A personal mission: General makes a point of visiting wounded in his 60,000-Marine command

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas -- He keeps the list in his shirt pocket, close to his heart.

There are about 60,000 Marines under the command of Lt. Gen. James F. Amos. He just welcomed 17,000 back from Iraq, a homecoming sobered by the impending departure of 13,000 for a war now in its fourth year.

Most will return. Some will not.

An uncertain number will end up on Amos' list: a handwritten index card updated daily with the number of Marines under his command wounded in combat.

"When we send them off to do the nation's bidding in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq and they're wounded, we're not returning the same individual," Amos said. "When we send them back wounded there is a piece of me that says I haven't kept my bargain. What's left for me to do is to continue taking care of them."

'I owe it to them'

It starts with a visit -- to as many as he can.

"It's a function of loyalty," the 59-year-old general said. "In Marine speak, it means fidelity. It's a wonderful word not used very often -- except in the Marine Corps. It means faithful. It implies faithful almost to a fault. ...

"I owe it to them."

And so, Shannon Jacobs isn't surprised anymore when Amos shows up at Brooke Army Medical Center outside San Antonio. She cheerily hugs the general, who has arrived to visit her husband -- Marine Staff Sgt. Damien Jacobs, a 30-year-old from Hamilton, Ohio, burned 18 months ago while trying to defuse a roadside bomb that exploded -- and several dozen other Marines recovering at the Army hospital at Fort Sam Houston.

"Gen. Amos was actually here for my husband's Purple Heart ceremony about a month ago," said Jacobs, 26. "He's a regular person. The sheer fact that he cares so much about his Marines and gets personal with them, it means a heck of a lot."

As the head of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, the three-star general is in charge of one of the Corps' main fighting commands -- a massive group of infantry and aircraft based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. In a job that can be a stepping stone to commandant of the Marine Corps, Amos' mission is to prepare thousands of troops for duty in Iraq and to watch over some 5,000 Marines from 2nd MEF now there.

"Our focus is constantly on training, getting the force back home or deploying the force," Amos said.

In the initial invasion of Iraq, the former jet fighter pilot served as commander of a Marine air wing. Casualties were relatively few at first but rose as Iraqi insurgents increasingly used roadside bombs and suicide attacks, he said.

Most of the 1,800 Marines from the 2nd MEF wounded since the start of the Iraq war have returned to duty, Amos said. But a few hundred were forced by the extent of their injuries to return to the United States for treatment and recovery. Since taking over the 2nd MEF in July 2004, Amos has tried to visit them all. He's been to Germany's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and makes regular visits to two military hospitals outside Washington, D.C.

"I understand what my expectations are now when I go ...," Amos said. "I've seen them on the battlefield. I've seen them on the back of helicopters. When you see them in the hospitals and they're bandaged up or their limbs are cut off, the first time you're not quite sure what to expect."

Once Marines with burn and amputation injuries started receiving treatment at Brooke, he added regular trips there, now about every three weeks. At Brooke more often than most generals, he is greeted by nurses and doctors as if he's a member of the staff, said Lt. Col. Grant Olbrich, chief of the Corps' family support staff at the hospital.

A heart 'just rare to see'

"This man has a heart for it that is just rare to see," Olbrich said. "When he is sitting down talking to these Marines and talking to their parents, there's no facade to it. It's another human who wants to see this injured human get better."

On a recent trip from Camp Lejeune, accompanied by Sgt. Maj. Charley Colon, his top noncommissioned officer, Amos met with most of the 50 Marines from the 2nd MEF receiving care. Non-Marines, too -- soldiers, sailors and airman alike -- got warm greetings and even hugs.

Marine Sgt. Daniel Gilyeat, a 34-year-old reservist from Kansas City attached to the 2nd MEF while in Iraq, lost his left leg just above the knee when a bomb hit his Humvee in July north of Ramadi. After meeting with Amos, Gilyeat said he felt he could personally call the general if he had a problem.

"Officers are usually unapproachable. It almost seemed like they took the rank off their collars," Gilyeat said of Amos' group.

When visiting with a smiling Lance Cpl. Diane Cardill, 23, of Harrisburg, Pa., he rolled her arm bandage down to see how her burns were healing. She and several other women were hurt when a suicide bomber struck their truck during a night patrol in Fallujah.

"The best thing you can do is touch them, make them feel normal," Amos said. "That's what they want."

But not all. A short time later, Amos sat gently on the treatment table of an Army sergeant missing both feet. He suffered burns that seared most of his skin and took off his ears, and he remained in pain severe enough that he sucked on a lollipop-like dose of the pain killer fentanyl while talking to Amos and others.

"We're not shocked at what we see anymore," Amos said. "That doesn't mean your heart doesn't break."

At Camp Lejeune, he directed the creation of a special barracks where single Marines without family could recuperate from their wounds. At Brooke, more than a dozen Marines have the sole task of making sure wounded members of the Corps get their pay and benefits; they also help out with everything from travel plans to rocking a baby.

Families appreciate the help.

"It's not as cushy when you're a Marine, but when things are down they're right where you need them," said Jene Claude, wife of Staff Sgt. Christopher Claude, 26, of Daytona Beach, Fla., who was greeted by Amos.

Visiting officers played with their 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter in the hospital's rehab gym, where Claude, whose leg was mangled by a roadside bomb, is learning to walk again -- so he can return to duty with a prosthetic limb.

Returning himself to Camp Lejeune after the trip, Amos summed up:

"We bury our dead with great honor and dignity, but the wounded live on. They are the ones we as Americans should not forget."

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On the Net:

2nd Marine Expeditionary Force: www.iimefpublic.usmc.mil/

Brooke Army Medical Center: www.bamc.amedd.army.mil/