Fort Bragg soldier with combat-related medical problems kicked out of Army

Ex-Bragg soldier with combat-related medical problems kicked out of Army
Feb 26, 2012
By Greg Barnes
Staff writer

Contributed photo by Will Baxter
Spc. Devin Johnson, injured in the thights by shrapnel during a firefight with the Taliban in Charkh, Afghanistan, is given emergency medical treatment during his deployment in 2009.

Devin Johnson got out of Fort Bragg's Warrior Transition Battalion and the Army in December. A failed drug test and a litany of health problems caused by war saw to that.

The former 10th Mountain Division marksman said he has never used cocaine, but one Army drug screening out of more than 70 came back positive. He believes a legal drug he had been taking mimicked the cocaine.

"I never done it in my life," Johnson said. "I think they were just trying to find something to get on me."

Johnson, who is 23, faced a court-martial and lost. He said he was demoted from specialist to private, stripped of pay and put in a brig in Charleston, S.C., for 30 days.

Shortly after his release from the prison, Johnson said, he was told to gather his belongings. He was leaving the Army on a general discharge under honorable conditions after spending more than two years in Fort Bragg's Warrior Transition Battalion.

Now, two Purple Hearts later, Johnson lives with a friend in South Carolina and fights his health problems virtually alone. He said he has stopped taking his medications because he cannot get more until at least April, when he is scheduled for his first appointment with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I'm just sitting around in pain now," Johnson said.
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