War hero at Nellis battling a new adversary: PTSD

War hero at Nellis battling a new adversary: PTSD
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
By KEITH ROGERS, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Saturday, December 20, 2008

With a Silver Star medal clipped to his Air Force jacket, 1st Lt. Thomas Cahill spoke humbly about his efforts to pilot a rescue helicopter through enemy fire while flying low over eastern Afghanistan's snowcapped mountains.

His "uncanny skills," his citation read, for keeping the Pave Hawk airborne in thin air at low rotor speed with mortar rounds whizzing by resulted in saving three men during that mission on March 3, 2002.

"As dark as it was, impacting the terrain was my first enemy," he said five years ago after his award ceremony at Nellis Air Force Base. "I would say it was probably luck."

In the years since Operation Anaconda, Cahill's luck and his adversary have changed. Cahill's enemy now is post-traumatic stress disorder, an anxiety that stirs nightmarish memories of terrifying ordeals from the battlefield.

He was court-martialed and pleaded guilty May 27 to charges related to off-base thefts and was confined in the brig at Nellis until his release in September. Cahill's attorneys argued that his illness caused him to lose focus in his job with the 561st Joint Tactics Squadron and do things out of character.
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