Solitary shoes a tactile symbol of amputees' sacrifices

[IndianaGreen]

Army Chaplain (Maj.) Eric R. Meyners looks over bins filled with shoes in the
chaplain’s closet at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Meyners says
he doesn’t notice the mateless shoes, which are meant for amputees, when he’s
at work. But when he explains the purpose of the shoes during tours, visitors
always fall silent.

Solitary shoes a tactile symbol of amputees' sacrifices

By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 2009

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Behind Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s closet door No. 3E 105 are two bins labeled "left" and "right."

They are filled with shoes.

Smelling of fresh leather, the shoes vary in style and size: a green and black Reebok high top, size 10; a tangerine-colored Converse, size 8; a women’s white New Balance, size 5; a burgundy and black hand-sewn slipper, no size given.

The bulk of these shoes have no mate because the other is being used by someone who has lost a limb.

"They live in the closet," Army Chaplain (Maj.) Eric R. Meyners said of the shoes, sifting through the bin. "It just doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do to have them displayed."

Meyners doesn’t notice the bins much when he comes to work now. But when he gives tours of the chaplain’s closet — which is really more of a room — a hush falls over visitors when they see the single shoes.

"It gets very real," he said. "It brings home for them the harsher side of what goes on in war."

In the chaplain’s closet, there are dozens of shelves packed with other reminders. Shirts are sliced from collar to waist and fitted with Velcro closures so they can be worn around casts and other cumbersome devices. There are similarly altered boxer shorts, and tear-away pants to be worn over leg braces, and electric razors for soldiers who are unable to use their dominant hand and would cut themselves with a traditional blade.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65993