I got a call from my son who is in basic at Ft Benning. He is being sent home after fracturing his tibia and then breaking it again. It looks like they are discharging him. Needless to say he is devestated and is taking the news pretty hard. He told us he marched a 6 mile ruck and they believe he fractured the bone on the march. He comleted the march and the next morning while running in PT the bone snapped. At that time he had no choice but to go to sick call, the bone was broken and x-rays revealed other problems with the bones in his lower legs. They told him he has some deformity in his lower legs and they are concerned they will break again, thus they are discharging him under medical conditions. Please keep him in your prayers as he has planned on being a soldier his entire life, so I know this is not going to be easy for him.
Best of luck and best wishes to him. Sometimes life throws us curveballs and we have to rethink our dreams. I hope he is able to find comfort and love from his family to get him through what has to be a big disappointment. Bless him and your family.
He told us he marched a 6 mile ruck and they believe he fractured the bone on the march. He comleted the march and the next morning while running in PT the bone snapped.
One tough dude! As dissapointed as your son is he can be confident that no Army would want to let a soldier of this caliber leave unless they had to. The inner strength your son has is amazing. He can be proud of himself and his desire to serve.
Originally posted by ndgriego: I got a call from my son who is in basic at Ft Benning. He is being sent home after fracturing his tibia and then breaking it again. It looks like they are discharging him. Needless to say he is devestated and is taking the news pretty hard. He told us he marched a 6 mile ruck and they believe he fractured the bone on the march. He comleted the march and the next morning while running in PT the bone snapped. At that time he had no choice but to go to sick call, the bone was broken and x-rays revealed other problems with the bones in his lower legs. They told him he has some deformity in his lower legs and they are concerned they will break again, thus they are discharging him under medical conditions. Please keep him in your prayers as he has planned on being a soldier his entire life, so I know this is not going to be easy for him.
So sorry to hear this news. Please keep an eye out for any depression. It was four years ago that I had to retire from my dream job due to injuries and it was very difficult to pick up the pieces.
He is pushing and begging for a second opinion from an outside doc before being discharged. As we understand it it is within his commanders power to grant this. So we are praying that he will be allowed to get a second opinion on whether his condition prevents him serving or whether he can heal up and stay in. We sent him a letter today telling him to hang in there and do all he can do and if it does not work then we will see if we can pursue re-entry on the outside and if that fails we will move on and pursue some other line of work. I am torn between wanting him to just come home and wanting him to exhaust all options first. I think if he tries everything he can to stay and fails he will feel better about it than just giving up and coming home.
First off I want to say I am sorry for your son. Its very hard to deal with something like that.
Honestly its probly best that he do everything he can. That way if he does have to come home he'll never have to wonder "if I had done this maybe I'd still be there". I hope everything works out for him no matter what the future holds for him.
I will pray for him, that he can move on with his life. This happened to my nephew and it has taken him about 3 years to recover. He had joined the Navy and was placed on a special team during BC, on the 3rd week he climbed over a wall and fell on his knee. Went to sick bay and had the knee x-ray it showed old injuries and was sent home. I will also keep you in my prayers as well.
He is still there. Last we heard he is getting an evaluation on September 6th and after that he will be moved to the 30th AG and might be there for a week or two before finally coming home.
His letters are up and down, he is still very disappointed and he still thinks that he must be an Infantryman if he is to stay in the army, we keep telling him that another MOS would not be a bad thing but he has been brainwashed for the past 8 week to think that POTGs (I think that is people other than grunts) are bad. We do not know if he was offered another MOS or not as his letter was not clear but he basically said that he told them Infantry of nothing. I think he is being foolish about that part but it is his choice in the end. His spirit were improved in the letter we received today, he seems to be facing up to the situation and his biggest problem right now is he is bored out of his mind. I guess he is still with his platoon but he cannot march or go anywhere so he is sitting around the “bay” all day staring at the walls, he says that alone is driving him crazy.
As for me I am doing better although I still cringe when I open one of his letters. We are sad for him as he will be spending his 20th birthday there and I doubt he will be celebrating.
Anyway I just wanted to update on his situation. If you pray I would ask you to keep him in your prayers and us as well as all this waiting and not being able to communicate can drive you batty. We really do not know for certain how bad his injury is or how the healing is coming along because all he ever talks about in his letters is how depressed he is about not being able to continue with his platoon.
Please let your son know how proud we all are of him. I pray that he gets good news at his Drs. appt and he gets to stay in. My hope is that they keep him no matter what. His guts and determination have already made him something his parents, the Army and this country can be proud of. It must be very hard on all of you to not be able to be there and really know what is going on. Tell him we all care and he needs to show them just what he's made of
We got to talk with him at length today and he is holding up well. His injury is healing and he sees a doc next week. He says he still plans to throw himself on their mercy and do all that he can to stay in. Some of the stuff we heard is very distressing. He is still going through a lot of crap from officers and staff that do not know him. Things like tossing his crutch into the bushes and making him double time around the building on his cast. I do not think he even told me half of what he has to put up with and through it all I stand amazed at his willingness to serve and his determination to try and stay in. He says he refused his first direct order. Soneone told him to recite the sick call rangers creed and he refused. Hopefully he will not get in trouble for that, it is sad that they would even make these guys recite such a creed. Our son said he will die first. Anyway this sure has not been much fun and not at all what I expected in sending a son off to serve. Our family has always served and we have encouraged our sons to do so, now I cannot help but regret that to some extent. Thank God for the DS's he is assigned to, they are not treating him badly and having their respect is at least helping him to get through this. I will say one thing, I am damn proud of him. He has shown himself to be strong and he has a huge heart.
