Staff Sgt. Jessica Clements, 27, is just one of the more
than 10,000 U.S. soldiers injured (more than 1,300
have been killed) to date in the Iraq War. Clements, a former model and
bartender, was critically injured when a roadside bomb exploded beneath the
truck in which she was riding, sending shrapnel into her backside and the
right side of her brain. Surgeons in Baghdad removed part of her skull to
relieve swelling. She was initially given a less than 2 percent chance of
survival but has since experienced a miraculous recovery. Clements, an army
reservist from a suburb of Akron, OH., rests in her room at the Minneapolis
Veterans Medical Center. rests in her room at the Minneapolis Veterans
Medical Center. Surgeons removed the right side of her skull in order to
relieve swelling to her brain, and, borrowing a WWI battlefield technique,
stored the skull flap in a pocket they formed inside her abdomen.
