By Michael Schindler
The improvements in medicine, combat trauma training and body armor have saved thousands of our service members’ lives. Injuries that were once classified as fatal are now recoverable. We’ve come a long way from wars of the past.

What some have yet to realize is that while more of our service members are coming home, it also means more are coming home wounded. More than 40,000 men and women have returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan with some form of injury. The Iraq Star Foundation, a non-profit foundation, founded by Maggie Lockridge, R.N., who served in the Air Force Nurse Corps, is committed to providing FREE reconstructive surgery to our troops.

With over 250 surgeons in 42 states, The Iraq Star Foundation is ready to assist war Veterans with surgeries that will help them recover from physical injuries and disfigurement. It is their hope that these surgeries will also help our Veterans heal from emotional trauma and increase their self-esteem as what was once disfigured is made closer to whole.

Featured on numerous national programs, including Dr. Phil, Lockridge has leveraged her 30-plus years of nursing and 18 years as owner and administrator of a recovery retreat, where over those years she administered the care to over 40,000 recovering guests who underwent cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, to now benefit our service members.

With a network of some of the finest cosmetic and reconstructive surgeons in the world, The Iraq Star Foundation is positioned to help our service members work through disfigurement or battle scars and find their path to a new normal with minimal disfigurement.

Visit them today at The Iraq Star Foundation. And pass the word – if you or someone you know could benefit from this free service, do it; this is a bridge to healing.

Michael Schindler, Navy veteran, and president of Edmonds-based Operation Military Family, is a guest writer for several national publications, author of the book “Operation Military Family” and “The Military Wire” blog. He is also a popular keynote and workshop speaker who reaches thousands of service members and their families every year through workshops and seminars that include  “How to Battle-Ready Your Relationship” or “What Your Mother-in-Law Didn’t Tell You.”  He received the 2010 Outstanding Patriotic Service Award from the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs.