Some of you may remember that I have a nephew in the Army. He's assigned to 1/24 Inf, part of the Stryker brigade currently deployed in Mosul. Well, Sean got injured pretty bad in that mess tent bomb blast and has spent the last 6 months recovering. He's not 100% yet but he did outscore some of the replacements in a PT test last week.

Other than working out on his own, he spends his spare time partying with buds and chasing tail all over the state . When on duty in the rear detachment he's bored out his mind, so he asked to go back to Mosul and they accepted .

I really wish some of you could have met him but we never did hook up at the right time. He'll ship out with a small group in xx weeks and rejoin his buddies. They probably won't let him outside the wire but he doesn't care. He can also re-up while deployed and is seriously considering it. The brigade will be standing down soon and will come back in 3 months so this will be a short deployment, as was his last one.

That last deployment netted him a purple heart and he's been put up for a bronze star with V, for helping his team leader under fire, who got an AK round through his leg. Hopefully this time around won't be as exciting...

So here's to a young man that makes me proud . I hope we can all get together someday and send some bullets downrange.

Big Brass ones on that guy!

Amen.  I hope he comes home safe and sound.  I'll gladly buy him a drink.  (That's after we are done shooting.)

Wish him the best for me and tell him to keep his ass down.

HOOAH!!!

Semper Fi!

Oh my gosh!

Well, I was wanting to meet this cat, but now I've got a whole new respect for him. Best wishes!

This is why America is and always will be the greatest nation on Gods green earth. Tell him Thank you for his continues service.

DD

Right on man you should try and get him to a shoot sometime.

Godspeed to him and all his comrades in arms.

Heard from Sean today. They got stuck in Kuwait a few extra days and are finally in Mosul. In his words, "Iraq is the same as before except it's unbelievably fucking hot.  Been at least 120 the last few days.  Other than that things are going well.  It's nice to see all the guys again.  Now I just have to get used to walking around in body armor in this heat."

I can't wait till he get's back here on friendly ground. If anyone wants to send some words his way just fire off an email to seanbev at msn dot com.

For those of you who like to follow what's happening over there, a couple of links:
Stryker Brigade News and Michael Yon's blog, which contains his dispatches that "have the benefit of his life experiences without drawbacks based on deadlines or demands of marketplace."

Looks like Sean is going to Germany next year, and will become another CavVet!

Future plans for the Strykers: According to the Pentagon, the realignment will result in 3 SBCTs stationed at Ft. Lewis, each of which will be part of the 2nd Infantry Division. The 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division will be tranformed into a SBCT, and be stationed at Schofield in Hawaii. The 172nd SBCT will return to Alaska following its upcoming deployment and be reflagged as a SBCT of the 25th Infantry Division.

Finally, according to Special Assistant to The Secetary of the Army, Ray Bubois, the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division: will come back to Fort Lewis. The complexity of this is, as it comes back we will refit it, reset it. And the aggregation of the Stryker population here, in June of '06 we will move this organization lock, stock and barrel, and it will come over here [to Germany] and reflag itself as the 2nd Cav Regiment to replace the 3/1 out of 1st Infantry Division and start setting ourselves up for the final footprint in Europe.

Good luck to him...

If you ait CAV, you aint shit......






That is one tought young nephew you got there tumbleweedman. I think we need to send him a package. Can you ask him what he wants??

I am thinking one of these....

On his first deployment I kept asking him what he needed over there and all I got was "we've got everything we need". When he was home I pulled some teeth and found out that music and video dvd's were high on the nice to have list. This deployment is short but a hot and dirty environment sounds pretty miserable. I'll ask about AC, good idea.

I pretty sure he took the EOTech with him (I built him an M4gery with one). He lost confidence in the Aimpoint when it lost zero and couldn't hit a "target" during a firefight. Had to go with irons to take care of the problem. As far as weapons go, they have all the toys. Not much we can help with there.

Me too on the beer when he gets back!!

1911fan

have

Good on your nephew!
And good for his buds who are still "Over There" for having a bud who would do that for them!  Not that this crew is entirely unfamiliar with that sort of sentiment...

I hear if you re-up "In Country" Uncle showers you with money and stuff...

Quoted: I hear if you re-up "In Country" Uncle showers you with money and stuff...

Oh yes, big bonus, but that does come with a price. I'm guessing he'll get out in less than ten years but he really does like this sort of thing so who knows. At this point he's been active for only 18 months.

Anytime he'd care to spend a 3-4 day weekend over here on the dry side, I'll host. Ask him to pick his pleasure-On Lake Pend Orielle jetskiing/fishing, tearin' up the bars in Spokane, Huntin' whatever, wherever...on my dime.

Quoted: Anytime he'd care to spend a 3-4 day weekend over here on the dry side, I'll host. Ask him to pick his pleasure-On Lake Pend Orielle jetskiing/fishing, tearin' up the bars in Spokane, Huntin' whatever, wherever...on my dime.

That is one hell of an offer, I'll be right over and I'll make sure to pass it along.

Found out it's recommended all packages be sent by Aug 7th to make sure they get them. I'm going to send a few things but generally save some bucks for when he gets back.

just like matt said, when he gets back, any thing he wants to do, on this side on this side of the state, my treat, Matt can handle the Lake stuff I'll handle the bars and choufer him/ them around spokane.

Bravo!  We had a couple of guys in my guard company who wanted to get back over before the rest of the battalion came back, but they just couldn't heal up quickly enough.

Quoted: Bravo!  We had a couple of guys in my guard company who wanted to get back over before the rest of the battalion came back, but they just couldn't heal up quickly enough.

They are all hero's in my book. I don't know how he did it (getting sent back) but Sean is not in any condition to be fighting in city, not at a fast tempo anyway. He got hit in several places, our best count is six separate shrapnel hits. One nicked the carotid in his neck and one nicked the femoral right at his thigh and hip. Neck was a small wound, thigh was bad enough to require a muscle flap to protect artery and nerve. That one could have ended it right there. Another couple, possibly the same piece, took out a hunk of bone in his left thumb and his left ring finger tip. The thumb needs a lot more healing and rehab. Another piece tore out a chunk of his left bicep. The last piece entered the abdomen and tore up some bowels. He's had several surguries and there is some major scar tissue from chest to groin. That's another area that needs some healing time, he can't lay down and crank out 50 situps just yet, but he works at it and swears he'll come back and be better than before.

One other thing I noticed is the burns. The blast was on his right side and left some third degree burns to his right hand and arm, on the exposed skin areas, and some not so bad burns to his face. So, he was close enough to it to get licked by the flames. Compared to the shrapnel damage the burns weren't critical but still needed attention. My hat's off to the medical folks on site at Marez, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, Walter Reed in DC, and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Madigan can kiss my ass though, they nearly screwed the pooch on a simple surgical recovery and we could have lost him right here at home.

Enough of that. He gets back near the end of October and we should get together and buy him and his buds all they can drink. They certainly deserve it.

Thats great to heae he is recovering and back out there doing what he wants to do. It sounds like he went through quite an ordeal. I can't imagine at this point how it would be to go through or see that but I'll find out first hand soon enough.