Great Bend ? Kris Atherton says he knows from experience that the U.S. government wasn’t ready to deal with military veterans wounded in Iraq.

Atherton, 24, of Great Bend, retired from the Army after losing his left arm last July while driving a Humvee in Baghdad. An artillery explosion shattered the bones in his arms and shook his confidence that his government was prepared to deal with the wounded.

“I guess the bones were fractured so severely that it couldn’t be saved,” Atherton said. “But no one told me that. I was in a Black Hawk helicopter on the way to my first hospital when I looked down and my left arm was gone. That’s how I found out about it.”

Atherton was treated in hospitals in Kuwait and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. While he was learning to live with one arm, he also was trying to figure out how to get by on less money, the difference between the Army payroll and the Veterans Affairs disability payroll.

He also found out that because he retired after losing his arm, he also lost his right to stay in government housing. He and his wife, Heather, and their daughter, Mikia, are moving next week to Atherton’s hometown of South Prairie, Wash.

“President Bush bit off a little more than he could chew,” said Heather Atherton. “They expected a quick war, and they planned well for it. But they didn’t plan it all. And now he’s left to do the best he can with what he’s got.”

Atherton was part of Pentagon meetings earlier this month on the Disabled Soldier Support System, that was introduced April 30 to help soldiers with the transition from military service to the civilian community.

The Athertons said Great Bend residents, particularly a group of military mothers dubbed the M&Ms, helped pull them through a time of great uncertainty. The group gave the family $500 to help offset their loss of government housing at Fort Riley.

“Kris is a perfect example of someone who’s given so much to his country,” said Leslie Barrett, who heads the Great Bend American Legion’s fund-raising effort. “His wife was part of our support group while she was pregnant, and we were happy to be able to help them.”

Atherton feels like he was abandoned by the government for several months as he tried to adjust to life with a prosthesis.

“I’ve been able to manage because the community’s gotten behind me,” he said, “but they clearly got a late start on figuring out what the wounded veterans are going to need.”