Afghanistan Veteran Sample Stressor Letter                 LIFE BEFORE MILITARY SERVICE                 Growing up in Rantoul, Illinois, life was pretty nice.  The long cold winters and the short summers made for a great place to grow up.  Like most guys in Rantoul, I had dreams of serving my country.  Most of what I learned about the military started in elementary school.                   When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher, Mr. Wilburn, who was a veteran of the U.S. Army always spoke about his days in the Army.  He was my inspiration for joining the Army.  He made the Army sound like it was the greatest place in the world.  His stories about military duty, firefights, marching, and wearing his uniform made me want to join right away.                        When I was in high school I joined my high school’s JROTC unit.  By my senior year, I made it to the rank of Sergeant Major.  When I wore my uniform I felt like a King.  The kids in school didn’t really understand what JROTC stood for, but I knew.  Mr. Wilburn said that people need to understand that when a soldier wears the uniform he represents an entire Nation.  I always tried to remember that when I wore my uniform for JROTC functions.                         LIFE DURING MILITARY SERVICE                       As soon as I graduated from high school I joined the Army.  Boot camp was easy for me.  I knew how to march, I knew how to wear the uniform, I knew about military command and structure, and I always stayed fit.  My four years in JROTC helped me a lot.  My drill sergeant promoted me to squad leader, then platoon leader.  My troops looked toward me for leadership.                       After boot camp I was sent to AIT.  In AIT I shined.  I was quickly promoted to platoon leader.  I won awards for marksmanship, leadership, and physical fitness.  After AIT I was sent to my first installation.                          When I arrived at Fort Benning I was as they say “sharp as a tac.”  Somehow, my command sergeant knew about my accomplishments in AIT and he told me from the very beginning, “I expect a lot out of you.”  I took that to heart.                    After six months at Ft. Benning, my unit received orders to Afghanistan.  So, on March 10, 2004, I flew to Afghanistan with my unit.  We were briefed that we had to help support convoy units through the mountains.  No problem.  I was ready and so was my unit.  For several months we guarded supply convoys and didn’t see any enemy troops or action.  That all changed in October.                     On October 5, 2004, while traveling North to Kabol, my unit came across several IEDs.  One of the fuel trucks we guarded ran over an IED an exploded.  Everyone in the truck was killed.  Enemy troops bombarded us with fire from all directions.  I was never angrier in my life.  My buddies were killed instantly by enemy troops I wanted to kill.                    On October 12, 2004, I was awakened at 5:26 A.M. to the sound of loud bangs.  We were being bombed by insurgents.  Small RPGs were landing all around us.  I took cover in a nearby trench.  I remember thinking to myself, “There is no way that my life is going to end like this.”  After 5 minutes the bombing was over.  As we surveyed the grounds we came across several of our guys who had been hit.  Two guys were killed and 12 others were badly injured.                      Several months went by before we had any problems.  On February 16, 2005, my unit was traveling to Kabol again.  On the way, we ran over several IEDs.  My Humvee took a direct hit.  I was so angry that my truck was hit that I shot my M-16 randomly in the air and ran off tons of rounds before I realized someone was yelling at me to stop.  The driver of my Humvee was killed.  I was so pissed that I ran toward the mountains screaming and firing my M-16.  I was looking for insurgents.  I wanted to kill the scumbags that buried the IED in our path.  When I ran out of bullets I walked back to the wreckage, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had run a long way, I was more than a mile from where we were hit.                        Unfortunately, on February 21, 2005, we were attacked by mountain insurgents while traveling through a gorge.  Bullets and small rockets were coming in from the West.  We all took cover behind our vehicles.  Still fresh in my mind was my buddy who was killed by an IED a few days ago.  Just thinking about it put me in a rage.  I decided right there I was going to take someone out to avenge my buddy’s death.  Without orders, I low-crawled to a nearby boulder, and then another, and another.  Within minutes, I could see three insurgents firing at my unit.  They were tucked in behind a huge rock formation.  Seeing them wrapped up in dirty sheets and with their dusty faces made me angrier than I have ever been.  The anger filled me with tons of adrenaline.  Nothing was going to stop me from getting to those creeps.                              Fueled by the memory of my buddy and the guys in the fuel truck, I gripped my M-16 tightly, and grabbed a grenade.  The creeps were about 80 yards from me.  While doing grenade training back in the States I was never able to throw a grenade more than 40 yards with any accuracy.  That day, my grenade landed perfectly in the middle of the three insurgents.  The excitement of a direct hit motivated me to get closer and admire my work.  As I approached the insurgents I could see that they were only stunned, not dead.  So I got closer, opened up a blistering round of bullets right in their bodies.  I loved it, but it wasn’t enough.  I decided to obliterate these bums.  With the trigger of my M-16 jammed back as far as it could go I riddled the heads of these bums with bullets.  Their heads exploded open like wet paper bags.                       Jubilant and proud, I slowly walked back to my unit.  My heart was pounding with excitement.  I couldn’t wait to share what I did with my guys.  As I got closer to my unit, I could see my commander running toward me.  I could see from the language of his run that he was not happy.  My proud moment instantly turned to uncontrollable rage.  I picked up my pace and ran toward him.  We collided.  He was yelling at me, and to this day I had no idea what he was saying.  I just started punching him in the face.                     When we got back to the base I felt exhausted.  I went to my corner of our tent, laid down on my cot and fell asleep.  Next thing I knew I was being handcuffed by MPs.  They didn’t say a word to me.  I was taken to a tent filled with a bunch of officers.  I was told to sit down in front of them.  I could feel myself getting irritated by the whole event.  I wasn’t listening to anything they had to say, but I knew they were mad with me for taking out those insurgents.  I was told to pack up my things, they were sending me back to the States.                         When I got back to Ft. Benning I was quickly kicked out of the Army and given a bad conduct discharge.  Being kicked out of the Army placed a heavy burden on me.  I felt like I let everybody down, especially Mr. Wilburn.                                       LIFE AFTER MILITARY SERVICE                    I was planning on making the military a career.  I loved being in the Army.  I have no regrets about anything I did.  I think the guys I protected would thank me if they had a chance.  At the same time, my experiences in Afghanistan and getting a bad conduct discharge changed me forever.                   I returned to Rantoul to look for a job.  I looked everywhere.  I looked for two months with no luck.  My folks told me I should try a big city.  I didn’t care much for Chicago, the closes big city near Rantoul.  But, Indianapolis seemed like a good place to try and find work.                    With nothing more than a high school education and bad memories of Afghanistan, I searched for jobs that would remind me of the Army.  I applied for law enforcement jobs and security jobs.  With a BCD, no one gave me a chance.  Desperate and broke, I begged a local bar owner if I could wait tables at his place.  He didn’t ask about my past, didn’t do a background check, heck, I didn’t even fill out an application, but I got the job.  Rex, the owner, had me start right away.  He said he wanted to test me out first and would pay me under the table for a few weeks.  I needed the money, so I didn’t see a problem with our arrangement.                     I didn’t realize how often people went to bars to drown their sorrow in a bottle of whiskey.  On many occasions these pitiful folks would piss me off.  I guess Rex got tired of me yelling at his customers that he let me go.  That was the first firing in a string of firings I experienced.                    For months I could not hold a job for more than a few weeks.  I gave up looking and wandered the streets of Indianapolis until I ran out of money.  I needed to clear my head.  Depressed, angry, and disappointed with myself, I needed something to pick me up.  I visited a fancy adult club on English Avenue.  Sitting in the club, I thought to myself that I would enjoy being a bouncer at the place.  It would make me feel like I was in the Army again.  I asked the manager if he needed a bouncer and to my surprise he said, “Yes!”  I started the next day.                       My first night on the job didn’t start well at all.  I was told to stand at the door and look intimidating and that would be enough to ward off potential trouble.  I didn’t have a problem with that at all.  At 6’ 4”, 271 pounds, I was bigger than most people.  I was stronger than most people too.  I also knew I could kick butt if I had to.                      I hadn’t seen any Middle Eastern people since leaving Afghanistan, until these two Middle Eastern men attempted to enter the club.  I stopped them and asked for ID.  Just the sight of them aroused intense feelings.  I was hoping they would give me a reason to crush them.  One guy was meek and introverted, the other guy was brash and cocky.  He was resistant and did not want to show his ID.  I snatched his wallet out of his hands, grabbed his driver’s license and read his name.  Flashbacks about firefights in Afghanistan came rushing back.  My heart started to pound, adrenaline surged into my veins, sweat poured from my head, and my teeth automatically started to grind.  I was thinking, “Please give me a reason to crush you.”  The cocky Middle Eastern guy got in my face, his nose touched my chin.  I lost it.  I completely blacked out.  I came to my senses as the cops hit me with their taser guns.                        I was told that I beat the heck out of the two Middle Eastern guys.  One guy suffered a concussion, and I apparently broke the cocky guy’s jaw, eye socket, and busted his left arm.  I was proud of what I did.  In my mind, I got a little revenge for my buddies who were killed in Afghanistan.                     For that altercation I had to do a year in jail.  Since getting out of jail I have been looking for a job.  I am currently in the veterans’ homeless shelter and getting treatment for PTSD at the local VA.   Click Here For More Example Stressor Letters

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