Aired January 26, 2005 - 22:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone. At first blush, you might see the program tonight as two heavy, too much sorrow, too much dying. We ask you to look again. Beyond all that is sad in our effort tonight, there is something good in virtually every piece. You will find strength of character that defies words, resilience beyond your wildest dreams, heroics, kindness and decency. It is all there even if the headlines of each seem unacceptably grim. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN (voice-over): After the battle fighting their way back. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't reach out for nothing. I can't grab nothing. It drives me up a wall. BROWN: Learning to live all over again. In this battle everyone is human and everyone is (UNINTELLIGIBLE). A month after the tsunami an ordinary hero comes home, except there's nothing ordinary about what he saw and what he did about it. We meet Bob Bell again. And 60 years after the horror of Auschwitz came to light, the people who survived it remember. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here I am 60 years later. Every day, every day that I am alive that I wake up is a day that I stole away from the mountains. BROWN: Finding the spark of humanity in a place where humanity was sent to die. (END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: So, it is not an easy program tonight. We gently submit these are not easy times. Our first stop, Brook Army Medical Center in Texas, is a case in point. At Brook these are boom times, no gentle way of putting that. Recently the hospital dedicated a new center for amputees, new beds to meet a growing need, no gentle way of putting that either, none at all except that to say sometimes in seeing people at the worst moments of their lives, we also catch a glimpse of the best. We begin tonight with NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They keep coming from Baghdad and Falluja and Samarra, too many for Walter Reed Army Medical Center to treat. COL. MARK BAGG, M.D., DEPT. OF ORTHOPEDICS AND REHAB: We have had about 220 to 230 major limb amputations in this conflict. About one-third have lost their arms and hands. About two-thirds have lost their -- have lost their legs. NISSEN: Most of the amputations are the result of blast injuries from improvised explosive devices or IEDs, mortar rounds, grenades. COL. ROBERT GRANVILLE, M.D., DIR. OF AMPUTEE SERVICES: These are painful injuries and usually these patients have multiple injuries, you know, not just the amputations. NISSEN: Surgeons here say most of their patients arrive with limbs already amputated either by the blast itself or by surgeons in field hospitals or at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Other patients have their amputations done here, like Specialist Matt Houston (ph). He was wounded back in November of 2003 when a 50- caliber weapon in his Humvee accidentally discharged. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it went off and it took off my leg, most of the leg. From Baghdad to Tikrit to Landstuhl they all wanted to take my leg off because it was barely on in the first place but that wasn't a choice of mine to make at the time. NISSEN: Houston suffered through 13 months of painful surgeries and treatment of infections before it hit him. His fiance is due to give birth to a baby girl in February and he could not stand or walk without crutches. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to, you know, go to her crib at night when she's crying and pick her up and cuddle with her and then walk over to a chair and, you know, give her a bottle or something like that. I was afraid that somebody was going to wake up and, you know, give her to me. So, I didn't want to do that at all. NISSEN: He had his leg amputated the Friday before Christmas and was measured for a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg within three days. Four weeks later he is standing, walking on a $45,000 computerized leg, custom programmed to control walking cadence, speed, helping him descend stairs and ramps. JOHN FERGASON, PROSTHETIST: Everyone's goal is exactly the same whether it's the orthopedic surgeon, me as the prosthetist, the physical therapist, occupational therapist. We've all got the exact same goal for these folks. Get them going. NISSEN: Prosthetic limbs work well for two out of three amputees here, those who have lost legs, above or below the knee. It's harder for those who have lost arms, hands. FERGASON: The upper extremity we just don't have the ability to do this at this point. It's just, it's not available technologically at this point. NISSEN: Special Daniel Reed (ph), a National Guardsman from Tennessee, lost his right hand when a mortar exploded during a live fire training exercise in Mississippi last June. It's taken him months to heal from surgery. He was custom fitted and refitted with a prosthetic hand, practiced using it for everyday tasks like making himself a bologna sandwich in the kitchen of a one- bedroom apartment set up at the center. Like most patients here he tries to concentrate on what he can do, not what he can't. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've kept a pretty positive attitude about all of it, you know. I've seen guys that are in so much worse shape than me, you know, so I'm like if these guys are going to make it, you know, I'm going to make it. NISSEN: No one here is more determined to make it than Specialist Dusty Hill. His life changed in a blast of flame and metal September 21st in Baghdad, a car bomb. He was badly burned on the head, face, neck and arms, lost his right eye and both his hands. And then there was shrapnel throughout the hand it burned off the fingers. This one it was just all burned, so they had to amputate it off. I can't reach out for nothing. I can't grab nothing. It drives me up a wall. NISSEN: He's been fitted with a myoelectric arm which he can control with practice, painstaking practice. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead. Do you want to give it a go? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. NISSEN: With no sense of touch, it takes all his concentration to hold onto a Cheetos without crushing it to powder, to do at 22 what a toddler can do, feed himself. This is a good day. He's not in pain. He got up this morning. He's managing. He tries not to think about the way things used to be, the way he used to be. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened to me that happened, I'll deal with it. NISSEN: Dealing with such profound injuries takes heavy toll. Most amputees cycle in and out of depression, bitterness, anger. GRANVILLE: Everybody is angry, angry at the world, angry at God, angry at the enemy. NISSEN: It's especially hard for those who are young who were so physically strong, like Corporal Jacob Schick (ph), proud U.S. Marine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're top of the line and I was the best of the best and here I am now, you know in this freaking wheelchair. NISSEN: An anti-tank mine did this to him Humvee in September and did this to his legs. His right leg had to be amputated. His left leg is mangled, causes him constant pain. It is a terrible effort to walk just a few feet. FERGASON: It can be very frustrating to be a young athlete and now your big deal today is I went ten steps on my own. NISSEN: It helps those who are struggling to see those who are further along in rehab in recovery, one of the advantages of treating amputees together in a specialized center. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not the first person in the world to ever lose a limb and have the other one pretty jacked up. There's been many, many, many, many more before me. NISSEN: Are there more to come? GRANVILLE: Sadly I think that there are. I don't think this is over yet. NISSEN: The new center has already treated more than 30 war amputees, is expecting at least that many transfers from Walter Reed, patients whose home base, family support is west of the Mississippi. FERGASON: We may have 30 more absolutely. It breaks my heart but we're going to take care of them. NISSEN: Do what can be done to give them a hand, get them back on their feet. Beth Nissen, CNN, San Antonio. (END VIDEOTAPE)