Chapter 5
Here is the other half of it.
Daniel Reyes was transferred to Walter Reed eleven weeks after I left FOB Resolute. A new attending, working from my documentation — which Reeves had personally ensured was attached to the transfer file, against Keller's objection — initiated a structured communication protocol within the first month. Eye movement coding. It took another seven weeks before Reyes produced his first confirmed yes-or-no response to a direct question.
He is not what he was before the accident. He requires full-time care. He communicates through a letter board operated with slow, deliberate eye movement, two to three words a minute on a good day.
But he is there.
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His mother flew from Albuquerque to Walter Reed the week the protocol was confirmed. Colonel Reeves was present for that visit — he had taken emergency leave to be there, the same way he had sat in a folding chair through fourteen consecutive nights at FOB Resolute. Reyes's mother held her son's hand and asked him, through the letter board, whether he knew who she was.
It took him six minutes to spell out: Mom.
