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Published Brownsville Herald 10/31/2011

As I sit here watching game six of the World Series, I am considering a new life back home. I understand that I have progressed well enough to be able to go home as early as next week.
I am so fortunate to have been allowed to enter the DeBakey Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston, and again I must thank Dr. Manoj Gogia of the VA clinic in Harlingen for taking a precious Saturday to call and get me an appointment there the following week. He is a uniquely caring and competent representative of the medical staff. Thanks again.
That idea, the prospect I have been praying for, leaves me with a number of concerns. Many I suppose other amputees, especially so many of my fellow veterans, have felt before me.
I am sensitized because the hospital that performed the lifesaving surgery is a veterans hospital. I lived and shared many concerns, hopes, fears and in some cases terrors I felt regarding the loss of one or more limbs.
Now, I will be returning to my family and the community I have made my home for many years. I have some other concerns and doubts about once again interacting with my family, friends and acquaintances. These I expect will go away with just a little time and experience. However, they could be life-shattering to a young serviceman returning from the fields of battle, full of doubt about how his sweetheart will feel about him or how his family and friends will; perhaps they treat him as cross to be borne! More »

Published Brownsville Herald 10/17/2011

I am again writing from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston and can report that my health is improving rapidly and I am getting used to being somewhat shorter than before. The staff here is working hard to provide me with the skills necessary to live a real life as a double amputee.
Though I knew some friends I served with in Vietnam who had learned to live (not just survive) with the loss of limbs, I definitely could not comprehend what it meant personally, especially to the view each of us holds as a “man.”
Somehow the first picture I had of myself was as half a man, as I couldn’t do some things and needed help to do others. Now I see it as just another set of skills I must learn to get the job done, whatever it might be. I don’t think I would have these views had I not served in the military and gone on to other jobs and careers during my 66 years. More »

Published 9/24/2011
I recently had an opportunity to see, first hand, how one of the premier Veterans Administration hospitals in the U.S. treats our injured servicemen.
I found myself in the Michael E. DeBakey – Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in Houston.
For the past few years I have been afflicted with a skin disease on my legs that was extremely painful and made serious infection possible.
I had, over the past four years, been seen and studied at three different hospitals in Brownsville and San Antonio.
After an extensive search, The DeBakey Veterans Administration Hospital was recommended as the best choice and fortunately, as I had served in combat during the Vietnam War, I was found to be eligible for admittance. More »

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Thanks
Fred Drew