'TALLADEGA NIGHTS' HOUSTON TUMLIN gone too soon

'TALLADEGA NIGHTS' HOUSTON TUMLIN Depression and PTSD Led to Suicide
TMZ
March 28, 2021

Houston Tumlin -- the kid who played Ricky Bobby's son in 'Talladega Nights' -- grew up to proudly serve his country, but sadly suffered from PTSD and depression as a result, which led to his suicide ... his mother tells TMZ.

Michelle Tumlin tells us ... her son honorably served in the U.S. Army for nearly 6 years, earning many accolades as an E-4 specialist in the 101st Airborne Division

Houston's awards include the Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, but Michelle says he was most proud of earning his Air Assault wings.

Michelle says, "Houston received a different set of wings" this week, and while the family is hurting from the loss, she says they want to stress to anyone who is suffering to reach out and get help.

She says ... "Houston Lee Tumlin was so much more than a child actor from 'Talladega Nights.' My beautiful boy brought joy to everyone he encountered and made them feel special. Houston fought his battle for years, and we will continue to fight for him."

We're told Houston will have a full military funeral, and his family marched in an event over the weekend in Helena, Alabama to raise awareness for veteran suicide and PTSD support.
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#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

Paratrooper Veteran Jumps In D-Day Rerun at 97!

97-Year-Old U.S. Paratrooper Veteran Jumps In D-Day Rerun

NBC News
Published on Jun 5, 2019

Tom Rice was with the 101st Airborne Division on 6th June 1944 as they parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, at night and under fire.

'Ready! Go!': I Jumped Out Of A Vintage WWII Plane For D-Day

NPR
LUKE SHARRET
June 6, 2019

Luke Sharrett is a freelance photographer and contributor to NPR. He is based in Louisville, Ky., and has had a lifelong interest in World War II.

This week, the world is marking 75 years since the D-Day invasion. On June 6, 1944, wave after wave of American, British, Canadian and French military personnel descended upon northern France's coast by air and sea in one of the largest military operations in history — a tipping point for World War II.

As the anniversary approached, I started planning a pilgrimage to the hallowed shores and hedgerows of Normandy. I needed to pay my respects to the brave men who cracked Adolf Hitler's Atlantic Wall of defenses.

This desire propelled me into the ranks of the World War II Airborne Demonstration Team. Based in Frederick, Okla., the team is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization dedicated to remembering, honoring and serving the memory of our ever-dwindling WWII veteran population. We accomplish this by performing round-canopy static line parachute jumps dressed in authentic WWII equipment at air shows and veterans' events around the United States and Europe.

Two British World War II airborne veterans shake hands on the flight line at the Imperial War Museum Duxford. Luke Sharrett for NPR

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101st veteran's body found in Mississippi River

Body found in flood waters in Alexander County, IL identified as 31-year-old veteran

WPSD NBC 6 News
Krystle Callais, Rebecca Gangemella
June 1, 2019

UPDATE: The uncle of Robbin Christopher Franklin says his nephew was an army veteran who served the country in both Iraq and Afghanistan. His uncle Mark Franklin says his nephew went by Chris.

Mark tells WPSD that Chris served in the 101st Airborne out of Fort Campbell, KY. Chris lived by the river in Illinois.

As the Mississippi River rises, Mark says his family has to boat to their homes. On May 29th, Mark says Chris’s dad was boating to his home when he found his son’s body in the water.

Mark was told the death will be ruled an “accidental drowning”. The coroner says the report is not finished until the toxicology report is done. At this time, no official cause of death has been released.

His family is working on finalizing funeral arrangements with Crain Funeral Home out of Cairo, IL.
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Two non-combat deaths under investigation

Pentagon IDs soldier who died in noncombat incident in northern Syria

STARS AND STRIPES
By CHAD GARLAND
Published: April 29, 2019

The Defense Department has identified the American servicemember who died Monday while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve in northern Syria.

Pfc. Michael A. Thomason, 28, of Lincoln Park, Mich., died of “wounds sustained from a non-combat incident” in Kobani, Syria, according to a statement issued late Monday by the Pentagon.

Thomason was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), out of Fort Campbell, Ky., the statement said.
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South Korea-based soldier dies while on leave in Maryland

STARS AND STRIPES
By KIM GAMEL
Published: April 29, 2019

SEOUL, South Korea — An 18-year-old soldier serving with the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea died while on leave in Maryland, the Army said Monday, adding the circumstances surrounding her death are under investigation.

Pvt. Courtney Shields, a signal support systems specialist from Bryans Road, Md., was found unresponsive Friday while on leave in her home state. She was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to a press release.
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Soldier accidentally shot himself in the head, lived and now denied benefits

Soldier who shot himself in head appeals Army’s decision to deny benefits

STARS AND STRIPES
By WYATT OLSON
Published: February 5, 2019

The investigator’s original determination in Holyan’s case, however, was overturned by the 101st Airborne Division’s commander and then ratified by Army Human Resources Command.

Spc. Kevin Holyan, a wounded warrior athlete from the Fort Sam Houston Warrior Transition Battalion, poses with Lt. Col. Eric Kjonnerod, commander of Warrior Transition Battalion-Hawaii, during the 2018 Pacific Regional Trials indoor rowing medal ceremony at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, Nov. 10, 2018.LEANNE THOMAS/U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Army Spc. Kevin Holyan arrived especially early at the Hopkinsville, Ky., home of his former barracks mate, who had been promoted to sergeant and was celebrating with a party that evening in April 2017.

Holyan, a 22-year-old assigned to an engineer battalion with the 101st Airborne Division at nearby Fort Campbell, kept his personally owned handgun at that friend’s house, and was eager to put on new grips he’d gotten for the gun. Army regulations did not allow Holyan to keep the .40-caliber Glock 23 at his base residence.

Hours later, Holyan jokingly raised the gun to his head, and believing it was unloaded, pulled the trigger and fired a bullet through his brain. He was rushed to a hospital where a note in his medical chart that evening offered a stark assessment: “Grave prognosis,” it said. “Likely fatal [injury].”

Holyan survived, but today he cannot walk and is mentally impaired. He is in an Army Warrior Transition Unit and on his way to becoming a civilian. He is not expected to be able to work again.
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MOH Vietnam Veteran Major Charles Kettles passed away

Obituary: Charles Kettles: Vietnam veteran whose service medal was upgraded by President Obama 50 years on

The Independent

Emily Langer 
February 4, 2019 

The Song Tra Cau riverbed near Duc Pho, South Vietnam, was dubbed “Chump Valley”. Only a chump, American soldiers said, would venture there. 

Kettles receives his medal of honor from the president in 2016 ( Getty )

On Monday 15 May 1967 Major Charles Kettles did just that, braving punishing fire from the North Vietnamese to make four helicopter journeys delivering reinforcements to outnumbered members of the 101st Airborne Division – and evacuate the wounded and the dead.

Kettles was credited with saving the lives of 44 men and received the Distinguished Service Cross, the military’s second-highest award for valour, for his actions. Nearly half a century later, the award was upgraded to Medal of Honour.

President Barack Obama, bestowing the medal on Kettles in 2016, recalled a comrade who called Kettles “our John Wayne”.

Kettles, who died aged 89, retired from the army in 1978 at the rank of lieutenant colonel.
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Caring for triple amputee "part of spousal duty" to VA?

Nashville VA reinstates triple amputee veteran's full-time caregiver services after Tennessean report

Nashville Tennessean
Yihyun Jeong
Nov. 21, 2018

A triple amputee veteran will have his full-time caregiver services reinstated after the Tennessean reported Wednesday that the Nashville VA initially decided to deny the level of his caregiver's benefits.

Staff Sergeant J.D. Williams lost his right arm and both legs while deployed with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan in 2010.

He was discharged and sent home, where his wife, Ashlee Williams, was assigned and paid by the VA to be his caregiver.

But after six years, she wrote on Facebook on Nov. 17, the VA decided to lower her husband to the lowest tier of the program, determining that he no longer needs a full-time caregiver.

She claimed that the VA assumed that the care she provided her husband, including helping her husband with applying prosthetics and lifting him into a wheelchair about 10 times a day, was part of her "spousal duty."

"...should have been included on the marriage certificate according to the VA," Ashlee Williams wrote in a post that was shared more than 25,000 times on Facebook by Wednesday morning.
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Fort Campbell is doing better than the Army average response to issues

WKRN News went out to Fort Campbell to investigate a report on how soldiers thought they were being treated.

In a survey anonymously filled out by soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, 90% answered favorably about sexual assault prevention in the unit. That is 14% better than the Army average.

Fort Campbell leaders credit SHARP for the results. They also have a zero tolerance for sexual assault because one sexual assault could affect an entire unit.

"It doesn't have to be an assault it could be an inappropriate comment. You watch that soldier's performance go from 100% to just barely getting by. Now your unit is affected by that too," said Sergeant First Class Ed Hannah. Hannah is the SHARP manager for Fort Campbell.

There are around 21,000 soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell; 10% are female. According to a 2011 report, women in the military are more likely to be raped than their male counterparts.

Overall, the survey the soldiers filled out shows Fort Campbell is doing better than the Army average when it comes to job satisfaction, discrimination and sexual harassment.

"We want to make sure that every soldier has the opportunity to succeed," said acting senior commander Brigadier General Kenneth Todd Royar. "They deserve a safe environment to work in and train in and as a command, we're absolutely dedicated to making sure they have that."

The survey, called a Command Climate Survey, is given out to soldiers as part of a federal requirement. They fill it out anonymously throughout various times of the year.

But this is the headline they used?

Fort Campbell averaging 10 reports of sexual assault a month

First America woman to die in Vietnam jumped with 101st!

Inside the Daring Life of a Forgotten Female War Photographer
National Geographic
Nina Strochlic
August 17, 2018

But her tally of conflict zones would end in Vietnam, where she became the first American woman correspondent to die in action. Years later, other journalists reported that Vietnamese Airborne troops were still reminiscing about the small, foul-mouthed woman who’d jumped with them.

Dickey Chapelle was one of history's most fearless conflict journalists—and the first American woman to die on the job.

THE 36 HOURS before Dickey Chapelle leaped off a tower with the Screaming Eagles were terrifying. She was 41 years old and parachute jumping for the first time. But fear never lasted for the pioneering war correspondent, and she quickly proclaimed it among “the greatest experiences one can have.”

It was 1959 and Chapelle had hooked up with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, on the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. She’d been working as a war correspondent since 1942 and had reported on dozens of conflicts. She’d been called “the polite little American with all that tiger blood in her veins” by Fidel Castro; held in solitary confinement during the Hungarian uprising; and affirmed as the first correspondent accredited by the Algerian rebels. After learning with the Screaming Eagles, she became the only woman authorized to jump into combat with paratroopers in Vietnam.
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Video NFL Protestors Will Not Like You To See

They say that they are not disrespecting the flag when they take a knee during the National Anthem.

They say they are not disrespecting the troops when they use their rights, obtained and retained, by those who risk their lives for this country.

NFL players say a lot of things, but just because they say it, that does not mean it is true.

The National Anthem was written after the War of 1812, so it is about the flag and those who risked their lives.

If you are in any doubt what the flag means to those who serve this country, this is a video the NFL protestors will not want you to see!

WHEN A HORRIBLE STORM RIPPED A GUN RANGE FLAGPOLE DOWN — TWO ARMY SOLDERS WENT RUNNINGDaily CallerBenny Johnson | Reporter At LargeAugust 8, 2018

Taylor, Michigan was experiencing a pounding summer storm. Gail-force winds and rain hammered homes and businesses thought the city. A local gun range and community landmark, Top Gun Shooting Sports, was hit particularly hard. The patriotic shop saw structural damage from the storm and also lost one of their most notable features: A flagpole out front.

Security footage shows the flagpole getting bent and eventually ripped down by the winds and rain tearing down the street. Luckily, Top Gun was playing host to ‘Patriot Week’ during the storm. Top Gun owner Michael Barbour tells The Daily Caller, “We were having our Patriot week and the Army was here doing a recruiting table along with multiple other special events. Just coincidental that they were standing by the door when the storm hit.”

Security camera footage shows the solders running out into the storm mere seconds after the American flag hit the ground. The soldiers, Sgt. Jared Ferguson of the 1st Infantry Division (the “Big Red One”) and Sgt. Eric Buckhorn of the 101st Airborne Div., pick up the flag off the wet concrete immediately and bring it inside. Further footage shows the soldiers indoors, folding the fallen flag properly.read more here 

Army Recruiters Rescue Fallen Flag In Taylor, Michigan
What players keep missing is the fact, that while they claim to have the right to do as they will, while in their football uniforms, the troops do their duties in theirs.

While football players miss the fact their job is to play football, and that is what the fans paid money to see, their fans do not disrespect the players by pulling their own stunts against them. 

Free speech is not the same as being paid to do a job and then using the people who paid to be there.

They also want to dismiss the anger from fans as something tied to POTUS but it only goes to show how little they actually know about patriotism!

UPDATE
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter and Iraq War veteran Tim Kennedy said NFL players have a right to protest, but during the national anthem is "not the right time."

D-Day and the heroes who were there

101st Airborne Division in History: D-Day June 6, 1944
By ClarksvilleNow.com
June 6, 2018

Clarksville NowGen. Dwight Eisenhower gives the order of the day “Full victory – Nothing else” to paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division at the Royal Air Force base in Greenham Common, England, on June 5, 1944, just hours before the men board their planes to participate in the first assault wave of the invasion of the continent of Europe. (Photo: AP)

The Invasion of Normandy started as a landing operation on June 6, 1944 on the beaches of Normandy, France by Western Allied forces during World War II against German-occupied western Europe. 

The initial assault was marked as D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history. 

A staggering 156,000 British, American, and Canadian forces landed on the five beaches of the Normandy region. The Battle of Normandy lasted from June to mid-July 1944, resulting in the liberation from Nazi Germany.
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Screaming Eagle Craig Morgan Redneck Yacht Club

Former soldier Craig Morgan convenes his 'Redneck Yacht Club' at Thirsty Cowboy
Cleveland.com
By Chuck Yarborough, The Plain Dealer
March 6, 2018

"This came about after we lost Jerry," said Morgan, who also heads the family business and farm in Tennessee. "I knew it was important that the family not try to suffer individually, that we needed to share our anger, hurt and pain, and stay focused on God.

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Craig Morgan likes to take risks. Kind of the thing you'd expect from a guy who was a forward observer in the field artillery for almost 10 years on active duty and another six in the Reserves in the Army, then quit to pursue a music career.

Craig Morgan, the former soldier-turned-country singer best known for "Redneck Yacht Club'' and "That's What I Love About Sundays,'' is at Medina's Thirsty Cowboy on Friday, March 9.(Christopher T. Martin)

"I had an opportunity to write for a publishing company and I thought it would be a good experience," said Morgan in a call to his place on 50 acres in Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, north of Anchorage. "I wanted to be able to say at least I tried it."

That didn't mean it was an easy choice for the country singer-songwriter who's at the Thirsty Cowboy in Medina on Friday, March 9. Walking away from the pension that awaited him after 20 years of service was tough, made more difficult by the "camaraderie" with soldiers he felt as a staff sergeant who was eligible to be promoted to sergeant first class when he got out.

The Army instills an "esprit de corps" in its soldiers, Morgan said.

"It's a teaching, a sense of gratitude," he said. "One thing about military personnel: Even in my generation, there's a sense of pride in their country and a humility in their service.

A soldier since 1995, Morgan was twice attached to the famous 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles" as well as the equally well-known 82nd Airborne Division, the "All American Division," the unit in which World War I Medal of Honor winner Alvin York served.
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101st Soldier rescued people from burning car...including himself!

A soldier caught on fire while rescuing people from a burning car. It didn't stop him
Ledger Enquirer
Scott Berson
January 29, 2018

"As I was [unbuckling her seatbelt] the whole vehicle caught fire, and I just felt a blanket of fire wrap around my body, and everything just happened in a matter of seconds from there," Davis said in an Army news release.. "But before I could get the other half of her body out, she caught fire from all the fuel that was on her. I noticed she was on fire [shortly] before noticing that I was on fire too."

Maj. Gen. Andrew Poppas, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) commanding general, pins the Soldier's Medal on Staff Sgt. Nicholas Davis, C Battery, 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) artillery cannon crew member and section chief, during a ceremony held at Fort Campbell, Jan. 22, 2018. Sgt. Samantha Stoffregen Special to the Ledger-Enquirer

It was a normal summer day on June 9, 2017 when Staff Sgt. Nicholas Davis, C Battery, 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Artillery cannon crew member and section chief, was driving home to Ellijay, Ga., from Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

As he was cruising down the road near Nashville, he noticed a car overturned on its passenger side. It had flipped almost completely over, coming to rest on a slight downward slope, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Few other drivers seemed concerned, according to the Army.

"I was pulling up, and I noticed there was a small engine fire underneath the belly of the car, so I jumped out and ran up to the vehicle," Davis said.

When he reached the car, he found two people, Rick and Sharon Steiert, trapped in the vehicle. Most distressingly, a can of fuel that had been in the back of the car had tumbled during the crash. It had now become wedged under Sharon's legs, and she was covered in gasoline.
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101st Airborne Veteran Killed in House Fire

Kettering veteran killed in house fire remembered by family

MyDaytona Daily News
November 26, 2017

Family members are sharing stories and memories of a Kettering man killed in a house fire Sunday morning with WHIO’s Sean Cudahy.

James Towe (Contributed photo)

James Towe is remembered as a joking father and good friend who reportedly served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

Towe’s son, James Towe told Cudahy his dad was a comedian who playfully cracked jokes.

"I'm trying to hold my own, I'll catch myself grieving [...] trying to keep myself composed to figure everything out," Towe said.

Towe said he and his brother are the last remaining family members living in the area.

“We’re going to try and talk to the VA [...] I guess he didn’t have any insurance policy so it’s going to be rough trying to come up with the funeral costs,” Towe said.
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This Police Officer Can Do Job With One Arm

ONE ARM, NO PROBLEM: Army veteran amputee fulfills dream of becoming police officer

Idaho State Journal

By Shelbie Harris 
August 15, 2017


“No matter where you go or what you do there is going to be pros and cons to it. But it all depends on how you picture it. If you look for the bad stuff that’s all you’re going to get. If you look for the positive and the good out of it, no matter what situation you are in you’ll see it.” Carlos Lugo

Pocatello Police Department patrolman Carlos Lugo is an Army veteran who lost half of his left arm in a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan. But he didn’t let that stop him from becoming a police officer.

POCATELLO — As a 9-year-old living in Stockton, California, Carlos Lugo grew up in a very low-income family.

His mother, a single parent surviving on government checks to feed the mouths of himself and three younger siblings, bounced around from house to house whenever the rent was too high or the bills began to stack up. That was difficult for Lugo, but watching his mom endure constant episodes of domestic violence inflicted by the men in her life was nearly unbearable.

At the brutal height of one such attack, Lugo got a signal from his mom to run to a neighbor’s house and phone the police for help — something he said she rarely asked him to do.

That’s where Pocatello police Capt. Roger Schei first encountered Lugo.

Schei said Lugo never struggled to keep up.

“Everything that we taught he was able to do,” Schei said. “No matter what he was able to find a way. He never asked for special treatment or considerations, and he just figured out a way to get it done.”
Pocatello Police Chief Scott Marchand has similar praise for Lugo, who has now been on the police force a little less than six months.

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101st Remember Fallen Soldiers While The Rest of the Country Forgets

Close-knit military community feels pain of deaths in wars the nation has forgotten

STARS AND STRIPES 
By DIANNA CAHN 
Published: July 30, 2017

The procession crossed the base that straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border, past training grounds where members of the 101st Airborne Division prepare for war, past buildings where they reunite with loved ones when they return and past the headquarters where a long corridor bears the names of the thousands of “Screaming Eagle” soldiers who didn’t make it home. In wars that most have forgotten about, troops are still dying from hostile fire.

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Rain came in a deluge on the Friday of Sgt. William Bays’ funeral.

A 101st Airborne Division soldier prays at the memorial service for Sgt. William Bays, who was killed in action in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan on June 10, 2017. MICHAEL S. DARNELL/STARS AND STRIPES

“He was a friend, a peer, a husband,” Sgt. Lucas Schultze, a fellow soldier of the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, cried as he spoke of the more senior comrade who taught him to lead. “A father, a son and a brother.”
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Amputee Afghanistan Veteran No Longer Disabled According to Social Security?

For disabled vet, battle rages on as feds deny disability payments

Rapid City Journal
Tom Griffith Journal staff
7 min ago

“Somehow I was deemed no longer disabled by Social Security, and it’s been an absolute hellish nightmare. I wish I wasn’t disabled and that my leg grew back, and that my arm functioned, and that my gonads hadn’t been blown off and I no longer needed testosterone shots, and I could hear, and I didn’t have PTSD, and that I didn’t have a traumatic brain injury." 
Wayne Swier

Hannah Hunsinger Journal Staff

For 31-year-old Wayne Swier, a U.S. Army combat veteran who suffered devastating injuries from an improvised explosive device seven years ago in Afghanistan, this summer should have been a season of solace and celebration.

But fate and a federal agency seemed to have conspired to turn it into a nightmare.

Swier is set to marry his sweetheart in a week, and the couple plans to move into a new home near Johnson Siding built by the nonprofit Homes for Our Troops later in August.

By any account, it should be a summer of love for the Stephens High School graduate who spent the better part of two tours with the 101st Airborne’s “Band of Brothers” unit fighting the Taliban in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan.

Instead, in May the Social Security Administration deemed him no longer disabled and cut off his monthly disability checks, in a manner as harsh as the way that IED blew off his leg in a small Afghan village in November 2010.
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Fort Campbell Attorney Spouses Can Get to Work!

SUPREME COURT AND FORT CAMPBELL CELEBRATE MILITARY SPOUSE RULE
Tennessee State Court
June 6, 2017

The Tennessee Supreme Court and 53 members of the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, recently celebrated the Supreme Court’s Revised Military spouse Rule (Rule 7), which permits attorney spouses of those in the military to obtain temporary law licenses to practice in Tennessee while their active-duty spouse is stationed in Tennessee at a military installation.

Members of the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group on the stairs of the TN Supreme Court Building.

Brigadier General Todd Royar, Deputy Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division and members of the 5th Special Forces Group were welcomed by Secretary of State Tre Hargett. Hargett is the son of Major General Gus Hargett. The group toured the State Capitol and experienced the Bicentennial Mall along with the architect and visionary for the Mall, Kem Hinton. Major General Andrew Poppas, Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, was attending D Day commemoration in Normandy, France.

Following the Court’s official arguments, all five justices participated in the ceremony to recognize four recently admitted attorneys to the Tennessee Bar through the revised Military Spouse Rule. Chief Justice Jeff Bivins opened the ceremony by discussing the meaningful sacrifices made by military and their military spouses.

“Our country has approximately 650,000 active duty military spouses and the unemployment rate within this group currently stands at approximately 20 percent,” he said. “By comparison, the national unemployment rate provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has remained between 4.4 and 4.8 percent in 2017.”
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Fort Campbell Soldiers Hurt After Helicopter Caught Fire

Helicopter Training Incident Injures Four Fort Campbell Soldiers
WKMS News
By NICOLE ERWIN and MATT MARKGRAF
JAN 31, 2017

Tuesday Afternoon Update: The helicopter caught fire during a training exercise and was extinguished by Fort Campbell Fire and Emergency Services personnel.

Soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team aided in the extraction of the aircraft personnel. The soldiers suffering injuries were transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Blanchfield Army Community Hospital. Their families are still being notified.
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Combat PTSD Veteran Tells How VA Saved His LIfe

Veteran says VA saved his life
Leavenworth Times
By MARK ROUNTREE
January 18, 2017

"We are all kind of our own special society. You don't have to give your whole story to explain it (to other veterans)." James Trumble

James Trumble sits on a bench outside of the domicillary at the Eisenhower VA Medical Center, reflecting on his military experiences and how the V has helped him deal with post traumatic stress disorder

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, James Trumble said he always wanted to join the Army. He remembers playing Army as a youngster.

"What little kid didn't play Army?" he said.

Trumble enlisted in the Army at the age of 24. In 2007, he was deployed near Baghdad, Iraq. It didn't take long before he was in the fight.

On his first mission, Trumble earned his combat infantryman badge as a result of a firefight.

"That kind of started PTSD for me," he said.

He said that in his first five months in Iraq, he was engaged in more than 20 firefights. He said those experiences and more led to his developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Combat is so unexpected," he said. "I don't know what is normal or what isn't. It was enough to affect me."

Trumble served for a little more than three years in the Army. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007-08 as part of the 101st Airborne, 1st 502nd infantry.
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