A Time To Heal

At Fort Hood, Texas, the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division are training for an eventual return to Iraq. "My job now is to get all my guys trained up and ready to go over," says Cpl. Michael Potter.

Potter will go with them, but first he's getting used to using his hands again. "The recovery for my hands was a very long and painful process," he says.

Both of Potter's hands were severely burned. "I couldn't open up a soda bottle," he remembers.

For now, he's simply glad to be alive. "I learned to appreciate life more, not, you know, take as many things for granted. It could happen again, you never know," he says.

But one soldier isn't ready to rejoin his comrades. Sgt. Justin Farrar, like many soldiers who serve in Iraq, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He's having a hard time recovering emotionally from the attack.

"It's not my fault, and I've been told by all kinds of people and everybody, but before we left, I mean...," he says.

"You felt like you should have been closer to Capt. Funkhouser?" Katie Couric asks.

"I felt like I should have protected him better," Farrar says.

"But he told you to fall back a little, didn't he?" Couric asks.

"Yeah. He was still my primary mission," he says.

Back at home, Farrar says he can't put his uniform on. "I look at it everyday and it's hard," he says.

Asked what he is afraid of, Farrar tells Couric, "I don't know. I think I'm afraid of the whole thing, the whole experience to get coming out again."

Fortunately, Farrar has other things to live for now — his wife, and his infant daughter. "There was times when I was sitting on the ground in Iraq and it hurt so bad I wanted to quit. I wanted to give up. And when I closed my eyes, that was who I seen.I mean that's why I opened my eyes again. You know, her, my baby and my wife, that's what got me home."

Staff Sgt. Nathan Reed, on the other hand, is getting back in shape, so he can return to active duty at Fort Knox, Ky. "For the most part, I mean, I cherish every day like it was my last day," he says.

"How's your wife doing with all this?" Couric asks.

"She's doing good," Reed replies.

"She's happy to have you home and alive," Couric says.

"Yeah, she's happy to have me alive, safe, back home," he says.

Last summer, Kimberly Dozier began to learn to walk again, too, slowly and painfully.

Asked what it was like walking for the first time, Dozier tells Couric, "To take the first few steps with, first, a walker, it was devastating and depressing. I couldn't believe that I couldn't walk. Then I would look down the hall and see guys who had lost limbs, who had horrible brain injuries and I'd think, 'I can deal with this... they have a lot more to get through.'"

But whatever progress Kimberly made physically, coping with what had happened psychologically was difficult, even though she met with therapists. The memory of Paul and James was still fresh.

"When did it finally sink in, these two men who were really like family to you, were suddenly gone?" Couric asks.

"When I first opened up the computer and logged in and there were these e-mails — remembering them, remembering their lives," Dozier says. "That was like — wasn't thinking about them. It was their families left behind. I don't know what to say to make it better for Paul and James' families. They are gone. And they were really incredible people."

By Sept. 2006, Dozier finally got back on her feet. Then she spent the next five months in New Zealand with her boyfriend Pete and his family.

She came back to the States in February for what she hoped would be two final operations. Like all of Kimberly's medical care, these surgeries were paid for by CBS.

The first was to create a new eardrum to replace the one blown out by the bomb. The second surgery was to remove a strange outgrowth of bone that had occurred after her legs had healed. It's a common and mysterious occurrence in blast injuries.

After the surgeries, she finally felt like herself again. And now it was time to think about how she could resume her life.

"Every time I turn on the TV and see another report from Iraq and I see one of my friends, whether it's CBS or one of the other [networks], I go, 'That's my job.' So yeah, kind of hurts," she says.

Dozier worked hard with a trainer to get back in shape. "I'm gonna have to be in better shape than I was before to get back to work," says..

"I'm wading back towards the water with baby steps," she says.

Asked if she definitely wants to go back, Dozier says, "Go back to Iraq? Maybe, eventually. Go back to the Middle East, go back to conflicts, go back to crises, absolutely. That's what I do."

Dozier was finally ready to put the blast behind her. But first, she wanted to return to see everyone who had helped her along the way.

She went to Landstuhl and Bethesda to thank the doctors who had put her back together. She also went to Iowa to see Jeremy Koch, the soldier who had saved her on the street in Baghdad. And she went to Texas, to see the members of the 4th I.D.

But Dozier still had one more trip to make—the most difficult one of all: visiting Capt. Funkhouser's widow Jennifer.