Operation Proper Exit: A return to the war zone

Operation Proper Exit brings U.S. troops, gravely injured on the battlefield, back to Iraq to confront their haunting memories and, hopefully, get past them. Scott Pelley profiles this unusual program through the eyes of several wounded warriors - still struggling with PTSD, amputations, and other injuries - as they travel back to the place their nightmares were born.

The following script is from "Operation Proper Exit" which aired on Nov. 6, 2011.

The war in Iraq is nearly over for America, but not for the Americans who fought there. The legacy of wounded warriors will be with us for a generation. Recently we heard about a therapy program that takes troops who have recovered from their physical wounds and brings them back to Iraq - back, to confront the memories - back, to work through the feelings of anguish that many soldiers have when they head home and leave their buddies to fight on without them. A total of 68 soldiers and Marines have been on this remarkable journey. We went along with the latest group of eight as they returned to the battlefield for what they call Operation Proper Exit.

For most of them it had been a long time since they'd flown on a military transport or worn the uniform. They'd been wounded years ago and several were civilians now. But for one week, in Operation Proper Exit, they were proper soldiers and Marines again. As the C-130 lumbered over the desert they crowded the windows to look across the battlefields and the memories of the war that had changed their lives.

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An honor guard awaited them in Baghdad - and so did uncertainty. They didn't know how, or whether, this program would help them. First off the plane was Marine Corporal Matt Bradford, returning to the place that has haunted him the last four years.

Matt Bradford: I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep, because I keep thinking about, you know, getting blown up, laying there on the ground.

Operation Proper Exit: Matt Bradford goes home
Cpl. Matt Bradford returns home, eager to start a new chapter of his life despite severe injuries.

Bradford was blown up in 2007. He was 20 then, inspired to join the corps by 9/11. The last thing he saw in Iraq, the last thing he ever saw was the wire that turned out to be a roadside bomb. He was blinded and lost both legs. Bradford came back to re-imagine that final vision of Iraq.

Bradford: Still I'll always have that picture in the back of my head, you know, of-- you know, looking down and seeing, you know, the wires going into the pipe that, you know, shrapnel going straight in my eyeballs.

Scott Pelley: Some folks would think that, after what happened to you, you'd never want to get anywhere close to this place again.

Bradford: You know, ever since I've been hurt and stuff, I've had a lot of people tell me I couldn't do something. So I told 'em I would return back to Iraq, you know, someday. I don't let people tell get me down on anything. If they tell me I can't do something, I want to go find a way to do it.

Pelley: No means go.

Bradford: Can't is not in my vocabulary.

[Ed Salau: He trusts only a handful of people with the job of being his eyes.]

Ed Salau came to be Matt Bradford's guide. But he also served in Iraq and paid for it. In 2004, then Army Lieutenant Salau was leading a patrol of armored vehicles. And on the way back to the base they were hit. He and his gunner each had a leg blown off.

Salau: We won that fight. We lost a couple of legs. Life's different. I jokingly say, "I had 10 really good months and one really bad day."

Salau blames himself for leading his patrol into an ambush and, like a lot of soldiers and Marines we've talked to, he feels guilty about leaving his men when he was medevaced out of Iraq.

Pelley: You felt like you let them down.

Salau: Absolutely.

Pelley: By leaving.

Salau: Absolutely

Pelley: When you first heard about Operation Proper Exit, what did you think?

Salau: I had to come back. You know what? This-- this place doesn't take from you what you don't give it.

[Steven Conford: Coming back here means a lot to me.]

Of the eight, returning may have been toughest for Steven Cornford. To look at him you don't see scarring, there are no amputations. He left Iraq and was awarded the Silver Star for Valor. But they don't give away Silver Stars for nothing and when we sat down with Cornford we learned what post traumatic stress disorder is all about.

Steven Cornford: Life after Operation Proper Exit
Cpl. Steven Cornford returns home, less fearful that the trauma he experienced in Iraq will destroy his family life.

Pelley: When you were coming over here, for Operation Proper Exit, did you wonder whether you were doing the right thing?

Cornford: Sometimes. My wife brought up a good point when I told her I wanted to do it. It's, like, 'What if it makes it worse? What if it brings it all back?' Because for a while-- I-- I would sleepwalk, and scream in my sleep, and stuff, and I-- I haven't been doin' that a lot lately, but when I found out I was comin' back, for about a week before, I-- I started doin' it again, and it really scared her.

His nightmares are rooted in Easter Sunday 2007. Steven Cornford's platoon assaulted an enemy machine gun nest. He was hit in the left shoulder. His lieutenant, Phillip Neel, sprinted forward to help, but was cut down. Through enemy fire, Cornford reached the lieutenant and he tried to stop the bleeding from the artery in the lieutenant's leg.

Cornford: I didn't have much pressure with my left arm, so once I found the spot on him that had the worst injury, where it was bleeding the most, I-- I-- tried to stop it by laying on it with a pressure dressing on it.

Pelley: And this whole time, you're returning fire?

Cornford: Yes, sir.

Cornford threw two hand grenades into the machine gun nest. Then he carried Lieutenant Neel a mile to a medevac helicopter that took them both to a field hospital. The lieutenant didn't make it and Cornford cannot forgive himself.

Cornford: And they pronounced my lieutenant dead. I-- I just-- the last thing I remember before they put me out for surgery and blood transfusions, and stuff like that was they all salute, when they pronounce somebody dead. And I-- I was fightin' the nurses and the doctors with the one good arm I did have to get up and salute. And they wouldn't let me get up. And finally, I just blacked out, and woke up the next morning in a lotta pain.

Pelley: How old were you?

Cornford: Eighteen years old.

Pelley: Why did you come back here?

Cornford: To try and let it go. It's somethin' that haunts me every day.

Pelley: What is it that you're trying to let go?

Cornford: I--I see his face-- every time I close my eyes to go to sleep at night. I blame myself a lot, because I got hit first, and he was comin' to get me. I-- I just-- I wanna be able to lay it to rest, like he is. 'Cause I know he's in a better place. I just-- I know he would want me to.

[General Helmick: We want to welcome you back...]

Operation Proper Exit helps Cornford and the others lay down some of the burden by bringing them back not just to a place but to a time, a time they were proud of. The trip is a tour and every stop is part of the therapy. Back with the troops, the machines, and the weapons that were their strength.

Rick Kell: They all love putting the uniform back on. It motivates them, it takes them back to something that they love, absolutely love.

Rick Kell started Operation Proper Exit and leads the trips. Operation Proper Exit is sponsored by Troops First Foundation which Kell oversees. In Iraq, he's in uniform, but he's never been in the military. Kell is a retired advertising executive who was a volunteer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Pelley: How did this idea occur to you?

Kell: It really didn't occur to me, it was presented to me by a corps of wounded warriors at Walter Reed that I saw frequently. In every conversation it came up: I wanna go back, I need to go back.

Pelley: In a sense, for many of these young men and women, they didn't leave Iraq, they were unconscious?

Kell: They were taken from Iraq. When they arrived home last time, there were no homecomings. Many woke up after comas of three weeks or more, significantly different in many ways. A lot of it's a blur. And they have to put those pieces back together. And they do, many do. And-- but the one piece they couldn't put back was the piece of exiting and leaving the way they thought they would leave with their team, with-- with their battle buddies.

In 2008, Kell brought the idea to the Pentagon and they turned him down. Then Ray Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, heard about Kell. Odierno's son had been wounded and the general gave Kell the go-ahead for Operation Proper Exit.

Today a total of 68 troops have been on Kell's journey. The tour that we joined was the ninth proper exit.

The hardest stops on the itinerary confront that day, years ago, when they were wounded. First stop, the Air Force Theater Hospital. Lives were saved and friends were lost in this emergency room. The medical staff had changed but everyone understood what these men had survived.

[Matt Bradford: I don't remember coming through here...]

For Matt Bradford, it was more than just a chance to say thanks. It was a step towards peace of mind.

[Bradford: I lost both my legs and also my vision. I know a handshake or a hug ain't enough but you all pretty much... you know, I owe y'all my life.]

The next step back in time was to fly over the places where they were wounded.

For Ed Salau, it was an opportunity to see what Iraq had gained from his sacrifice.

Ed Salau: I needed to see. I-- I needed to see what was going on here. The newspapers weren't telling me what I was looking for. How many schools were being built? How many wells were being dug? 'Cause that's what I was trying to get done. How many imams were getting water, trucks of fresh drinking water to their villages that I'd promised them so many times? But IEDs kept blowing them up. I needed to see that was fixed.

Pelley: Is that what you saw?

Salau: That's exactly what I saw. I saw people looking to their government for solutions. It was finally becoming Iraq's Iraq. And they were working to make sure the U.S. would leave. And they would be okay when it happened. I needed to see that.

Of all the troops, the man most determined to see the scene of his battle was Steven Cornford.

[Cornford - My whole life since I came home from Iraq has been hell because of that night.]

Perhaps it's impossible to understand if you haven't lived it. Cornford scoured maps and strained to see - he was grasping for something - eye contact, with the night his nightmares were made of. And touching it again let him begin to let go.

Cornford: I feel a little more relaxed with myself because one of the things I deal with on a daily basis is I don't even like bein' myself. I-- I wanna get outta my own skin. I-- I don't like being me, because I feel bad constantly. And it's startin' to go away, a little bit. I feel a little more comfortable with myself and with what I've done in my life.

Pelley: When you go back to the states this time, how do you think you'll be different?

Cornford: I know I'll be a lot less angry. I'll treat my wife with a little more respect. I won't be so-- I guess snappy with people. I'll-- I'll be a little more understanding 'cause I always hear people complain about stuff, and it just makes me mad because a lotta people don't understand. They don't see the stuff that-- they just go about their daily lives, while there's still people dyin' every day. For them. And it-- it upsets me a lot. And it-- just I-- I'm startin' to feel a little better about it.

Each man came for a different reason-- to remember peace of mind-- to see again--to walk out of Iraq. Before their return, the enemy had had the last word. But now, after a week, they'd rewritten that history. This was their proper exit. They were guided by the eyes of others or walked on artificial legs - those things would not change. But as they left on their own terms now - the enemy was retreating from the battlefield of their minds.