STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

It seemed like a routine assignment—if you count reporting from a tank a routine assignment, that is.

Bob Woodruff was reporting near Taji, Iraq in January 2006 when he was struck by a roadside bomb lobbed at the armored vehicle he was traveling in.

Suddenly, the man who had worked so hard to succeed Peter Jennings as co-anchor of “World News Tonight” found himself lying in bed with a chunk of his skull removed to accommodate his swelling brain.

And his wife Lee, a journalist who has written three best-selling books, found herself thrust into a role she had never imagined as she stayed at his side, nursing him back to health.

But during those weeks and months Lee made friends with people she would never have met—military personnel who like her husband were dealing with the invisible wounds of traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress and depression.

And, in response, she and her husband created the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which invests in innovative programs that assist veterans returning to their families and communities.

Sunday night, they included Swiftsure Ranch Therapeutic Equestrian Center in their portfolio as they addressed 119 people who had come together at the Sun Valley Club in support of an expanded veterans program at the Bellevue ranch.

“We’ve had a number of veterans programs over the year and they’ve been very successful at treating veterans with PTSD, brain injuries, depression, anxiety and physical trauma,” the ranch’s Executive Director Meg Stamper told listeners.  “We’ve had vets show up very walled up and, by the end of their stay, they’re prepared to go back to their family and community stronger than before. Now, we want to take that to the next level. We’re looking at adding some facilities, getting training.”

To demonstrate the need, the Woodruffs recounted their own journey as listeners munched on lamb chops, crab legs, sausage and other foodstuffs being passed around.

Bob recounted how he was traveling with an U.S. Army unit when he and his cameraman decided to stand up out of the hatch to shoot footage. Warned by the Iraqi driver to get back inside, he was suddenly struck by a barrage of metal, sand and small rocks that shattered the left side of his face and jaw.

Rocks traveled through his neck, bypassing his esophagus and trachea, ending up in an artery on the right side of his neck. Shrapnel lodged in his brain.

He was knocked unconscious, falling back into the hole in the tank.  An interpreter put his hand on his neck to squelch the bleeding. A helicopter crew ignored warnings that it was too dangerous to land and whisked Bob and his cameraman away to a hospital in Baghdad.

“I came to briefly and asked, ‘Am I still alive?’ That’s the last I remember until waking up in the hospital,” said Woodruff who was transferred to a hospital in Germany, then to Bethesda Naval Hospital where he spent 36 days in a medically induced coma.

Lee, who was on vacation with her children, was awakened by a call from the president of ABC News. When she entered Bob’s hospital room, she was told to look at her husband in stages so she wouldn’t faint.

Bob’s face looked like the surface of the moon, pockmarked with rocks.  His brain was swelling through the opening in his skull.

Lee began providing him with a running commentary, recounting memories dating back to when they met as students at Colgate University and, she said, she fell in love with his brain.

“He was the most intelligent, exciting, laid back dude I’d ever met,” she said.

The newsman underwent surgeries to remove the rocks. He suffered through sepsis and infections. He came down with pneumonia. As the smell of death hung in his room, he began flailing—a sign of deterioration.

Lee crawled into bed with him and began bargaining with God.

Unable to cope any longer, she went for a swim, walked back into his room and there he was sitting up in bed, a goofy grin on his face.

Then he began talking, to the amazement of his doctors.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Sweetie where have you been?’ ” Lee recounted.

“The nurse said, ‘I think he’s been speaking Chinese. And I know he’s been speaking French.’ So, his brain was reaching into these other files,” Lee added.

The day her husband emerged from his coma is the day the journey really began, Lee said.

“The recovery and its ups and downs was the longest part of the journey. They told me he would be depressed, that he’d say, ‘Why me?’ Imagine getting to the top of your career.  He’d worked so hard to get to that place and it was lost in a second,” she added.

But instead, Lee recounted, Bob looked at her and asked, “Why not me? What makes me anyone special?”

“I thought: If that’s how he’s going to approach it, why should I feel sorry for me?” she added.

Bob underwent a long course of physical and cognitive therapy. He chafed as he had to wear a helmet whenever he got out of bed. He was unable to follow simple commands.

And the man who had made his living talking found it difficult to find the right words, thanks to the damage to the left lobe of his brain.

But, gradually, the words returned. And, while he is no longer capable of anchoring a news program, he has done a couple TV projects, including one titled “To Iraq and Back.”  And in 2015 he returned to China as ABC’s Beijing correspondent.

Bob and Lee also collaborated on a best-selling book, “In an Instant,” which recounts their journey of love and healing.

His work with the foundation has proven some of the most satisfying fulfilling work Woodruff’s ever done, he acknowledged.

“This is the best thing to come together to help those who are underserved,” Lee added. “Animals don’t judge. All they do is love us and feel love back. ”

Concurring with her were two veterans who recounted how equine therapy helped them reintegrate into society.

Jayne Tabb spent 23 years in the Air Force stateside. But she developed survivor’s guilt characterized by anxiety and panic attacks as some of those she deployed into combat didn’t come back.

She holed up in her home for three years, emerging only to go to the grocery store—“I just did what I had to do,” Tabb said.

Equine therapy has helped her smile again, she said.

“They measure your pain level, your anxiety level—I’d been at an 8 or 9. Now, I’m way down,” she said. “I’m able to escape from myself, able to escape the pain and anxiety. I realize the more I focus outside myself the better I will be able to deal with my pain and anxiety.”

Laurie McMonigle, a retired Air Force electrician, hurt her back lifting 75-pounds batteries.  Her foot was paralyzed when she had back surgery.

But she was afraid to admit how much she hurt. And it didn’t help when people chastised her for using what they thought was her husband’s disabled veterans parking placard.

McMonigle learned how to gauge a horse’s moods by watching the way it moved its lips. And, she said, it can read her moods.

“I feel whole when I’m riding her,” she said. “We have such a good connection… I feel like I’ve gotten my life back.”

Alison Smart, who was joined at the dinner by Emergency Room doctor Deb Robertson, said she had come because she had been inspired by a talk Lee had given about ways nurses can be of utmost help to families.

George Kirk walked away with a different kind of inspiration: “Lee said something that struck me--that irrespective of how we feel about a war that these people we send over there while we hang out here deserve our respect and our support.”

Stamper said she was overwhelmed by the positive response people had to the new chapter in Swiftsure’s life.

“They were so supportive and generous!”