I wanted to post this story, because it was truly inspiring. Most of the time you hear of Military guys going back to the war zone after injuries, and those are totally motivating. To see a guy operating over there, while wearing a prosthetic is something else to see. It takes a certain kind of resolve to get yourself back in the game like that, and I have tons of respect for our injured troops. And what mostly drives them, is the desire to get back with their comrades.
But this story is a little different. When a contractor gets injured and expresses a desire to go back to that war zone, then that is really unique. It further emphasizes the kind of dedication that is out there, both on the Military side and Contractor side and really is motivating to read about. And for Mr. Shah, thanks for everything you have done and sacrificed for this country and the war effort. I also know that Mr. Shah is not alone, and that I know of other contractors that have returned back to the war zones they were injured at. –Head Jundi
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The New York Times
September 1, 2008
A Kind of Courage That’s Hard to Translate
By CARA BUCKLEY
The military translator from Queens sat beside his mother in a wheelchair in a hospital room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Thursday. His right leg was encased in a black boot, affixed with Velcro straps from his swollen toes to his knee. What was left of his left leg, which had been amputated at the knee, was wrapped in a snug elastic rubber stocking on which the word “stump” had been scrawled.
The man’s name is Syed Shah and he was grievously wounded in July in a bomb attack on a military convoy in Afghanistan, where he had been working as a translator for soldiers battling the Taliban. Mr. Shah is learning to walk with a prosthetic leg, though his progress is severely hindered because he cannot put any weight on his partly shattered right leg.
Yet to his family’s shock and anguish, and to his doctors’ awe, Mr. Shah is aiming to be back in Afghanistan by year’s end.