Thursday, September 8, 2011

Help is available. Pass Around. Post. Tweet.

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Posted by Kanani at 9:00 AM

4 comments:

CI-Roller Dude said...

About 5 months into our year deployment in Iraq, they put a young PFC on my team. Nice bright kid. I did a weapons check the first morning and found the bolt missing from him M16. He said:"They took the bolt when I threatened to kill myself."
I was very upset...not that this kid needed help, but that the command had not told me and as far as I could tell, the only help he got was to render his rifle not usable.
I went to the boss and then walked the kid over to the combat stress folks. He was burned out....so I found jobs for him to do where I kept him from going out as much as possible.
The Army in those days had no idea how to help the troops....

September 8, 2011 11:42 AM
Kanani said...

Yeah, you made the right call. That was exactly the right thing to do, and if it weren't for you, no doubt he would have been alot worse off. I can only hope he has received help.

September 8, 2011 12:14 PM
Laoch of Chicago said...

This is such an important thing. Thanks for posting about it.

September 8, 2011 3:03 PM
Carole said...

Wonderful Kanani.

My nephew ended up leaving the service last year after thirteen years. He loved it, but after a fellow soldier was killed by his side in the "Mixing Bowl" in Iraq he kind of lost it. I don't think anyone noticed. He wouldn't talk about it either. And then he reacted violently to a colleague and was given a dishonorable discharge. I hurt for him, he is a good person, but he didn't get help then and now he assumes he's fine.

September 9, 2011 9:21 AM

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