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Sunday, January 15, 2012

For Army Sgt. Bob Casler, nightmares from the battlefield linger

Wounded veterans: For Army Sgt. Bob Casler, nightmares from the battlefield linger
Published: Sunday, January 15, 2012, 12:00 AM
By IVEY DEJESUS, The Patriot-News

Army Sgt. Bob Casler had been trained to kill.

He just wasn’t prepared to handle how he felt afterward.

Casler spent 16 months as a combat engineer posted to Camp Liberty near the Baghdad airport — once an extremely dangerous place in Iraq.

The threat of ambushes, artillery fire, snipers and improvised explosive devices was relentless.

Casler rode in a buffalo — Army parlance for a vehicle with a retractable mechanical arm used to probe guardrails, garbage and dead animals for booby traps. He got his hands in chemical waste, nonchemical waste and the remains of fellow soldiers.

“It’s not normal to pick up body parts and throw it in the back of a truck. It’s not normal to do stuff like that, to pick up half a guy and throw him in the back of a truck with the rest of them,” Casler said. “That’s stuff we do.”
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