This series is just heart wrenching to read, and it certainly cuts to the bone. Contractors are the unappreciated patriots, and we have certainly sacrificed in this war. T. Christian Miller has done a fantastic job of showing that sacrifice, and informing the public on what exactly is going on with our injured contractors/patriots.
He is also showing some courage by actually calling us ‘unappreciated patriots’. To most journalists out there, we are less than human and less than a patriot, and their opinions scream throughout their reportage. I am sure his peers are thumbing their nose at him.
This particular story is also a reminder about what is at stake when you enter this profession. Everyone thinks about these types of injuries from time to time, but when you read through this story, you put a picture to the ‘what if’s’ of this job. That is good though, because it is these gut checks that actually snap folks into the mindset of doing things right.(you would think…) Because if you do get it wrong, you stand to lose a lot….
Hell, fate has it’s own plan, and you could do everything right and still lose a lot. That is the job and that is war. Anyhoo, check out the story and at the end of this post, there is a link to a audio slide show of what Grizzly went through. –Matt
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‘They are the unappreciated patriots’
In Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors like Reggie Lane often face the same dangers as U.S. troops. And make the same terrible sacrifices.
By T. Christian Miller
October 6, 2009
Reporting from Central Point, Ore.
A nurse rocked him awake as pale dawn light crept into the room. “C’mon now, c’mon,” the nurse murmured. “Time to get up.”Reggie Lane was once a hulking man of 260 pounds. Friends called him “Big Dad.” Now, he weighed less than 200 pounds and his brain was severely damaged. He groaned angry, wordless cries.The nurse moved fast. Two bursts of deodorant spray under each useless arm. Then he dressed Lane and used a mechanical arm to hoist him into a wheelchair.He wheeled Big Dad down a hallway and parked the chair in a beige dining room, in front of a picture window. Outside stretched a green valley of pear trees filled with white blossoms.Lane’s head fell forward, his chin buried in his chest. His legs crossed and uncrossed involuntarily. His left index finger was rigid and pointed, as if frozen in permanent accusation.In 2004, Lane was driving a fuel truck in Iraq for a defense contractor when insurgents attacked his convoy with rocket-propelled grenades. For most of the five years since, Lane, now 60, has spent his days in silence — a reminder of the hidden costs of relying on civilian contract workers to support the U.S. war effort. (more…)
