One man's survival story becomes a rallying cry

It was many weeks before ABC's Bob Woodruff realized how lucky he was to survive a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq in January 2006. It took months for him to understand how lucky he was to recover as fully as he did.

Few do. And that is one of the more sobering lessons of "To Iraq and Back," Mr. Woodruff's account of his ordeal on ABC tonight. Many veterans with similar traumatic brain injuries may never fully regain their ability to speak, walk or pick up a glass of water.

"I've seen probably less than five that have actually been able to walk back into the I.C.U. and thank us for what we did," Alison Bischoff, one of the nurses who treated Mr. Woodruff at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, says in this documentary. "So, to me, he's a miracle."

Mr. Woodruff, who makes a point of saying he was privileged to receive the "best civilian and military care in the world," wants viewers to know that veterans with traumatic brain injuries who rely solely on Veterans Affairs medical centers do not always receive the same quality of care.

"To Iraq and Back" is remarkably compelling, mostly because the documentary, while moving, is not just a heart-wrenching portrait of one man's courageous struggle. Mr. Woodruff and his wife, Lee, have published a book about their experience, "In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing," and will soon be telling their inspiring tale to Diane Sawyer, Oprah Winfrey and others.

On this ABC News special, Mr. Woodruff tells his story with candor and restraint, then turns the focus to the men and women who return badly wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan and do not heal as thoroughly.

Mr. Woodruff was named co-anchor of "World News Tonight" less than a month before he went to Iraq. His injury was a huge story and a milestone in the public's perception of the war; it was already all too obvious that soldiers, American and Iraqi, were wounded and killed by roadside bombs and ambushes every day.

But the explosion that injured Mr. Woodruff and, to a lesser extent, Doug Vogt, a cameraman, dramatically brought home how vulnerable all Americans, even visiting anchors, are over there.

The film notes that the Department of Defense puts the number of men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan at about 23,000, while the Department of Veterans Affairs has recorded treating more than 200,000 veterans of those two wars. Paul Sullivan, the director of programs at the advocacy group Veterans for America, says, "What you have are two sets of books."

Mr. Woodruff illustrates quite graphically that some veterans are sent home to recuperate in smaller cities that do not have veterans' hospitals equipped to handle the growing number of those returning with severe traumatic injuries. He interviews a young soldier who is slowly but steadily recovering at a state-of-the-art veterans' polytrauma rehabilitation center in Tampa, Fla., then checks in on him weeks later in his hometown in Texas, where he has noticeably regressed.

The earliest images of Mr. Woodruff on a hospital bed, filmed with a home video camera by family members, are alarming: he lies in the intensive care unit at Bethesda with the left side of his skull bashed in like a dented car.

Even after the doctors send him home in a helmet, Mr. Woodruff has trouble identifying a pair of scissors or recalling the word Iraq. He says he still has trouble retrieving words and remembering names. He has almost no memory of the explosion itself.

Mr. Woodruff asks the soldier if he remembers what happened to him in Iraq, but Sergeant Glass is staring at Mr. Woodruff's smooth cheek and unscarred brow. "You look great," he says wonderingly.

It's impossible not to hope that Sergeant Glass will also be as lucky.

"To Iraq and Back" makes it clear that the odds are against him and that the government should do more to improve them.

NYTIMES