At first, the government stood firmly by both Evan Mettie and his family.

After a car bomb in Iraq blew metal shards into his brain, he spent three months being treated in a naval hospital in Bethesda, Md. The government and a nonprofit paid for his family to travel cross country to visit him. They stayed for free at a government residence.

Later, the government agreed to pay for his treatment at a private rehab center in New Jersey.

But once Mr. Mettie was medically retired from the Army, most travel allowances ended, and his parents started to notice expenses piling up.

They've spent several thousand dollars for travel, mostly to get to their son's bedside in recent months in West Orange, N.J. A fundraiser in their hometown of Selah, Wash., has helped.

Denise Mettie, the 23-year-old soldier's mother, had to quit her $30,000-a-year job as an assistant bank manager to be with him. Though her husband, Dave, has kept working at his computer graphics job, it was her employer that provided health insurance coverage for her and her two teenage daughters. The new annual policy cost $9,000.

Mrs. Mettie says her son's illness has cost them about $30,000 so far.

He collects $7,000 in monthly disability pay from the Department of Veterans Affairs and $800 from the Social Security Administration, she says. The VA agreed to cover the cost of private care at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey.

The family has been able to invest their son's $100,000 insurance payout for severe war injuries to cover his future needs.

Their son can't walk or talk. At best, he's able to push a button that answers simple questions with a recorded "yes." Sometimes he just stares.

Mr. Mettie's severe brain injury "has taken away any future chance of employment, children, marriage, family. He will be with us for the rest of his life, as long as we live - and somebody will need to always take care of him," his mother said.