Wounded GI Bryan Currie goes AWOL

Bryan Currie joined the Army in November 2004 because he says, “I thought it would be a good thing to fight for my country.” He was trained as an Infantry Grenadier and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 for 11 months. He describes what he experienced when he got injured: “We were on a convoy to pick up another soldier. I was the driver. On the way back my truck got hit by a land mine…. me, I got burned, I lost four teeth, broke my jaw, got shrapnel on my hands, I was jolted forward so my knees are all swollen and my back’s always sore.” He was treated in Afghanistan and was out of combat for three weeks and was sent back to driving trucks.

When he returned to the US he saw several military psychiatrists who treated him for PTSD. ” They’d give you a bag of pills and they’d say, ‘ Here, try these and if that one doesn’t work try another and if you find one that does, stick to it.” The military psychiatrist described Bryan’s profile as undeployable, but after pressure from his unit’s leadership, the doctor changed his status to deployable and Bryan was scheduled to redeploy to Afghanistan.

Bryan waited until two days before deploying. He packed his bags and left. He is currently AWOL. He attempted turning himself in to a base in New York, but his fear of being sent overseas again caused him to leave. “I’m 100% against the military,” he says,”I’ve done a complete U turn.”