Pittsfield soldier healing at home Sen. Snowe promises local rehabilitation for man wounded in Iraq

PITTSFIELD – Fred Allen can’t walk without crutches. He can’t bend his right leg. The wounds in his left leg are still weeping. He’s still on morphine for pain. And he can’t get himself up off the couch.

That’s why Sen. Olympia Snowe promised Thursday that she would help see that his rehabilitation from wounds he suffered in Baghdad, Iraq, is a lot closer to home than North Carolina.

Specialist Allen, a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, was shot in the legs by a rocket grenade on Halloween and has been recuperating for the last two weeks at his mother’s Pittsfield home. He was released from Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C., and told “to go home and relax.”

“There was no plan for rehabilitation; no plan for counseling,” said his mother, Brenda. Meanwhile, his orders to return to his unit at Fort Bragg are effective Feb. 9.

“There is no way he is going to be ready to drive back there in early February,” Brenda Allen told Snowe Thursday afternoon. The senator had made a special stop at the Allens’ rural home to thank Fred for his service.

“We are deeply grateful to you,” she told the paratrooper. “You went through a lot and it’s miraculous that you are here. I’m glad you are home and on the road to recovery. What can I do to assist you?” she asked.

The Allen family had just one wish: that Fred be able to go through rehabilitation here in Maine, rather than returning to North Carolina.

Brenda Allen told Snowe that when Fred received his orders for Iraq, the family drove to North Carolina and helped pack the young couple’s belongings and place them in storage. “He had only three hours to help us,” Allen said. His wife and daughter came to Maine to wait out Fred’s service overseas and await the birth of the couple’s second daughter.

Then Fred was wounded and everything changed. “We maxed out the credit cards and used all our vacation time to go to Walter Reed to see him,” said Brenda Allen. “Now, there is no way they can travel all the way to North Carolina. Annie would have to drive.”

“She is a high-risk pregnancy. I’m worried,” Fred told Snowe as they sat and chatted. He said how powerless he felt earlier this week when his pregnant wife had to get his wheelchair out of the car’s trunk when the young couple went Christmas shopping in Bangor. “I can’t problem solve my way out of that,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have to,” Snowe agreed. “That is too much of a hardship.”

“I’ve been worrying myself sick,” said Brenda Allen.

Snowe told Fred, “You’ve done your duty. Our job now is to get you through this.”

Snowe said she first would look into extending Allen’s leave beyond Feb. 9 to allow him to await the birth of his child and continue recovering. She then will look into rehabilitation services at Togus hospital in Augusta.

“We’re going to take away some of these worries,” she said to the young soldier. “You concentrate on healing.”