Former ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff had a chunk blown out of his skull while on assigment in Iraq in January 2006. He has recovered enough to return to an on-camera reporting job with ABC News, and is trying to raise money for Iraq veterans who have suffered brain injuries.
In the summer of 2006, as Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon were clashing, Bob Woodruff desperately wished to fly there to report for ABC News. Never mind that it had been less than six months since a roadside explosion in Iraq pocked his brain with shrapnel and other debris, almost killing him.
“I couldn’t even remember the word ‘Lebanon,’” Mr. Woodruff, 46, said in an interview this week in his office at ABC News, reflecting on the months after he emerged from a 36-day, medically induced coma. “I couldn’t remember the names ‘Israel’ and ‘Hezbollah.’”
Now, though, Mr. Woodruff has recovered to the point that he has returned to work full time as a correspondent for ABC News on its various programs, including “World News” and “Nightline.” In recent weeks viewers have seen him reporting from Syria (on his search for the interpreter who helped save his life in Iraq), as well as from Sioux Falls, S.D. (on the rehabilitation of Senator Tim Johnson, himself recovering from a brain hemorrhage), and Bethesda, Md. (on troops who suffered brain and other injuries as traumatic as his own). In the spring he was in Cuba; two weeks ago he was in Angola for an ABC documentary about Chinese influence around the world that will be broadcast next year.
While he is not yet comfortable reporting live — he still struggles to find the right word at times, or he substitutes one (like syllable) when he means another (synonym) — he has traveled an unimaginable distance from those dark, early days last year, when he would look at a picture of scissors and be unable to say what it was. He is also playing pickup soccer again on weekends, much to his wife’s regret.
“You can see why I think every day, now, is a free day,” he said, his voice soft but firm. The most visible reminder of his wounds is a small dent near his left temple. His wavy brown hair and scalp on the left side of his head conceal a plastic shell the size of a small coconut that helps protect his brain, in place of a portion of skull he lost in the attack.
These days Mr. Woodruff has embarked on an unofficial second career, as a voice and fund-raiser for wounded soldiers, particularly those with severe head injuries. The most public manifestation of that effort will come on Nov. 7, when Bruce Springsteen, Robin Williams, Conan O’Brien and Lewis Black will appear at a charity concert for wounded soldiers at Town Hall in Manhattan. The principal beneficiary is the Bob Woodruff Family Fund, which Mr. Woodruff began with his wife, Lee, and brother David. ...
So, is Mr. Woodruff veering a little close to being an advocate?
Mr. Woodruff said he had little worry that by shining a journalistic light on matters like the shortcomings in care at veterans hospitals — as he has done in several reports — he could be perceived as doing the bidding of a particular, political side.
“People use the word advocate like it’s almost impossible, as a journalist, to be an advocate of anything,” he said. “We all advocate something, as long as you feel comfortable that what you’re reporting is truthful. We’re all following stories we think are important. Are you advocating when you do that? Perhaps you are.”
David Westin, the president of ABC News, said he could not imagine a situation in which Mr. Woodruff’s objectivity about returning veterans would be compromised.
“We have a debt we owe as a country, whatever one thinks about the war,” Mr. Westin said. “Given the nature of this war and the medical improvements, that debt is going to be paid off over more than a generation. Bob’s reporting on that part of the war is terribly powerful.”
Still, ABC has insisted on certain journalistic safeguards, including that both Woodruffs submit any plans for speaking engagements to the network’s standards and practices unit.
As an FYI, the article didn't mention Canadian-born cameraman Doug Vogt, who was seriously injured in the same incident as Woodruff.