Fort Hood Medic-Turned-Patient Keeps Spirits High

WASHINGTON — Army Spc. Kevin Hardin stares intently at a stack of colored "clothespins" on a vertical spindle. His goal: move the pins — each of which has a different amount of tension — from the vertical rod to a horizontal rod inches away.

It's a task Hardin could have done almost without thinking three months ago. But then a rifle-launched rocket slammed through a Humvee when he was on patrol in Samarra, Iraq, tearing huge chunks out of his hands and arms.

It left his spirit intact, though.

With painstaking deliberation, Hardin grips a pin between his pinkie and ring finger, because he no longer has a thumb and index finger on his right hand. He squeezes the pin and carefully positions it on the horizontal rod, a smile of triumph breaking out on his boyish face.

Hardin is a former medic from Jupiter, Fla., whose squad based at Ft. Hood, Texas, used to call him "Doc." Now he is fighting his own medical battle at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Since being wounded on Sept. 30, Hardin has undergone 14 surgeries to repair his shattered bones and torn muscles, reconstruct an eyelid, and remove the many pieces of shrapnel lodged throughout his body.

He has so many skin grafts on his arms and hands, his nickname among his fellow patients is "Patches." But some shrapnel, like the roughly half dozen BB-sized pieces in his brain, may never come out.

Next week he goes under the knife again, this time to remove the rods sticking out of his left arm and the large pins in his right hand. Hardin sees it as a sign of progress, but he acknowledges he has a long way to go.

Later in December, Hardin, 21, will be transferred to a medical center in Tampa for more evaluation of the shrapnel in his brain. Then he'll return to Walter Reed for more months of treatment and therapy.

Despite the dramatic turn his life has taken over the past three months, Hardin is upbeat.

"What is there to regret? Doing a service to your country — I love to help people — there's nothing to regret about it," he said in a recent interview.

Most of the other wounded soldiers at Walter Reed share his view, Hardin said.

"The soldiers here ... they accept their injuries. They don't let them get them down. They keep a positive outlook on life," he said. "There's very few soldiers that think negative."

The second of Charles and Terry Hardin's four sons — all of whose first names start with the letter K — Kevin was "very much involved with the Army JROTC program at William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens," his mother said in an e-mail.

Hardin was just 17 and working at the local Home Depot when he called his father one day in June 2004 and said: "Dad, what would you say if I told you I just joined the Army?"

The Hardins said they were shocked by the quick enlistment, but supported their son "100 percent." They even got license plates that read "Proud Army Dad" and "Proud Army Mom." They have Army stickers and pictures of Kevin prominently displayed throughout their home, Terry Hardin said.

After basic training, Hardin was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division stationed at Ft. Hood. He wanted to be in the infantry, but that was ruled out when it was discovered he was color-blind. Instead, Hardin was offered the post of combat medic, a rifle-toting healer on the front lines.

Hardin not only treated his wounded comrades, but trained them how to perform virtually as much first aid as he knew.

"He trained each one of his men to be a combat lifesaver, not knowing that one day they would save their 'doc's' life," Terry Hardin said.

The gunner in Hardin's Humvee used the training Hardin had given him to treat Hardin in the moments after the attack.

The rocket shattered Hardin's left forearm and tore off his right thumb, leaving his nearly severed right forefinger hanging by a piece of skin. It also peppered his upper torso with shrapnel.

Doctors first had to provide constant blood flow to Hardin's left hand, so they attached his arm to an artery in his left hip for about three weeks.

They tried unsuccessfully to move the dangling index finger to replace the missing thumb, but finally had to amputate it. The tip of his left middle finger was also severed.

Hardin said he writes and shoots with his left hand, but uses his right for most other activities. Before one surgery, Hardin implored his father: "Dad, whatever you do, please don't let them take my trigger finger," Terry Hardin said.

Hardin's injuries have affected his entire family.

Kevin's father, Charles, had quit his security guard job in preparation for the move, but when Kevin arrived at Walter Reed on Oct. 2, Charles took up residence there as well, staying full time until Nov. 12.

Terry Hardin has been able to continue working as a legal secretary in a Palm Beach County law firm.

"Our family has been totally amazed at the outpouring of spirit that total strangers have shown to Kevin," Terry said.

Two organizations, Operation First Response and Veterans Airlift, have borne the cost of flying the Hardin family repeatedly between Florida and Washington. Another, the Yellow Ribbon Fund, paid for their stays at the Malone House, a hotel on the Walter Reed compound, she said.

Project Prayer Flag has given the family money and supported them, "most of all, through prayers," Terry said.

Kevin said he hasn't given much thought to the long-term future. Eventually he hopes to be fitted with a prosthetic thumb. He hopes to go to college and maybe someday get a job in law enforcement or teaching.

He's also looking forward to seeing his pit bull terrier, Dia, and driving his vintage 1968 Ford Torino, which his father had been working on the day they learned Kevin had been wounded.

And he talks longingly about wanting a Ford F-150 extended cab, four-door truck.

"I want that so bad," he said.

Hardin said he never thought much about the possibility he would be wounded when he enlisted in 2004, but he hoped he would be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. He spent 13 months in Iraq attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.

"That's why I joined, to make a difference," he said. "If I knew it was all going to happen ... I still would have done it. Nothing would have stopped me from joining."