News From the Cause
Helping heroes stand up (Stars & Stripes)
October 18, 2011
It’s nearly two o’clock, and a taxi is waiting to take Lee Woodruff across Washington D.C. to catch a train home. She’s just finished speaking about the needs of caregivers at a rehabilitation conference. Her experience as a caregiver began when her husband, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006.
Lee says goodbye to the conference hosts, ready to see her family, especially since her two oldest children are headed home from college for a holiday weekend. Lee doesn’t take time away from her family lightly, but she and her husband feel a responsibility to injured veterans and their families.
“We know how very lucky we are,” she told her audience earlier. “That is why I’m standing here talking to you today … An incredible miracle was visited on our family, and we feel it is incumbent upon us to tell that story, to show the world this does not have to be a debilitating injury.”
Her husband’s traumatic brain injury, treatment and recovery brought the Woodruffs into contact with many military members struggling with life-changing injuries: burns, amputations and also traumatic brain injuries like Bob’s.
To bring attention to and meet the needs of wounded veterans, especially for those with hidden injuries like TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder, they created the Bob Woodruff Foundation in 2008.
Military families got involved at the start. Anne Marie Dougherty, a Marine wife, began volunteering for the Virginia-based foundation while stationed at Quantico Marine Base. Two PCS moves later, she’s still with the foundation as the director of marketing and communications.
For Anne Marie, her job is an extension of her military life.
“I feel like I’m supporting my husband and everyone else who volunteers to serve,” she said.
“People come back injured, and their lives are forever altered. They’re going to need a lifetime of care. It’s our responsibility, in my mind.” Click here to view more
