.

"In our case, every single patient that we receive has been injured in the service of their country," says Lt.-Col. Raymond Fang, the centre's trauma director.

"There's great comfort in the fact that we're trying to get them home as best we can."

Typically, patients and families only spend a few days to a week in Landstuhl. The aim is to stabilize the wounded so they can make the long journey home, and embark on an even longer recovery, back home in Canada.

Cpl. Barrett Fraser, who was injured in the same blast that took Bushra Saeed's leg, said the care at Landstuhl was far better than at Bagram.

"They treated me like crap (at Bagram)," Fraser says.

"When I got to Landstuhl, everything was a lot better — the facility was just really good for taking care of people."

On a recent April day, Jocelyn Pennington, 21, called Fisher House "a home away from home" as she waited to accompany her husband to their real home.

Sgt. Patrick Shelley, with the American 2 Stryker Cavalry Regiment, was shot four times by an Afghan security guard in an incident that left two of his comrades dead and three others injured.

"Being so close to the hospital really helps," Pennington said. "He doesn't have to be here by himself."

Since the political spat with the United Arab Emirates led to the closure of Canada's Camp Mirage base near Dubai last fall, the war dead now also pass through Landstuhl.

A contracted mortician flies in from Canada to helps ensure proper care of the remains, completes legal paperwork, and accompanies the bodies back to Canada for the all-too familiar repatriation ceremony at CFB Trenton, east of Toronto.

Once medically cleared to leave Landstuhl, the soldiers are taken back to Ramstein, where a Canadian Forces Challenger jet or Airbus typically transports them back to Canada.

"I'm going to get back home and get healing," Laflamme, 28, says with a pained grin as the member of the 5th Combat Engineers Regiment prepares to leave.

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