AzStarNet: Brain injury means he'll 'never be the same'

By Carol Ann Alaimo
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

RIO RICO - There's a sound Maria Castillo can't get out of her mind since her son was nearly killed in Iraq.

It's the awful sound of mothers weeping for their maimed sons and daughters in the corridors of Walter Reed Army Hospital .

"The nurses tell you not to cry in front of the patients, so the mothers go out in the hall," said Castillo, a reservations agent at American Airlines in Tucson.

Thirteen months have passed since her son, Army Spc. Erik Castillo, was hit by mortar fire while on convoy duty in Baghdad, leaving a grapefruit-size hole in his skull that likely would have killed him had it happened in a different era.

Chris Richards / Arizona Daily Star
Erik Castillo studies a plastic reproduction of his skull at his mother's Rio Rico home, showing the extent of the wound he suffered in Iraq.

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