Wounded soldier a 'walking miracle'

Kevin Kammerdiener was atop the Humvee, a video-game-loving skate rat now a U.S. Army private, cradling a machine gun as the NATO convoy drove through Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

It was May 21, 2008.

In a minute his life would change forever. So too would his family's.

A bomb-laden vehicle rammed the Humvee and exploded. The blast engulfed Kammerdiener in flames and sent him flying over a billboard.

He landed on his head, badly burned and bleeding, his skull open, brain exposed.

Amazingly, the soldier survived, and he was flown back to the United States to begin a long tortuous recovery - one that also has required constant care from his mother and sister.

This evening, Kammerdiener, 22, and his mother, Leslie Kammerdiener, will arrive at Tampa International Airport to a hero's welcome: He'll be greeted by dozens of members of local veterans and motorcycle groups organized by Operation American Pride, a Palmetto-based group that helps recovering vets.

For Kevin Kammerdiener, who has lived in Riverview since April 2009 to be near medical care, the welcome will be a surprise.

His mother hopes the trip back also will take her son one step closer to being the man she sent off to war.

"I expected he would come home fine or not come home at all," she says. "I was naive. I never expected he would come home like this."

He also was a video gamer who loved shoot'em-ups such as Halo and Modern Warfare, she says.

The combination of interests led him to the Army, his mom says.

He broke his leg skateboarding and had to leave the technical school he was attending. Needing a future and loving the action of the video games, he enlisted in July 2007.

Leslie Kammerdiener says she was less than thrilled.

"My first response was, 'This isn't a video game,' " she says. " 'This is real life.' "Still, she stood behind her son and supported his decision to enlist.

In February 2008, she started a blog, now called Mended Wings, to chronicle her life as an Army mom. It starts with a breezy entry about visiting his Airborne graduation ceremony. But on June 4, 2008, it took on a much more ominous tone as she let her readers know what happened to Kevin.

"He has burns on 25% of his body - mainly his face, neck and hands," she wrote. "He will need rehab at least on his hands. He is also on a ventilator at this point, but they have begun weaning him off of that. His left ankle is fractured, but the most severe injury is the head wound.

"Even forewarned, she wasn't prepared for the first time she saw her son in the hospital "wrapped from head to toe in bandages."

"Only his little toes were sticking out,'' she said. "I took one look at him and I dropped right to the floor."

Kammerdiener was in a coma for almost three months and "not aware of anything," his mother said.

"I can't tell you how many times I didn't think he would make it through the night," she says. "To have a good part of your brain cut out, and another larger part die off and on top of it all the burns and the broken bones and everything, he is a walking miracle."

His mom, who lives with him, says she and her 26-year-old daughter Brianna Kammerdiener have been there to wash him, to feed him, to teach him to talk again.

"It is difficult when you are 20 or 22 and you can't take care of yourself and your mom sees you naked," she says. "It was my job to make sure he retained his dignity."

The stress has taken a toll on the family as well, she says.

Aside from having to care for her son, Leslie Kammerdiener, 45, has battled the Veteran's Administration over his benefits.

"There is no normal way of life," she says. "I don't have a life. Everything, every single thing I do revolves around my son. I don't have an income to do anything myself, I don't have freedom to come and go. He is not able to just be left alone here, so I wherever he needs to be, I make all arrangements."

Caring for her son was so consuming, she says, that she only learned she had lost her job when she received a letter about COBRA insurance payments in January.

Things are getting a little better for her son, she says. After spending most of the past 2½ years at a military burn unit in San Antonio, Texas, he is returning to Tampa for treatment for his traumatic brain injury at the polytrauma center at the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital.

He can speak more - with a vocabulary of about 300 words, she says. He can brush his teeth and dress himself.

A few weeks ago, he even drove a short distance.

"I don't want to say it was the best driving you have ever seen in America," his mother says. "But he did very well. That's the thing: You have to make him feel normal."

haltman@tampatrib.com

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