To hell and back Thousands of wounded vets are called to fight again in the War on Terror By Kevin Uhrich 10/02/2008 http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/to_hell_and_back/6439/
He smokes incessantly, one cigarette after another, never quite finishing one before lighting another. He also drinks like he means it, buying himself and anyone nearby enough cheap beer to take back Bud from Stella. Ismail Cabral never really drank that much or smoked before joining the Army. Just looking at the uncomfortable way he holds a cigarette tells you that he hasn’t had the habit all that long. But the 33-year-old drinks and smokes now — a lot — mainly because he wants to forget; only he can’t. Neither can he stop talking about his horror-filled experiences in Iraq, where he says he was severely injured in a January 2006 roadside attack. After proudly displaying his military and California IDs, Ismail explains how he lost several friends in the fighting. He puts his hand over his eyes and openly weeps when that subject comes up: The firefights, the shooting, the killing — both what he saw and did. But the sadness quickly passes. “Pa, pa, pa ... pa, pa, pa, pa,” Ismail blurts out after trying to stand following about an hour’s worth of gulping down beer. At this point, he’s back in Iraq and firing away, striking a pose he might assume while firing a rifle. “I would ask God to forgive me, and I would fire...,” said this son of a Protestant preacher and grandson of a man killed by Imperial Japanese forces in World War II. His dad, for what it’s worth, is opposed to the fighting in Iraq, and always has been. Today, after nearly two years of convalescing and almost fully recovering from being shot in the shoulder — flesh-tone scars streak across his upper chest and arm — and suffering a head wound from a bomb responsible for the curvy scars on the crown of his now-hair-covered skull, Ismail has been told to expect to start another two-year tour of duty within the next six months. Curiously, Ismail’s notice came at around the same time last month that President Bush was announcing plans to pull 8,000 troops out of Iraq by the start of next year. Only Bush never mentioned that more troops are being deployed to places like Afghanistan. Nor did Bush reveal that soldiers — including reservists like Ismail, who had already seen heavy fighting and suffered serious wounds, might be heading back to battle. Ismail isn’t alone in his distress. As the Denver Post’s Erin Emery and David Olinger reported in August, “Five years into the war in Iraq and six years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Army is sending soldiers with physical and mental injuries back to war, at times overruling physicians’ classifications of soldiers as ‘non-deployable.’” The Army, Emery and Olinger reported, “has deployed soldiers with slings and crutches and some who need machines to help keep them alive through the night. Thousands are taking pain, sleep or antidepressant medication, with sometimes deadly consequences.” Citing an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center report, Emery and Olinger found that 43,000 service members “were classified as non-deployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed.” A quick trip around the Internet shows that it’s hardly been uncommon for wounded soldiers — particularly those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — to be called back into action. Some of these vets are reluctant to provide their identities. Ismail, for instance, is a real person, but that’s not his name. He just found a job locally but still needs a place to live and doesn’t want to blow any chances of that happening by winding up in the paper. Another veteran who wrote a letter to editor Jay Shaft of the Web site Coalition For Free Thought In Media also didn’t want to be identified, primarily because he believes “they will take my rank and service time and shit all over them” after 20 years in the Army. He was preparing for a second tour in Iraq. The questions on his mind were, “How do you tell a soldier he has to go back and put his life on the line again? How do you ask him to possibly give up his legs or arms or get permanent brain damage or other life-damaging injuries? How can you be the one to ask a man or woman that, especially if they have children?” He won’t say why, but Ismail tells me that he can’t go home again. Only a few things in Ismail’s life are actually certain right now, and one of them is, “I don’t want to go back there,” he said. Ismail showed up at the office last week and while he was here I shared with him a few contacts, one of them a lawyer who deals specifically with this growing problem. He’s James Branum at GIrightslawyer.com, or call (405) 476-5620 or (866) 933-ARMY, or call the GI Rights hotline at (877) 447-4487. If you have Ismail’s problem, call these people. Then tell us your story. Write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call (626) 584-1500, ext. 115. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
