Kessler is one of only six centers in the country certified by federal officials as models for both spinal- and brain-injury research and rehabilitation. It is also rated the second best rehab facility in the nation by a U.S. News & World Report survey. But at least so far, there have been no miracles for these soldier-sons.

ROADSIDE and suicide bombs are the enemy weapons of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for the 31,000 American troops wounded in these wars, traumatic brain injury has come to be known as the “signature wound.” According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, a research and treatment agency run by the Pentagon and the veterans department, 31 percent of the soldiers who required medical evacuation for battle-related wounds had traumatic brain injuries. This covers a broad spectrum, from concussions to the kind of devastating injuries suffered by the soldiers treated at Kessler.

Military officials have acknowledged it took awhile to detect this pattern and respond, and news accounts over the last few years have questioned the quality of rehabilitative care for veterans, including reports by Bob Woodruff of ABC, who himself suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq. But Dr. Barbara Sigford, the veterans department’s national director for rehabilitation, says that in 2005, the department added resources, staff and equipment to its four “polytrauma” rehabilitation centers and they are now “state of the art.” The centers are in Palo Alto, Richmond, Minneapolis and Tampa, Fla.

At the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing last March, Ms. Mettie testified that while the department was working to improve, there were still shortcomings.

“The V.A. is building their program, and I understand that it continues to make progress,” she said. “Still, there are many private hospitals treating and rehabilitating patients like my son. It is unfair to deny us access to the same level of care you would choose for your children. At the same time, the V.A. must use these facilities as the resources they are, so one day, hopefully soon, the V.A. will be the facility of choice.”

Testifying at the same hearing was Dr. Bruce M. Gans, chief medical officer of Kessler, which has been in the rehab business since 1948 and opened a new brain injury center here a year ago. He invited Ms. Mettie to Kessler, and the V.A. agreed to pay  at a cost “upward of $300,000 for six months,” according to Gail Solomon, a Kessler spokeswoman. (Ms. Mettie calls this a first. Dr. Sigford of the veterans department says that she can’t be sure of that, but that virtually all seriously wounded troops use the veterans rehabilitation centers.)

The difference in care, Ms. Mettie said, has been “night and day.”

In Palo Alto, she said, her son got twice-weekly 20-minute sessions of physical therapy and occupational therapy combined, and sessions were often canceled because therapists had to go to staff meetings or were seeing other patients. At Kessler, she said, five days a week her son received 90 minutes of physical therapy, 90 minutes of occupational therapy and 30 minutes of speech, and sessions did not get canceled.