Grim memories for Fort Carson soldier

Grim memories for Fort Carson soldier
Army Pfc. Spencer Offenbacker saw death in Iraq — lots of it, he says. When he returned home a changed man, his battle with the Army had only begun.
By Erin Emery
The Denver Post

The photos on Pfc. Spencer Offenbacker's laptop are gruesome: a severed Iraqi head; bugs crawling over a decaying body; a human skeleton in a pile of garbage.

Offenbacker, 25, a Fort Carson soldier, said he took the pictures to document how he and other Fort Carson soldiers picked up dead bodies near smoking piles of trash in the bombed- out streets of Baghdad.

An infantryman, Offenbacker said he kicked in doors during raids, had the most confirmed kills of any soldier in his unit and was exposed to at least eight improvised explosive devices.

The Army now disputes the amount of combat Offenbacker saw. But Offenbacker did receive an Army Commendation Medal for raiding an Iraqi home and rushing an al-Qaeda target. Offenbacker and another soldier subdued the man, who was reaching for an AK-47 rifle under his pillow.

When he returned to Fort Carson on Dec. 20, Offenbacker filled out a post-deployment checklist about his experiences in Iraq. He indicated that he had nightmares and had been exposed to IED blasts. It was five months later that he was evaluated for those issues by an Army doctor — and that was only after he sought help for drinking from Veterans Affairs doctors.

His troubles weren't all related to Iraq. Offenbacker had a disintegrating marriage. He began divorce proceedings a few days after he got home. Their daughter, Emma, now 4, was staying with Offenbacker's parents in Arkansas while he was deployed.

In mid-January, Offenbacker returned to his hometown for a 30-day leave. He was in bad shape when he arrived.

"He was shaking," said his father, also named Spencer Offenbacker. "He could not understand us. Sometimes, he would forget conversations we had with him only 10 minutes prior. He was very quiet and did not want to talk very much and was getting more agitated and depressed as the days went by. His alcohol abuse was prevalent."


His father took him to a VA clinic in Arkansas because he thought he was drinking
too much. Offenbacker told a VA doctor that he had been shot at numerous times, picked up bodies and saw six people get killed. Offenbacker said he had post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury due to "getting blown up a million times," medical records show.

Health records from Iraq show he was treated twice in theater for possible head injuries.

After returning to Colorado in late February, Offenbacker said he sought help at Fort Carson, but his superiors "blew him off" and marked him a problem soldier.

He was drinking up to "a handle of Jack Daniels" — a half-gallon — a day. He was too drunk to wake up in the morning and he missed several morning formations and physical training.

In April, unable to cope, Offenbacker went AWOL, back to Arkansas, where his parents noticed he was having suicidal thoughts. He checked into a VA clinic and enrolled in a rehabilitation program. Three weeks into the five-week program, Offenbacker was sent to jail.

A friend had a minor traffic accident and Offenbacker was a passenger in the car.

When police checked for warrants, the Army had issued one for Offenbacker being AWOL. The soldier came back to Colorado in handcuffs and shackles May 28. He was sent to the barracks, where a non-commissioned officer was to watch over him. He went AWOL again.

On July 3, Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, commander of Fort Carson, allowed Offenbacker to be discharged from the Army "under honorable conditions."

In an interview, Graham said that "after I stood back and looked at the whole thing, I thought that the discharge should be a different level of characterization. That's why I gave him a different level of discharge."
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