Saving Sergeant Nickel

Saving Sergeant Nickel
They survived Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the challenge is keeping traumatized vets out of jail.
Pacific Standard
March 18, 2013
By Kristina Shevory

George Nickel was on the last can of a case of beer when it dawned on him that his dachshund was missing. He’d been drinking a lot since coming back from the military hospital to his home in Boise, Idaho. That was understandable. His tour in Iraq as a U.S. Army combat engineer had ended with a roadside bomb attack that killed the rest of the crew on his armored vehicle and landed him in the hospital for 11 months.

To top it off, his wife, an army sergeant, was away in Texas awaiting her own deployment to Iraq. Nickel insisted to his friends that he was fine, but he knew he wasn’t. By that July night in 2009, he hadn’t slept in three days.

He had to go find his dog, he decided. Through the slurry of his thoughts, his army experience kicked in. Nickel suited up like he had for all those patrols in Falluja and Ramadi. He slipped on his tactical vest, holstered his pistol, and slung on his AR-15 rifle.

Nickel climbed the stairs to the apartment above his, shot two bullets into the lock, and kicked in the door. No one was inside. Across the hall, he heard a woman screaming.

Vietnam taught us how often soldiers traumatized by conflict overseas can wind up in trouble with the law back home. As of 1988, almost half of all male Vietnam War combat veterans with PTSD had been arrested or jailed at least once, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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