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Last week, brought back from the brink of the grave by the teamwork of 15 doctors and countless corpsmen, Kirn navigated his first unaided steps down a Bethesda corridor. Most Guillain-Barré victims, if they survive the first critical weeks, regain full use of their muscles. But not many have such a long and arduous way to come back as Bullet Lou Kirn. It had taken him three months even to wiggle his fingers and toes. Now, on a Spartan daily schedule which includes "walks" in the swimming pool, typing to exercise his fingers, pulling on a block and tackle loaded with weights, and twisting a wrist roller, Captain Kirn is mending fast and hopes to attend the Navy-Columbia game this week.
*Named for French Neurologists Georges Guillain and Jean Barré, and called "syndrome" because it is a set of symptoms, not a specific disease. Other names: Landry's paralysis, infectious (or postinfectious) polyneuritis, acute idiopathic polyneuritis, and even encephalo-myeloradiculoneuritis.