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Republican Missouri State Legislator Shot In Iraq!
State legislator waited to reveal his wound VIDEO
He delayed until another wounded soldier was in his vehicle. “I want to go back” to Iraq, Brown says.
By LINDSAY HANSON METCALF
The Kansas City Star
Missouri Rep. Jason Brown waited about a minute and a half to tell anyone he had been hit.
A 7.62-mm bullet, possibly fired from an AK-47, struck him under his arm and pierced his left lung, X-rays would later tell him. But in that moment Oct. 5, the bang echoing through Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighborhood sounded more like a grenade.
Brown, an Army Reserve staff sergeant, spoke to reporters Tuesday at VFW Post No. 7356 in Parkville, recounting how he was wounded in Iraq. The military, citing patient privacy laws, has not released details of the incident.
He said his unit, the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion of Utica, N.Y., was assisting the Army’s Operation Together Forward to secure insurgent areas east of the Tigris River. He was manning a gun turret in the last Humvee of a convoy as the unit checked on whether work on the power grid had been completed.
Brown never saw the shooter. The bullet’s force threw him across the turret.
“It buckled my knees,” said Brown, 36.
A voice piped over the radio: Another soldier had been shot. It was Brown’s crewmate from Georgia, who took a bullet to the shoulder. Brown declined to identify his comrade, who survived.
The crew pulled the soldier from Georgia into Brown’s vehicle, which raced ahead of the convoy toward the nearest Forward Operating Base for initial treatment.
“I think I’ve been hit,” Brown said after the other wounded soldier was in the vehicle. Later he would say he thought that waiting was “the right thing to do.”A major tore open Brown’s vest and plugged the wound with his bare hand, switching later to a gauze pack. Brown said he fought sleep for several minutes and thought of his wife, Rachelle, and children, Alayna, 8, and Caleb, 4.
“We’re truly talking about seconds and inches and this story has a different end,” he said Tuesday.
Doctors kept him at a military hospital in Baghdad for four days before allowing him to return home to Platte City. Brown, 36, arrived in Kansas City on Oct. 10 for a month of convalescent leave.
The bullet, which broke one of his ribs, remains intact inside Brown’s lung, and no surgery to remove it has been scheduled. Doctors told him that operating — cutting through muscle, spreading ribs and disturbing the lung — would probably collapse the lung, necessitating months of recovery.
Brown, a Republican, is seeking re-election in Missouri’s 30th District. His opponent is Democrat Jared Welch, a lawyer from Platte City who has belonged to the Missouri Air National Guard since 1995. Welch serves in the judge advocate general corps.
Brown was elected to the General Assembly in 2002 and has served from afar since receiving orders in March for a yearlong tour in Iraq. The Missouri Constitution, however, has prevented him from voting on legislation while absent.
After his leave, Brown said, he will return to Iraq for “light duty” with his unit, despite protests from his wife.
“It’s a duty that I have,” he said. “I want to go back.”
He delayed until another wounded soldier was in his vehicle. “I want to go back” to Iraq, Brown says.
By LINDSAY HANSON METCALF
The Kansas City Star
Missouri Rep. Jason Brown waited about a minute and a half to tell anyone he had been hit.
A 7.62-mm bullet, possibly fired from an AK-47, struck him under his arm and pierced his left lung, X-rays would later tell him. But in that moment Oct. 5, the bang echoing through Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighborhood sounded more like a grenade.
Brown, an Army Reserve staff sergeant, spoke to reporters Tuesday at VFW Post No. 7356 in Parkville, recounting how he was wounded in Iraq. The military, citing patient privacy laws, has not released details of the incident.
He said his unit, the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion of Utica, N.Y., was assisting the Army’s Operation Together Forward to secure insurgent areas east of the Tigris River. He was manning a gun turret in the last Humvee of a convoy as the unit checked on whether work on the power grid had been completed.
Brown never saw the shooter. The bullet’s force threw him across the turret.
“It buckled my knees,” said Brown, 36.
A voice piped over the radio: Another soldier had been shot. It was Brown’s crewmate from Georgia, who took a bullet to the shoulder. Brown declined to identify his comrade, who survived.
The crew pulled the soldier from Georgia into Brown’s vehicle, which raced ahead of the convoy toward the nearest Forward Operating Base for initial treatment.
“I think I’ve been hit,” Brown said after the other wounded soldier was in the vehicle. Later he would say he thought that waiting was “the right thing to do.”A major tore open Brown’s vest and plugged the wound with his bare hand, switching later to a gauze pack. Brown said he fought sleep for several minutes and thought of his wife, Rachelle, and children, Alayna, 8, and Caleb, 4.
“We’re truly talking about seconds and inches and this story has a different end,” he said Tuesday.
Doctors kept him at a military hospital in Baghdad for four days before allowing him to return home to Platte City. Brown, 36, arrived in Kansas City on Oct. 10 for a month of convalescent leave.
The bullet, which broke one of his ribs, remains intact inside Brown’s lung, and no surgery to remove it has been scheduled. Doctors told him that operating — cutting through muscle, spreading ribs and disturbing the lung — would probably collapse the lung, necessitating months of recovery.
Brown, a Republican, is seeking re-election in Missouri’s 30th District. His opponent is Democrat Jared Welch, a lawyer from Platte City who has belonged to the Missouri Air National Guard since 1995. Welch serves in the judge advocate general corps.
Brown was elected to the General Assembly in 2002 and has served from afar since receiving orders in March for a yearlong tour in Iraq. The Missouri Constitution, however, has prevented him from voting on legislation while absent.
After his leave, Brown said, he will return to Iraq for “light duty” with his unit, despite protests from his wife.
“It’s a duty that I have,” he said. “I want to go back.”
I hadn't realized serving politicians could serve...he wasn't in a "safe" job, either...
To a good soldier.
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