We all remember John Kerry back in '04... his fake Purple Hearts, his faux heroism and that steaming pile of "reporting for duty."
Well, Kerry... here's a man you ought to meet. Here's a man not only of strength, but a man who puts the courage of his convictions to the test... a man who could scam his way out of a combat zone... just like you did... for REAL wounds, suffered in REAL combat... But he's a man... unlike you... who wants to "Charlie Mike" and go far betond and above his duty.
Meet Staff Sergeant Brandon Camacho... holder of FOUR Purple Hearts... and a real, genuine, American Hero. And, Mr. Kerry?
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Mideast edition, Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Dianna Cahn / S&S
Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho, 22, shows off his 10th Mountain Division patch that was pierced by a bullet in a near miss in April. A month later, the squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment,was shot in the same arm, earning him a fourth Purple Heart for combat wounds.
LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho was in a "pissing contest" with the enemy. He shot one guy, then another popped up.
Dianna Cahn / S&S
Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho, 22, shows off his 10th Mountain Division patch that was pierced by a bullet in a near miss in April. A month later, the squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment,was shot in the same arm, earning him a fourth Purple Heart for combat wounds.
LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho was in a "pissing contest" with the enemy. He shot one guy, then another popped up.
He threw a grenade, but it bounced off the man and exploded in a ditch.
As the squad leader then zigzagged through a field, he felt someone tug at his shirt sleeve. Hours later, after the firefight, he’d discover that a bullet had whizzed right through it, narrowly missing his bicep. It tore a hole through his 10th Mountain Division patch and through a pack of cigarettes in his arm pocket, destroying all but one.
"So I pulled it out and had myself a cigarette," Camacho says, holding the patch over his arm. Then he lifts the patch to expose a scar. It’s not from that bullet in April, but from another one a month later, earning the 22-year-old his fourth Purple Heart for wounds in a war he just won’t quit.
Struck by shrapnel during heavy mortar bombardment in Iraq in 2003, Camacho has since been grazed by one bullet, hit in the shoulder with a tracer round and finally, in June, shot in the arm. His men call him "The Bullet Magnet" and joke that since all his injuries have been on his left side, if they just stand to his right, they’ll be fine.
The most Purple Hearts received by one person is eight, according to various sources, but receiving four remains a rare occurrence.
A soldier’s soldier with a penchant for military history, Camacho has risen from private to staff sergeant with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s Company B, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, through three deployments and four combat wounds. He’s been shot, mortared, came within seconds of being struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. He’s watched colleagues die.
“He’s the most experienced guy I know,” said Sgt. Daniel Hernandez, 23, of Odessa, Texas, who is in Camacho’s squad. “He can take any bad situation and use it in our favor. If we could fight this war and pick a dream team, I’d pick him.”
Camacho dreams of digging his toes in the sand and sipping a drink by the ocean in his native Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. And while he toys with the idea of getting out next year, he’s still in awe of the U.S. Army.
“I remember when I was a private. I’d look at my squad leader and think, ‘Look at him. He’s a staff sergeant. No one can touch these guys.’ Now I think, ‘God, I am the same,’ ” he says.
He recites the names of the men who didn’t make it: Maj. Douglas Sloan, the company commander with a great sense of humor they used to call “Lunch Box” because he was always looking for snacks, killed by a bomb in Wygal Valley, Afghanistan, on Oct. 31, 2006; Pfc. Alex Oceguera, who was killed with Sloan in the blast; Sgt. Russell Durgin, who died on June 13, 2006, in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, when his unit took small-arms fire; and Sgt. Brandon Adams, Camacho’s first roommate at Fort Drum, who taught him how to clean his boots and was killed in Iraq. Adams died of injuries sustained Feb. 16, 2004, when a grenade exploded as he was clearing a house in Fallujah.
“You meet the best people in the world in the Army,” Camacho says.
His first combat wound came in 2003, when his Army base near Fallujah came under mortar fire. Shrapnel was screaming into flesh and lit the tents on fire.
While Camacho was running to the bunker, a shard of burning metal struck just above his left knee, and a rocket hit the structure. He headed for another bunker but fell. Sgt. Ryan Haskins, who is deployed with him again now in Afghanistan, picked him up and pulled him to safety.
5 comments:
The fact that staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho is a hero does not mean that Senator Kerry was not a war hero too.
2004 is over, the politics should end. The fact of the matter is that Senator Kerry not only given 3 purple hearts, but he earned the prestigious silver star and a broze star with valour. That is the official Navy record. In 2006, Republican Senator John Warner, who was the Secretary of the Navy during the Vietnam War spoke on the floor of the Senate saying that he had personally reviewed Senator Kerry's silver star and it had been well earned.
Whether you like the fact that he came back to protest the war or not, the Navy and the men actually in his boat when he earned those medals agree with Kerry - Republican funded people who were mostly never in the same place and same time as Kerry lied in 2004. They lied - and you who value what it takes to be a hero voted for a VP who had other priorities and a President who barely, if that, met the requirements for the national guard unit he used to avoid Vietnam.
Mr Anon... thanks for stopping by.
I didn't use an "ipso-facto" argument. I'm pointing out that SSG Camacho is doing everything HE can to stay with his troops... while Kerry did everything HE could to bail on them.
Then again, it doesn't appear that, unlike Kerry, SSG Camacho is using this war as a ticket-punch in a political career, either.
That Sen. Warner chopped Kerry's Silver Star means absolutely nothing to me. During the early part of the Iraq War, the Bush Administration stupidly played up the actions of one PFC Jessica Lynch. She got a Bronze Star as well... for being in what amounts to a car wreck.
In short, a true hero, IMHO, is one who has shed his or her blood for this country... and then continues to do his duty... and much more.
Kerry fails the hero test in that regard.
As for writing that the "politics should end," one wonders: did you take that position in 2000 after the Florida recount debacle? This is 2009. Has the empty suit in the White House put the "politics behind?"
Or is this just another one of those switches for convienience.... something of a double-standard applied in the dust of the, "oh well, my guy is running the show" position?
As a soldier who enlisted during that little tiff in SE Asia, I was slandered by Kerry's lies to Congress about the claims he made concerning the treatment of prisoners over there... and that's when I concluded that a genuine hero does not need to be a lying, low-life scum bag.
Thanks for coming by, and don't hesitate to stop by again in the future.
Further, the rank hypocrisy of telling me that "the politics should end" and in the next breath, dragging out Bush's National Guard service while the scumbag that YOU supported never set foot in the military speaks for itself.
Odd, isn't it... that back in 04 Kerry was all that because of his so-called experience... and yet you and the other deludeds ultimately support a clown that never thought enough of this country to serve it in uniform.
Talk about situational ethics.
Yes... I voted for GW... and given the complete morons you people ran, I'd vote for him again... warts and all.
Mr "Just a guy"
Senator Kerry did not slander you in 1971. He was given the chance to speak to the SFRC on what was said at the winter soldier "hearings". In the oft quoted comments, that was precisely what he was doing. He said [i]soldiers said [/i] before those comments. The Senators had already been given a transcript of the entire Winter Soldier hearing. They, not a 27 year old vet, had the ability to investigate the truth of anything attested to. The fact is that My Lai and other things did happen and the military rewrote manuals because of those things.
Kerry then spent the rest of his time advocating for the Senate to do more for returning vets - both in healthcare and in helping re-integrate them into society. Issues he has worked on since 1971. He also, famously called for an end to the war and a change in forein policy.
The fact is I was a college student then - likely the most antiwar population that existed. The fact is, within this group the image of the Vietnam soldier in 1970 was Lt Calley. Lt Kerry very very greatly improved your image. Take a minute to THINK who were people who thought LESS of soldiers after Kerry's comments.
Now, a WWII vet relative, life long Republican - shocked me in late 2003. He had found and read Kerry's testimony and hoped he would win the nomination - because he was impressed that he was a good man and would do what was right for vets.
Odd, Anon... but I have to disagree.
When that lowlife scumbag gave the following testimony:
"...they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."
He was a lying, lowlife scumbag.
That you can come along and say that he DIDN'T slander just goes to show what a delusional kool aid drinker you happen to be.
As an Army vet, I can appreciate your unsupported recitation of some unspecified "WWII vet relative" the facts speak for themselves: past and present members of the Armed Forces voted overwhelmingly in favor of Mr. Bush.
Kerry COULD have been some one like Comacho... he could have been as genuine as you're choosing to portray him.
Kerry COULD have remembered that, as an officer, his duty was to his men. He COULD have been fit to carry a man like Camacho's duffel bag.
But he didn't. And he isn't. And he is a lying, slandering, son of a bitch.
Fini.
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