Wounded Vets Applaud New Caregivers Plan

Wounded vets applaud new caregivers plan

Sep 4, 2011 - With the touch of a button, Russ Marek’s easy chair lifts him to a standing position.

He takes specially fitted crutches and walks down the hallway of his home in Viera, Fla. Then with a slow unsteady gait, but with a sense of accomplishment and smiling, he walks back with the help of only one crutch.

“The prosthetic leg doesn’t give you any feedback,” he said.

Marek, a staff sergeant, was serving in Iraq with the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, when he was critically wounded Sept. 16, 2005, by a roadside bomb. His injuries included the loss of his right leg and right arm, brain injury and burns over 20 percent of his body.

Marek, 40, said he slowly has learned to compensate and do more for himself. But he still cannot live on his own without assistance.

“He can’t cook and do a lot of things,” his mother and principal caregiver, Rose Marek, said. “It’s 24-hour care right now.”

The Mareks have been approved for the VA’s new Family Caregiver program for post-9/11 veterans that provides benefits for the first time to designated family caregivers of eligible severely wounded service members.

In a speech Tuesday to the American Legion Convention, President Obama talked about the caregivers program as part of his plan to help veterans.

“We’re giving unprecedented support to our wounded warriors, especially those with traumatic brain injury,” he told the Legionnaires. “And thanks to the veterans and caregivers legislation I signed into law, we’ve started training caregivers so that they can receive the skills and the stipends that they need to care for their loved ones.” read more>>>