Posted on 04/17/2012 9:47:23 PM PDT by tired&retired
Please read this article and send prayers for Josh. He was in the worst of the worst fighting for two tours of duty. Please Army, apply your "No Soldier left behind" policy to your wounded soldiers and help them heal.
"The parents of Staff Sgt. Joshua Eisenhauer say their son thought he was shooting at Afghan insurgents when he fired on police and firefighters."
" a nurse in the intensive care unit at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital told Josh's father that when his son regained some mental awareness, he mumbled "whose got the roof." When asked what he thought had happened, Joshua Eisenhauer was said to have responded: "I was fighting insurgents."
Mark Eisenhauer said his son experienced two combat tours in Afghanistan, the first lasting 15 months in the Sangin Valley of Helmand Province as part of Quick Reaction Force Task Force Fury.
"After Joshua returned from his first tour, I became aware that he was experiencing nightmares," Mark Eisenhauer wrote. "Nightmares about being trapped on a rooftop with 500-pounders going off too close on both sides of his position and the screams of children as they searched houses and ran through villages chasing insurgents."
Despite his son's physical and mental injuries, Mark Eisenhauer wrote, the soldier volunteered for a second tour to Afghanistan because he enjoyed the bond with his friends and wanted to go to war with soldiers he had trained.
On his second tour, in Zabul Province, Joshua Eisenhauer told his dad he experienced a blast from a truck bomb.
"After the explosion," his father wrote, "he helped pick up body parts of some of his buddies to help with identification."
Joshua's mother, Erickson, said in her letter that two of her son's soldier friends died in the attack, on Nov. 19, 2009. He had been talking to them moments before, she said.
She said her son told her he had signed up for a third tour of Afghanistan, but those plans changed because of his PTSD.
PTSD is real.
Thanks for sharing this.
Prayers up for Josh.
They all deserve and should receive only the finest care and assistance.
Anything they need they should get. Period.
Josh, or Ike as his military friends all call him, is sitting in prison in Raleigh, NC for confronting the fireman and police who woke him by smashing down his door. He needs the Army to take his case and get him medical help rather than just rotting in a county jail while the wheels of justice move slowly.
Praying for Josh. Can see how it would happen, that’s for sure.
USA Today newspaper picked up on this story and wrote a story on how the police department swat teams are no match for these trained, experienced soldiers. If Ike had wanted to kill them, they would be dead.
I do see both sides of this story. It was not properly handled by the police who thought one of their own officers had been shot in the face, but actually had tripped and fell down the steps injuring his head, causing blood on his face. Other police told the press that this officer was shot in the face.
Thinking that one of their own had been shot, the police over reacted, went ballistic and made Josh’s apartment into Swiss cheese with bullets and tear gas! They refused to allow one of his close special forces buddies to go in during the standoff to get him to surrender.
Prayers Up!
Dear God, please bless and protect Josh. Heal his mind, his heart and his back. Deliver him from evil and have mercy on him.
I’m the mother of 1 Soldier, and 1 Marine. I love our troops, and I’m proud of them. I prayed for Josh.
Prayers for Josh
I second this prayer.PTSD is real and we ought not punish
those honestly visited by such demonic affliction.
"Please Army, apply your "No Soldier left behind" policy to your wounded soldiers and help them heal."
It pisses me off that it needs to be said in the first place, but such is where we are in this obamanation, begging the powers that be to take care of those they have sent to war in our name.
We are multifaceted beings who experience the world on a physical level, an emotional level, a mental level and on a spiritual level and we can be completely disabled by the pain and suffering at each level.
I would argue that physical damage and illness and physical pain and suffering are easier for us to understand and heal from, while emotional is more difficult, mental even more so and spiritual damage and illness the most difficult of all to overcome.
After reading about Josh's experiences, I am in awe of the man and what he has gone through. When we hear that someone has been critically injured, we think only of the physical damage. He might have passed a physical exam, but Josh sounds like someone who was and probably still is critically injured on many levels.
None the less, it's hard to appreciate how resilient and tough we humans can be and with the appropriate care we can heal from almost anything.
These men and women, these kids, who have volunteered to go through what Josh has, must be given first priority for necessary care to bring them home.
It's also hard to appreciate how compassionate and responsible we can be and Josh, and everyone else coming home, needs to feel that now and know that now, to help them heal from all that was done to them while they served us.
We might be able to heal some, too.
It might also be easier to answer for what we've done, if we have tried to clean up and repair the damage we've caused.
GBA,
Thank you for your caring words of wisdom. And most important, for your prayerful thoughts.
I am going to post a recent article on Josh, but it says he is not getting help while in jail. He needs help. It’s an election year, can someone do something for him?
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/13/4099139/family-says-accused-soldier-needs.html
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