Nobody has posted one up, and I know we're on here. We see the death toll in the news all the time, but what people rarely hear about is the roughly 70,000 troops who've been wounded in action and the scars left behind.
So if you've been wounded in action in Iraq of Afghanistan, go ahead and post up your story.
I was wounded on Christmas day of 03 near Balad (the city, not the base) while escorting our company commander. The commander wanted to drive around to the different platoons that were scattered throughout the sunni triangle area on a little moral raising trip. His driver was dressed up as Santa and gave out "gifts" to the different platoons. Obviously with the insurgency loving to hit us extra hard on holidays and seeing that 95% of forces in Iraq had the day off making us one of the few vehicles on the road, we knew we'd see some action.
We drove from FOB Eagle (in balad) to Samarra east airfield, to FOB Mountaineer in Tikrit, back down to Taji airfield, and back up to FOB Lion outside the south gate of Balad Air base. If you've been to Iraq, you know how long of a ride that is. Took us about 7 hours.
Along the way, we took 2 IED's that didn't do much besides break a couple windows, and sporadic RPG and small arms fire, but nothing major. After our last stop of the day and while we were heading home, we rolled past 3 155mm rounds wired together and buried in the median. I was on the .50 and when the IED went off, the 5 ton LMTV we were using was flipped onto it's side at about 50 mph. Aside from superficial wounds to the arm and face from the actual blast, my side hit the turret ring about kidney high when the truck hit its side. Then I fell out at while the truck was moving and slide to a stop on the road. Luckily I still had my sidearm (I was a medic) and was quickly picked up by one of our other vehicles.
Unfortunately, while the blast wounds healed quickly, I ended up with 4 ****ed up discs in my back. To this day, almost 5 years later, I'm still suffering from my injuries. At one point I was on 240 miligrams of morphine, 15+ vicodin, and valium to sleep, every day. And only vets know what it's like dealing with the VA to get surgery
.
On the bright side, I got 50% medical retirement, and 80% disability compensation from the VA. Couple that with the GI bill and the college bonus I got when I enlisted, and I get paid a hefty sum to get my edumacation.
I know there's more stories like mine out there, so post them up. Who knows, maybe I was the medic that treated you or you'll be familiar with other peoples stories.