Review of Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 (Paperback)

With great insight and compassion, Michael Weisskopf brings us the stories of the amputees of this generation's wars.Weisskopf himself lost his dominant hand while embedded with soldiers in Iraq in preparation for Time's 2003 Person of the Year edition. He picked up a grenade that landed in his vehicle and awoke to a whole new life: Ward 57 of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

But while Weisskopf weaves himself throughout Blood Brothers, describing his his own healing and attempts to regain his journalistic "objectivity," he is not the central figure. Instead, he vividly paints the portraits of three fellow-travelers in Ward 57, soldiers who must come to terms with the physical and psychological impacts of losing a limb. In powerful but matter-of-fact, news-like prose, the reader is introduced to Before and After, and taken along for the gut-wrenching journey in between as wounded warriors (along with their loved ones and care-givers) tackle the mountain that is physical and psychological recovery from amputation.

Blood Brothers is the kind of book that will put you through the emotional wringer, but you won't want to put down. You'll laugh when the wounded-but-fiery Army sergeant and the Marine physical therapist get into a verbal pissing match, and cry when you read of heroic medics or the pain of the residents of Ward 57; other times you'll want to throw something against the wall as you see a need that isn't addressed or stand up and cheer when a physical milestone is reached.

It's all there: the horror and the beauty, the heights and the depths, the illusory achievements and the real milestones. Due to a reportorial style that essentially allows them to speak for themselves, the soldiers in Blood Brothers stand on the page in all their glory and humility, strength and weakness. The reader sees the darkest days and the moments of hope, the times when the path of healing is clear, and the times there seems no possible future.

"Blood Brothers" is heart-wrenching and beautiful book, a must-read for every severely-injured warfighter and family, every volunteer and employee serving in a military hospital, or any other person who wants to better understand the challenges and recovery process of those who go to war but are not lucky enough to come back in one piece.



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