A new focus on veterans

In an instant, Army Sgt. Angel Rivera saw the flash of the explosion. His eardrums popped, and he felt his head slam into the radio mount of his armored humvee.

Then everything went blank that day in 2005 when his vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosive device near Tikrit, Iraq.

Now Rivera, who had survived another blast months before, is among scores of wounded and injured soldiers who depend on medical and counseling services scattered among about a half-dozen buildings at Fort Dix.

He's looking forward to changes this year that promise improved care - in one place - to troops who have enough to worry about without trekking across the post.

Groundbreaking was held yesterday at Fort Dix for a new Soldier and Family Assistance Center, one of more than 30 such facilities to be built at military posts around the country. The centers are part of the Army's response to a national uproar last year over serious deficiencies in outpatient treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The problems - ranging from poor living conditions to long bureaucratic waits for a military discharge or return to duty - prompted an examination of outpatient services across the country.

During their convalescence at Fort Dix, soldiers such as Rivera - members of what the Army calls its Warrior Transition Unit - meet with family, counselors, social services and medical providers at a variety of sites, including an interim Soldier and Family Assistance Center in a former public works building.

The same is true at more than 30 other Army posts where 9,500 wounded, injured and ill soldiers are receiving care.

"I'm sure there are questions about what happened with our soldiers at Walter Reed," said Col. Ronald Thaxton, installation commander at Fort Dix, where at least 178 troops are being treated. "But I tell you today that we are here to take care of our soldiers and their families."

Caring for injured service members is "one of the foremost things we try to do," said U.S. Rep. James Saxton (R., N.J.), a longtime Dix supporter who joined Thaxton at the groundbreaking. "It is important to them, it is important to their families, and it is important to our country."

The new centers, such as the one at Dix, will consolidate services in one building at each installation in a campus-like setting near medical-treatment facilities.

The facilities can't come too soon for soldiers such as Rivera, 44, who has had surgeries on his right shoulder and both knees, and expects to have operations on his back and neck.

The Bronx resident, who has been involved in many firefights, said he also is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, has trouble sleeping at night, and is startled by loud noises.

"I hope to be home by August and will probably go back to driving buses for New York City mass transit," Rivera said.

"There are guys worse off than me, and they deserve the best when they come home," added Rivera, who was being treated at Walter Reed last February when the problems there came to light.

Building the Fort Dix center, set for completion this summer, "is a recognition that these guys deserve better care," he said.

Another soldier in the Warrior Transition Unit, Army First Lt. Rene Surgi, 37, of New Orleans, was recently treated for a hernia, suffered when he rolled out of bed during a rocket attack at a base near Balad, Iraq. He also has headaches and lingering anger issues, he said.

"The best thing that happened was the scandal at Walter Reed," Surgi said. "The Army is doing a great job now. I've seen a miraculous turnaround."

The attention troops are getting "is more intense now," added Army Spec. Jason Cooley, 37, a Charleston, W. Va., resident who was shot in the head in Somalia in 1993 and has problems related to a traumatic brain injury. "We learn from mistakes. I feel this [center] is needed."

Sharon Brady, director of Dix's Soldier and Family Assistance Center, said the 3,700-square-foot, $663,000 center will serve as a temporary facility until an even larger building is finished on adjacent ground by about 2010.

In addition to improvements from the military, recovering troops also have been receiving help from civilians. Members of the New Jersey Elks Association Army of Hope donated a handicapped-accessible bus last month to take troops to Walter Reed for treatment that's unavailable at the fort.

And members of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 899 in Bordentown have been spending Monday and Wednesday evenings with the troops at their recently renovated barracks, offering food and companionship.

"Anything that helps these guys is something positive," said Michael Engi, president of the chapter. "It's like anything else in society: The traffic light doesn't go up until there's an accident and somebody gets killed.

"What happened in Washington opened people's eyes about the needs of vets," he said. The Fort Dix center "will be a model for others."

To see a video of wounded soldiers speaking about the new unit, go to http://go.philly.

com/dixEndText