A powerful account of eighteen months in the lives of three soldiers and a journalist, all patients in Ward 57, Walter Reed's amputee wing. Time magazine's Michael Weisskopf, an embedded reporter, was riding through Baghdad in the back of a U.S. Army Humvee, when he heard a metallic thunk. Looking down, he saw a small, dark object rolling inches from his feet. He reached down and took it in his hand. Then everything went black. Weisskopf lost his hand and was sent for treatment to Walter Reed Medical Center. There he crossed paths with three soldiers whose stories he learned during months in the ward. Alongside these men, he navigated the bewildering process of recovery and reentry, and began reconciling life before that day in Baghdad with everything that would follow his release. This chronicle of devastation and recovery is an affecting portrait of the private aftermath of combat casualties.--From publisher description.