An American soldier: Owen Thomas

Brenner Brief ^ | 5/5/14

[Nachum]

Kill or be killed. Imagine if you were suddenly thrown into a world where atrocities were a daily occurrence, where adrenaline constantly pumped through your veins in response to fear, where even children are a threat to your life.

This is the story of an American soldier, one of tens of thousands who had to endure the horrors of war in Iraq or Afghanistan. In light of the despicable way many of the Veterans’ Administration agencies, especially the healthcare facilities, have been treating our veterans, it seems time we got a glimpse of what so many of our heroes went through. It’s time to see what they endured on behalf of a not always grateful enough nation.

This is the story of a brave American hero named Owen Thomas. He loves his country and swears he would do it all again for her. That says a lot, for Owen suffers from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) as do so many of our returning soldiers. Due to it he is rated 70 percent disabled. He struggles to sleep from having to be hyper-alert to his surroundings for so long, a habit incredibly hard to break. When he does sleep he has horrific nightmares in which he is forced to relive the actual events, including the attacks and the deaths of both friends and enemies. He struggles to concentrate. It has made it exceedingly difficult to get and keep a job.

The PTSD is not surprising when you consider his commanding officer warned his unit as they crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq, “Welcome to Hell. Don’t even blink. You can be killed before you reopen your eyes.” He was further instructed, “When you shoot, shoot to kill. If you don’t kill ‘em shoot ‘em again. Otherwise we have to take

[grobdriver]

He had fallen in love and married shortly before his tour began. He had saved all his money from that tour in a joint account with his new bride. When he ended the tour and returned home she had emptied the bank account and taken his car and all his belongings.

And on top of it all.
Jeeezzz...

[DPMD]

And as a soldier, his pay is a sad fraction of that of the bureaucrats willfully denying him treatment. And, soldiers don’t get paid a bonus for screwing up the way bureaucrats do, nor, for that matter, even for outstanding performance.