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Bio
I am SPC Durham. I am a combat medic in the SCARNG currently serving with the 133rd MP Co. I work at McGrady Training Center on orders as a medic to support training for soldiers. I worked at McGrady for 3 months after graduating from AIT. During my time at McGrady then, I felt the need to deploy, so I linked up with the 133rd MP Co who was deploying to Afghanistan. During my time on deployment, I developed some close relationships with the soldiers and took my job very seriously so I could keep my men healthy. On 20Jun2012, the squad I rolled out on mission that day with was doing a TCP at a checkpoint in Khost City, Afghanistan. An operation we would do on a daily basis in different locations. Around noon while doing a TCP, a man wearing a suicide vest jumped out of the back of a car and ran up on my squad detonating his vest only feet away from us in a crowded market. The explosion killed three of my friends, and injured five more including myself. Also killed was our interperator and 17 Afghan civilians and injuring dozens more Afghan civilians. The injuries I sustained were a broken femur, a large chunk of my outer thigh running from my hip to my knee was blown off, a broken pelvis, a broken left ulna, and TBI. I woke up only seconds after the blast went off seeing all of my men laid out on the ground. Two of the men who died I was really close to. One was LT Rawl. I rode in the truck everday on mission. The other was SFC Thomas. He was the best NCO and squad leader I could ever have known. They were my close friends. The third soldier who died was SGT Meador. Him and I were touching shoulder to shoulder when we got hit. The reason I'm putting all this in my summary is because it helps me to talk about it. Too many soldiers are unable to recover from these catastrophic events because they hold it in. Opening up and talking about it helps. Also, I put this in my summary because I worked my tail off to make a full recovery so I can continue to fight for the men who no longer can. I work through my pain every single day for the men we lost that day. I do it because they deserve someone who will continue the fight in their honor. Also if this story will help anyone who happens to read it, thats also something I hope I can do. Help. I pushed myself to overcome these injuries and its the least I can do is to help others. So if you read this, don't be shy about coming to me for help. We all need it. I might not have all the answers on things like this, but I will help find them for you.