Two area soldiers share Walter Reed horror stories

CHAMPAIGN – For two local soldiers who stayed at Walter Reed Hospital after surviving bomb attacks in Iraq, it wasn't the mice or the cockroaches that bothered them as much as the paperwork.

A painfully slow bureaucracy took most of the 15 months Sgt. Steven Allen will never get back from Walter Reed. Even now, the Roberts man hasn't started receiving disability checks for the hand he lost when an improvised explosive device blew up next to his Humvee on May 19, 2005. His shoulder still needs work.

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