know how to express es but heun himself. i just didn t feel like i could offer anything to society. strong through the core. reporter: last year, deangelo found the share clinic, a comprehensive rehab program in atlanta. focusing on helping vets recovery from traumatic brain injuries. people will have headaches, concentration with attention, insight, judgment, planning and difficulty with emotion control. reporter: how do you describe this program? the one stop shop for everything. treating all of the different syst symptoms in a key he sive way. reporter: regaining independence a key living in the share-provided housing. that s independence right there. reporter: he also surprised himself by discovering a new hobby. what does this do for you physically and plentslil l ment? it gives you patience.
never forget it, literally you were saving lives. i dream about it still sometimes being out there. really? some of the people did well. and as you saw with deangelo, he s going to have a real go at things here. sanjay, thank you. excellent work. i m sure there are many iraqis thanking you as well. thank you. appreciate that. tune into sanjay gupta m.d. saturday 4:30 p.m. eastern, sunday 7:30 in the morning here on cnn. and will the white house end the cherished easter egg roll because of a possible government shutdown? we ll have to get to the bottom of that story next.
a whopping $800 billion. about 32,000 u.s. troops were wounded in the iraq war. an army combat engineer was one of them, suffered a severe head injury from the roadside blast. his path to recovery has been slow and difficult. a rehabilitation program in atlanta has helped him try to regain independence and connect again with his family. dr. san gr san jay gupta has the story. i had a feeling i would be injured in iraq the second time. reporter: sergeant deangelo vaun was injured in iraq in 2005. we were riding through a mission to blow up ieds. my driver, he ran over an ied and i lost one of my eyes and the left side of my skull was fractured and they had to take
out a piece of my brain because it got infected. reporter: and this is the part they had to take out from because of the injury and take pressure off of your brain? yes, sir. reporter: unlike the physical wounds of war, traumatic brain injuries, invisible to the eye and it s not uncommand for vets to suffer in silence. what was recovery like? you have operations, seven months in the hospital? lots of pain, torture it seemed like, light would cause knee have migraines. i was having seizures. reporter: that whole chapter s very hard on you. yeah. reporter: and on your wife. caused me and my first wife to get a divorce. luckily i have tremendous parents. reporter: now deangelo s happily remarried. wash the pan out. reporter: communication was a major challenge for him and his wife. and his five girls. i can tell something would be