WASHINGTON – Heather Pepper pulls a cigarette out of her husband’s pack, lights it and takes a drag to get it burning.

“Here, honey,” she says, holding it in front of Staff Sgt. Jason Pepper, 27, and moving an ashtray to a spot near him on the table. His face and his blank eyes turn toward her, his hand groping the air to find hers.

Blinded four months ago by a roadside explosion in Iraq, Pepper is almost completely dependent on his wife. She helps him bathe, dress and eat. When he walks, he throws his hands over her shoulders, shuffling along behind her. She has become his eyes.

“It has been a huge challenge for us,” says Heather Pepper, 26, sitting on the patio of a group home at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “I had to do everything as if he was a brand-new child, except bigger.”

Most families at Fisher House have similar stories. A mother who showed her brain-damaged son photos of his family to revive his blurred memory. A Colorado man who kept a vigil by his son’s hospital bed during the 19-year-old Marine’s three-month coma.

More than 7,000 troops have been injured since fighting broke out in Iraq in 2003, more than half wounded badly enough that they could not return to duty. Many are sent to Walter Reed in Washington or the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md.

They undergo surgeries, rebuild withered muscles and learn to use artificial limbs. Their days become structured around doctors’ visits and therapy sessions. This routine can last from several months to as long as a year.

It is a stressful time for the soldiers, who struggle to recover from their injuries, come to grips with the changes to their bodies and often worry about the future. It can be equally hard on their relatives, many of whom put their lives on hold to spend seemingly endless months at the hospital.

Many came to Walter Reed on just a few days’ notice and have been there since. Some have quit jobs, left children behind with relatives and even risked losing a home to be there. Suddenly, they are thrust into the demanding role of caretaker.

“It’s not just the soldier, it’s also the family that is absolutely in shock and has no idea how to deal with this,” said Vivian Wilson, manager of the three Fisher House group homes on the post.

Resembling large homes, the Fisher Houses are meant to give outpatient soldiers and their families some semblance of a normal life during their long stays at Walter Reed. The Rockville, Md.-based Fisher House Foundation runs similar houses at every major military medical center.

The red-brick buildings have a total of 27 suites for soldiers and their families, large communal kitchens and dining rooms. Priority is given to soldiers with long stays at Walter Reed, often amputees learning to adjust to prosthetics. Private donations allow them to stay and eat their meals for free.

Fisher House and Walter Reed schedule a host of trips into Washington, visits from veterans and social activities as a diversion from the regimen of hospital visits.

Relatives can go to the hospital for counseling. But most choose not to, Wilson said. Instead, they seek each other out for an informal sort of group therapy. They gather on the spacious patio of Fisher House III when the weather is good, over morning coffee or in the evenings. They talk about how physical therapy is going, trade stories, and sometimes, share their pain. Some have formed close friendships with other soldiers and families.

“You’d think you would be 100 percent engulfed in your own grief,” said Michael Carroll of Idaho Springs, Colo., who is at Fisher House with his son, Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Carroll. “But people go outside their own tragedies to connect with each other.”

Sean Carroll, 19, lost a leg and several fingers and was riddled with shrapnel in March when his unit was attacked. Doctors gave him just a 50 percent chance of surviving a flight from a hospital in Germany to the United States. He spent 58 days in a coma and now moves around in a wheelchair. When his grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt, learned he was hurt, she immediately went into her the bedroom of her home in Payson, Ariz., to pack. The retired nurse has spent most of the past five months with her grandson, her sole focus helping him recover.

“I was with him when he took his first steps as a baby,” she said. “And I was with him when he took his first step with his prosthetic leg. It was wonderful to see that.”

Lee Pingleton of Sacramento, Calif., said she wept almost every day when her son, Charles, first arrived in December at Walter Reed. A suicide bombing blew a door into his head, damaging his brain. When his mother first saw him, he couldn’t remember anyone in his family. She showed him pictures for weeks to remind him who he was.

Charles Pingleton’s memory is coming back, slowly. But his mother is anxious that he may never fully recover. She frets when he is out of her sight.

“Every time he goes someplace and doesn’t come back on time, I worry,” she said. “I don’t sleep through the night anymore.”

The long stay at Walter Reed has been a culture shock for Sgt. William Kyle Colvin, 26, and his family. His wife is German and had spent only a few weeks in the United States before her husband injured his leg in a truck accident.

The Colvins have been at Walter Reed five months, long enough for their 21/2-year-old daughter to grow out of some of her clothes. His wife, Nicole, is headed back to Germany to pack up their house to prepare for a previously unplanned move to Kentucky, Colvin’s home state.

“To go from living in a whole different culture to the U.S. is such a big change. I can only imagine how hard it is on her,” he said.

The Peppers have also seen the future they had plotted out disappear. He planned to serve 20 years in the Army before retiring with a full pension. Now, totally blind, Pepper will be forced to leave the military with a medical retirement.

The couple isn’t sure what they’ll do when they leave Walter Reed. Heather quit her job to take care of her husband, and left their young daughter behind in Germany, where Sgt. Pepper was posted, with her parents.

Pepper is gradually learning to do small things for himself, like make his breakfast and shower by himself. Doctors have given him a prosthetic eye and he is awaiting a second. But Heather still has to be with him at almost all times.

It doesn’t bother either of them, though. The time they spend together, the reliance they have built on each other has brought them closer than they have ever been in their six-year marriage.

“If she wasn’t here to support me, I’d probably still be in the hospital,” said Pepper, between puffs on his cigarette. “She’s my everything right now.”

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On the Net:

Walter Reed Army Medical Center: http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil

Fisher House Foundation Inc.: http://www.fisherhouse.org

AP-ES-09-09-04 1302EDT