Wounded warriors

Military: Even as a scandal over medical care for veterans was building, Marines were helping other Marines recover from their wounds | Jamie Dean

CAMP LEJENUE, N.C.— On a crisp morning on the North Carolina coast, traffic bustles through the main gate of Camp Lejeune, the largest U.S. Marine Corps base east of the Mississippi. The 156,000-acre site includes 11 miles of beach for amphibious operations training, 98 maneuver areas, and more than 40,000 Marines.

Clad in sweatshirts and gym shorts, pairs of bulky Marines jog briskly down winding sidewalks along neatly manicured roads. Others set up tall, green tents inside a circle of barbed wire for training exercises. Some prepare for target practice on one of 78 live-fire ranges.

Nearby in a brick, two-story barracks, Sgt. Jason Simms maneuvers a long hallway armed with a thin, black cane. The 28-year-old Marine, seriously wounded in Iraq in 2004, is on a mission of his own: recovering from his 18th surgery in less than three years.