My military career was pretty normal at first, with a few training deployments to the NTC and one to South Korea for about a month or so to see how long it would take to load our war stock vehicles on a train and prepare for war with North Korea until Sept 11 2001. After that we were placed on a anti-terrorist emergency response team in case of another attack, our bags were packed and loaded on trucks and we on standby for what seemed like forever.
It took me almost a year and a half but I finally landed a spot to go to Sapper school, which is a very difficult and hard to get into school of advanced land navigation and field expedient explosives (they are the ones who trained Timmothy Mcvey with explosives, the one who blew up the Oklahoma city building) video of Sapper School below.
It was about 2 weeks before we were supposed to leave for Sapper School, and we had a going away party off base for friends with Alpha company doing a few month rotation to Kosovo and some stupid asshole jumps me with a tire iron from behind for no known reason and splits my head like a watermelon and knocking clean out for 1/2 hour or so.. 3 stitches, 10 staples and a severe concussion later and they wont't take me. I was diagnosed with a TBI (traumatic brain injury) along with a few other things and sent home 5 months short of my 4 year obligation. Not 2 months after I left my unit they stopped lossed my entire battalion and sent them to Iraq, had I not got put out I without a doubt would have received an involuntary extension and got sent as well.
For a few years after that I always had a feeling of guilt that I did not go and fight for my Country with my friends and brothers, some of which never came back, but for some reason it just wasn't in the cards.
After I got home I was lucky enough to have a family member who worked in the VA as a nurse, and she expressed the importance of enrolling in the VA, and with the help of the DAV I obtained my service connected rating (though no simple process). I collected my GI bill while working through a union apprenticeship, which was a huge help for me and my family, and have received monthly benefits since that have also been a huge help especially through these hard economic times. I have spent the last 10 years learning how to navigate the VA and I want to share as much info as I can to help other veterans and their families obtain the benefits that we have earned by putting on that uniform and saluting that beautiful flag everyday through our enlistment. So for any of you reading this that served you have my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for your dedicated service and sacrifice you and your families have made for this country, and I am honored to call myself a fellow Veteran. Thank you, God bless and please help me get the word out about my blog and you can also find me on facebook at www.facebook.com/TheVeteransChannel
