This Should Make All Americans Angry

t r u t h o u t - Soldiers Pushed to Discharge before Medical Needs Met

This is a really disturbing article. I don't understand how our government can turn its back on wounded vets. The United States has a long and shameful history of neglect for our veterans but somehow I always hope it will change, be better.

But if it is better it is only because we are fighting like hell to make it better.

Fallen Hero: Army Sgt. Troy David Jenkins 25, of Ridgecrest, California. Died of Wounds received in action. On April 19, 2003, Sgt. Jenkins was on a dismounted patrol with other soldiers when he was injured as result of an explosion. He was assigned to B Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Died on April 24, 2003. From Fallen Heroes Memorial.

The backstory on this soldier is stunning:

Troy Jenkins told his father he planned to get out of the military because he felt his luck was running out. Even so, he made a courageous, split-second decision April 19 that ended his life, but saved those of a 7-year-old girl and several soldiers in his 187th Infantry Regiment

Jenkins, 25, was critically wounded when an Iraqi child approached a group of soldiers with an unexploded cluster bomb. As the bomb went off, Jenkins threw himself over it.

He was transported to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and died Thursday.

“The boys in his outfit called me and said he deserves the (Medal of Honor),” said his father, Jack Jenkins of Turkey Creek, La. He said one soldier from his son’s outfit explained Troy’s actions this way: “If you were standing in a store and there was a guy in there with a hand grenade, which way would you run? Troy ran forward, to save that little girl and to save his buddies.”

...Jenkins, who served in Afghanistan, was planning to leave the service in July and wanted to join the California Highway Patrol. He didn’t want to leave his wife and two children, ages 4 and 2, alone again. “I think he had a premonition,” his father said.

His wife, Amanda Jenkins, said the circumstances of his death were not surprising. “He didn’t have a selfish bone in his body. He was always thinking of other people first.”

From Honor The Fallen at MilitaryCity.com

You can't tell me that we aren't as a nation impoverished by the loss of a man like that. One soldier who made such a difference. He should be at home with his children; not dead at age 25. May his God hold him close.