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    Operation Proper Exit: Wounded warriors bring experience and wisdom to Soldiers in Afghanistan

    Operation Proper Exit: Wounded warriors bring experience and wisdom to Soldiers in Afghanistan

    Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Whitney Houston | From left to right, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Capel, Capt. Casey Wolfe, retired...... read more read more

    AFGHANISTAN

    11.04.2014

    Story by Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston 

    U.S. Forces Afghanistan

    AFGHANISTAN - Wounded warrior and former Marine Sgt. James Wright, a Conroe, Texas native, light-heartedly chatted with his roommate and good friend, former Marine Capt. John Urquhart (also a wounded warrior), as he got dressed after a long day of meet-and-greets with Soldiers and high-ranking officers on several forward operating bases throughout Afghanistan, Oct. 31. Several scars from obvious skin grafts crisscrossed his stomach and sides, and the most routine tasks of his day, such as putting on deodorant, a shirt or fastening a zipper, seemed second nature to him despite the lack of both of his hands.

    Wright, along with three other combat-wounded service members toured Afghanistan Oct. 31-Nov. 2, on what might have been the last Operation Proper Exit hosted in Afghanistan by the Troops First Foundation.

    “We started Operation Proper Exit in June 2009,” said Rick Kell, who serves as executive director of the Troops First Foundation. “The first trip we did was to Iraq and was followed by nine subsequent trips to Iraq, and this is the eighth to Afghanistan. If we can find funding for another one, we’ll do it but access to the battle spaces has become more and more limited.”

    Operation Proper Exit’s purpose according the Troops First Foundation’s website is to provide, wounded Service members “the opportunity to make a ‘proper exit’ on their own terms as they walk to the aircraft and climb the ramp rather than being medically evacuated. This component has a positively resounding effect in offering closure to that chapter of their lives.”

    The website also outlined other objectives, such as a renewed sense of brotherhood with their fellow service members who continue to serve in a combat zone. The trip offered the wounded warriors an opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences, as well as a new sense of direction their lives have taken since receiving their wounds on the battlefield.

    For Sgt. Wright, it was his second “proper exit” since he lost his hands during an ambush in Fallujah to a rocket-propelled grenade while serving with the Marine’s 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. His first trip back to Fallujah was in 2009, and he found this trip to Afghanistan offered him a variety of new therapeutic opportunities.

    “One thing I’ve learned is that recovery is a non-stop thing. It’s not just like pow, I’m better because I went back to where I was wounded. It gave me closure for sure, but this Proper Exit has helped because it offers a type of experiential therapy,” Wright said. “It’s also given me an opportunity to voice how I feel. I may not be able to do something as one person, but if I say my piece and then somebody else states that same piece, then our word counts.”

    Kell explained that such experiences are exactly what Proper Exit is for. Although closure is a small part of the healing process, the experience with interacting with service members throughout a combat theater gives them a sense of pride for their resilience to tough circumstances.

    “The major take away for me is that I kind of forgot that people over here think highly of us for what we’ve gone through, because I’ve been a civilian for so long,” said former U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ben Dellinger, a Charlotte, North Carolina, native who served three deployments in Iraq with the 1st Bn., 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. Dellinger lost his left leg just below the knee to an improvised explosive device in Baghdad on his third tour in 2007. “Healing is definitely something you have to take a day at a time, but I’m walking away more proud of myself for what I’ve done and how far I’ve come.”

    The group traveled to four different forward operating bases throughout Afghanistan and experienced base defense capabilities, military working dog training, as well as held town hall meetings to share their thoughts, experiences and wisdom with other troops.

    “Life isn’t a right, your flat screen TV isn’t a right, and no one owes you anything,” Wright said while talking to troops in Kandahar. “I think that people need to realize that they are able to have the luxuries and freedoms they have, because people are willing to go and fight for it.”

    The wounded warriors also talked about post traumatic stress disorder and how to effectively cope with it. They encouraged service members to re-establish bonds with their fellow service members in an effort to reduce suicides that plague the military’s current and past veterans.

    “PTSD is not a disorder, it is a natural human reaction to a stressful and traumatic event. There’s nothing wrong with you if you have PTSD, it just changes things a little bit and you have to learn how to live with it,” said former Marine Capt. John Urquhart, a native of Houston, Texas, who continues a fight for justice as a trial lawyer for his own firm.

    “You’re still the same person; you just have some new challenges,” Urquhart said. “You need to seek out an advocate and be an advocate. Twenty-two suicides a day amongst combat veterans needs to come to a screeching halt, because it’s a preventable tragedy.”

    Urquhart was involved in a vehicle-born improvised explosive attack that threw him in such a way that he hit his head on a humvee’s door causing a traumatic brain injury. He was also diagnosed with sever post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing many of his Marines killed in action.

    Kell explained that Operation Proper Exit was not intended to be a comprehensive healing process, but does offer the wounded warriors a chance to wear the uniform again, and to continue on their path to recovery.

    “I’m not sure that Proper Exit is 100 percent successful, because there’s not time to measure success, but I think it’s a piece of the bigger puzzle of recovery. There are so many things that need to be addressed in the warrior-care landscape that will present itself over many more years,” Kell said. “But the strength of our organization … is the fact that we have over 100 warriors that we’ve worked with, and in some way have come into their lives in a positive way.”

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 11.04.2014
    Date Posted: 11.04.2014 12:51
    Story ID: 146934
    Location: AF
    Hometown: CAMP PENDLETON, CA, US
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