Injured

SAN DIEGO -- Marine Lance Cpl. Juan Dominguez has come a long way since October, when a roadside bomb in Afghanistan ripped off his legs above the knees and shredded his right arm above the elbow.

A Navy corpsman, part of the same patrol, kept Dominguez from bleeding to death and wisely refused his pleas for morphine, lest he go into shock. Then there was the Navy doctor at nearby Forward Operating Camp Dwyer who "wouldn't let me die" and the intensive care he received at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

After that, Dominguez spent five months at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he underwent 23 surgeries. Today, the 26-year-old from Deming, N.M., is an outpatient at Naval Medical Center San Diego.

"This is home now," he said of the hospital on a hill beside Balboa Park.

Dominguez is among a growing number of Marines and soldiers who have suffered catastrophic wounds that will require years of care in military hospitals. The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs are scrambling to put together a continuum of long-term care for Dominguez and other severely wounded personnel.