Against all Odds

 

 

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

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Every once in a while a true hero emerges, someone whose struggle against the odds, against adversity, bad luck, destiny -- whichever you call it -- shows us the true nature of courage. We know their names, and they are few. Christopher Reeve. Rick Hansen. Terry Fox.

Trevor Greene is another name that belongs on that list.

The Canadian soldier and journalist, injured in an axe attack by a suspected Taliban in Afghanistan, has fought like hell to come back from a catastrophic brain injury.

He has fought against the dire predictions of doctors, one of whom urged his fiance to consign him to a care facility and walk away. He has summoned himself, with sheer will, from the depths, and come up swinging.

Physically, he is still a work in progress. The injury affected the area of his brain that deals with motor control. He is in a wheelchair, and relearning how to isolate, move and control each muscle in his body -- the things most of us do without conscious thought.

But mentally, emotionally, spiritually, said his best friend, Barb Stegemann, "he's an even better man than he was before. And I know he will make a beautiful life out of this."

Two and a half years ago, in a village in Afghanistan, Greene was part of a platoon of Canadian soldiers attending a Shura, a meeting with village elders. He was 41.

Greene was a civil military cooperation officer, just three months into his tour of duty -- still fresh, physically strong and keen on helping make changes.

In Canada he had left behind his fiance, Debbie Lepore, and their baby daughter, Grace.

A journalist by trade, Greene had always been drawn to the plight of the dispossessed. While living in Vancouver he had written a book on the women missing from the Downtown Eastside; some years before, while living in Japan, he had published a book on Japan's homeless.

In Afghanistan, he was particularly eager to tackle the issues of bringing education to girls and women.

He was part of a provincial reconstruction team, a unit dedicated to helping Afghans rebuild. "Schools, roads, wells," said Greene. "We were doing mostly wells, clean water."

Although they were deep in Taliban territory, when Greene sat down on the rough and dusty ground, he laid down his gun and removed his helmet.

It wasn't something he was required to do. It was simply, he said, "a sign of respect," for the men of the village.

Moments later the soldiers heard someone yell "Allah Akbar." A 16-year-old boy rushed up behind Greene and heaved a crude, homemade axe into his head, shattering his skull and cleaving his brain in two.

It was March 4, 2006.

Greene has no real memory of the attack, just images. Flashes of the soldier who sat next to him, who had also removed his helmet. He can see the way his hair stood up, spiky with sweat and sand. He sees flickers, moments of images of the Shura. That's all. But he knows exactly what happened.

"My brains were left on the ground in Afghanistan," Greene said. "And I'm still here."

The words form slowly, the voice is barely audible, but the emotion, the intelligence, the personality is whole, sharp and direct.

He knows his platoon-mates killed the boy in the ensuing firefight, something that weighs on him. Although Greene saw himself as a peacekeeper in Afghanistan, he understands what happened, and why. "I was in his village in a uniform, carrying a weapon. It wasn't personal."

It took 40 minutes for the helicopter to arrive and get Greene out. Somehow, for some reason, he survived. It would take nearly 30 months, a blazing fight against the odds, and the medical system, before he could come home.

With the help of family and friends who banded together to raise funds and support the couple, he is finally out of the hospital and in a new house in Nanaimo.

For Greene and Lepore, who is petite, with a dazzling smile and a wry sense of humour, this is truly the honeymoon. It is also the beginning of an entirely new life and one that, in the harrowing months after the attack, they were told not to expect or even dream of.

The small pleasures of life together -- sharing a space, sleeping together, assigning chores, parenting their four-year-old daughter Grace -- have been returned to them.

Greene, who was the chef in the family before going to Afghanistan, hopes to be cooking Lepore's favourite foods -- pork medallions with ginger and garlic mashed potatoes -- in their new kitchen.

"When he first came back after the injury, the surgeon at VGH got us all together, me and Trev's parents, his sister, the hospital chaplain. He told us to give up, that he wouldn't survive and if he did, he would be a vegetable," said Lepore. "He didn't know Trevor."

But there is much work to be done, and this is no ordinary honeymoon. For both Lepore and Greene, it is a working honeymoon. "My job is to get better," Greene said. "I don't want to be a victim of Afghanistan. I want to be a complete husband to Debbie."

That means completing his journey of recovery. How will he know the journey is complete? "When I walk again," he said without hesitation. He plans to walk down the aisle, not wheel down it, when he marries Lepore in 2010.

Proud to serve Canada

When they met in 2001, neither could have predicted the remarkable journey they would find themselves on.

Lepore was happily living the single life in Vancouver. She worked as a chartered accountant in the PricewaterhouseCoopers building at the foot of Granville and lived in Yaletown.

Greene was a bachelor transplant from Halifax, a strapping six-foot-four rugby player and elite-level rower. He lived on a houseboat, worked at Stock.com during the day, researched and wrote at night, was fluent in French and Japanese.

He was also passionate about helping the marginalized to survive on the streets of Vancouver -- so much so that after his injury a former prostitute posted to a blog that Greene, while researching his book Bad Date, The Lost Girls of Vancouver's Low Track (ECW), had provided her with the inspiration to get off the streets.

"He didn't just ask them about their lives," Stegemann said. "He asked them about their dreams."

Greene grew up in a tight-knit family in Ottawa, close to his sister Suzanne and his parents Elizabeth and Richard. He studied journalism at at King's College. He became a dyed-in-the wool east-coaster, said Stegemann, who "loved to get up at the pub drinking beer and singing, loved the Rankins."

His life intersected with Lepore's in the unexpected way that so many love stories start.

"We met on June 15, 2001," they said, almost in unison, "at Malones." Each was out with friends. "Her sweater slipped off her chair," Greene said. He picked it up, made a production of parading around the pub with it.

"My friends and I were supposed to go to a strip club," Greene said with a laugh. "As soon as I met her, I changed my plans. She was going to the Urban Well. I told the guys I was going with her."

He never looked back. Their first kiss a few dates later was by the fountains at the Wall Centre.

"After that I didn't go back to my houseboat very often. She lived in Yaletown, and wherever she was, I was. Unless she was mad at me, then she'd kick me back to the houseboat."

At the time, Greene was in the reserves, and had recently transferred from the navy to the infantry. "I wanted to serve my country, I wanted to help people, especially after 9/11," Greene said.

"I'd never met anyone in the military," Lepore said. "I was so proud that he wanted to serve Canada, and help the people of Afghanistan improve their lives. I also hated the thought of women and girls not being able to be educated."

That Greene wanted to serve didn't surprise Stegemann, at whose kitchen table Greene had sat down some years before to sign his enlistment papers.

"It was an emotional moment," she recalled. "But that was Trev. He was always the one helping people, it's just what he did. If someone needed to be walked home on campus, he'd be the one to do it. We were always joking about him and the white horse he rode in on."

Greene and Lepore had five blissful years together before he was called to duty in Afghanistan. Their daughter, Grace, was less than a year old when Greene left for his tour of duty.

Before departing, he left a message on his friend Barb's answering machine. "It was a very sombre message," said Stegemann. "He had been on missions before and never been scared. But this was different. He was sombre, and quiet. But he was so committed to this, especially to the girls and women of Afghanistan."

6 a.m. knock on the door

When the knock at the door came one morning at 6 a.m., Lepore knew what it was. She wasn't immediately alarmed. The knock had come once before, when Greene had narrowly escaped an IED -- improvised explosive device -- incident.

But when she opened the door and saw the faces of the military officers, accompanied by the chaplain, she knew it was serious.

They informed Lepore about the attack, and that Greene was listed in critical but stable condition. Shortly thereafter, his condition deteriorated to critical unstable.

"The whole day we had military people here, and friends. We just all prayed and sent our thoughts. And then we got word he had stabilized again."

Greene was transferred to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

Lepore, accompanied by her sister who spoke fluent German, flew to be by his side, along with Greene's parents.

Ironically, said Lepore, "he didn't' look that bad. He was in a coma, but because the attack was from behind, he looked okay."

Although denial may have played a part in Lepore's positivity, she said she also had to be positive for their daughter's sake. She had accompanied the family to Germany.

"I didn't want her to see despair," said Lepore, whose mothering instincts and need to protect and shelter her daughter kicked into high gear. She was strong, she said, because she had to be. And because somehow she knew, "if anyone could get through this, it was Trev."

While their daughter learned to walk in the hospital hallways in Germany, doctors fought to save Greene's life.

Two plates on the rear of his skull were completely removed to alleviate pressure from brain swelling. But there was reason for hope. Doctors brought him out of the medically-induced coma twice a day to test his pain reflexes. It was apparent he could feel pain, a good sign.

Early CT scans showed that memory centres and centres for consciousness had not suffered detectable injuries.

There was reason for hope.

Ten days after the attack, Greene was flown back to Vancouver on a civilian medevac flight.

But once they were back in Vancouver, the news turned worse. "Doctors told us he wouldn't come out of his coma," Lepore said.

"We were shocked. I knew we had to do something ourselves. So then it started. Reflexology, energy work, pictures, music."

For a year, through bouts of pneumonia, bacterial infections and surgeries, Greene would fight for his life at Vancouver General Hospital. It was a tough slog at VGH, Lepore said. "Although there are a lot of great nurses, you are pretty much on your own."

She would learn all too quickly that if Greene was going to have any chance at all, she would have to fight every step of the way for adequate care.

Greene is a little more blunt about their experience at VGH. "It's a shithole," he said.

While doctors were still doling out the negative prognoses and warning Lepore about "overstimulating" Greene's brain while he was in ICU, she was seeing progress.

"One day I was reading him a letter from a friend of his. I held it up to him and said, 'Look at this.' Then I noticed he was scanning the letter, line by line from left to right. I flipped the page, and he kept going until it was done. He was reading."

It was Lepore who informed the doctor that Greene was reading, although doctors were still telling her he was in a coma with little hope for recovery.

"That's when I said I'm done, I'm taking over," said Lepore.

dryan@vancouversun.com

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Peace Warrior

WHAT: A one-hour documentary offers an exclusive look into Captain Trevor Green's courageous struggle to recover from a horrific axe attack in Afghanistan.

WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. on CTV.

WHO: Produced by Vancouver filmmakers Sue Ridout and Sara Darling. Narrated by former Will & Grace star Eric McCormack.

ONLINE: To see a preview of Peace Warrior go to www.vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

There was a thread here originally on this topic a couple of years ago in the Current Affairs section titled "Axed Canadian" in praise of his attacker and I thought I'd give an update on this remarkable man. I would have put it there but for some reasons I don't have posting priviledges now, too long away I guess.

 

Hopefully something like this rebirth can happen in Iraq and Afghanistan at some point...that would be nice