Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, July 3,2019
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 7A
Scott Rogers DCN Regional Staff
Samuel Walley, of Winder, visits the Freedom Garden Friday,
June 21, 2019 at the Northeast Georgia History Center. The
Afghanistan War veteran was wounded by an IED and now
FROM 1A
Walley
Adrenaline pumping, heart in
his throat, Walley lifted his
weapon, ready to track the tar
get as he rounded the road.
He felt heat, and a short
moment later a weightlessness.
His mouth was filled with dirt,
and he attempted to stand but
couldn’t figure out why his legs
weren’t supporting him or his
arms lifting him.
His medic pulled him from
the dust cloud, which the rest
of the soldiers back at the Zhari
checkpoint saw rise into the
sky. Walley’s right leg was sev
ered above the knee, his left
arm wrecked and dangling.
Shrapnel pocked his left leg,
but it remained intact.
“(The insurgents) ended up
detonating the IED off to the
right of me — right beside this
trail that we all just walked in
on,” he said. “Nobody picked
up the IED.”
In the aftermath of the blast,
someone managed to grab the
man on the bike. He was
“bagged and tagged,” Walley
said, and carted off to who-
knows-where. The soldier
never learned who he was.
Walley was medevaced and on
the operating table in fewer than
20 minutes. He held it together
and didn’t go into shock until the
field surgeon removed what
remained of his left arm and
placed it in a little garbage bag
with a biohazard symbol on it.
He would have nightmares
about that moment for years.
Post-traumatic stress
“When I first met him, it’s
been over 3-and-a-half years,
some of that was affecting him
a lot,” said Mike Seely, discuss
ing Walley’s wounds both
external and internal.
He had been through dozens
of surgeries at a Veterans
Affairs hospital in Washington,
D.C. In that time, he was visit
ed by President Barack Obama,
senators, congressmen, profes
sional athletes, leaders of veter
ans groups and advocates —
most of them just wanting to
express their thanks, some
looking for an easy photo-op
with a wounded vet.
He didn’t walk again until
2013. When he was discharged
from the medical center, he was
overweight from months of
being bound to a wheelchair.
“Even though I could walk in
the summer of 2013, I don’t
think I got (back to normal)
until probably a little over a
year ago,” he said.
With limited movement and a
lot of pain, Walley started anoth
er fight stateside, this one against
bad dreams, isolation and anger.
“The military is really great
on taking a civilian and con
verting them into a killing
machine,” Seely said. “The one
thing they’re not good at is con
verting them from a killing
machine to a productive mem
ber of society.”
Those early years of civilian
life weren’t good ones for Walley,
who tried to treat his ailments
with the usual salves: Alcohol,
misbehavior, resentment.
“His attitude wasn’t a good
one,” Seely said. “The Sam that
I knew when I first met and the
Sam that I know today you’d
say are two different people.
He’s grown a lot in the past
almost four years.”
Through the work of veterans
groups, especially Seely’s own
For The Warriors Foundation,
the soldier was able to turn his
life around through “exposure
to another element,” Seely said.
He enrolled at UNG, got
back into a gym routine and
now practices Jiu Jitsu — each
new step breaking down walls
vets struggling through PTSD
erect around themselves.
But they haven’t come down
easy.
He’s been a student at UNG
for most of the past four years
but is just now making real
progress with his education.
Initially, he was in so much
pain from walking the campus
that he couldn’t manage his
schedule.
And then, the past few years
have been punctuated by the
stateside suicides of soldiers in
his old platoon.
“Unfortunately, it’s almost
separated my platoon a little
bit,” Walley said. “We all came
together when it would happen,
but some guys would slowly
distance themselves just because
of the pain it caused a lot of us.”
A new way
The 26-year-old soldier has
held himself together both by
being helped and helping oth
ers. Emerging from isolation,
Walley is now an involved
member of three organizations:
For The Warriors Foundation,
the local American Legion Post
7 in Gainesville and the PTSD
Foundation of America.
For The Warriors is focused
on reintegrating vets back into
daily life — helping them form
connections that keep them out
in the community in order to
“fully integrate back into society
and live a rewarding, fulfilling
and productive life,” according
to its mission statement.
This comes in the form of
golf tournaments, networking
events and other activities.
And then there’s the
American Legion, long run by
veterans of the Vietnam War,
the last war in which men were
drafted and the last mass-ser
vice war in the nation’s history.
Walley has been a member of
the Legion since he left the
Army, but in recent months has
worked to bring younger veter
ans into the organization.
“If they don’t have new people
coming in the bottom, they’re not
going to survive,” said Seely,
himself a Vietnam veteran.
“What Sam is doing is very per
ceptive, very proactive.”
In mid-June, Walley helped
organize an open house at Post
7 specifically to recruit post-
Vietnam vets.
“I really want to start getting
these Gulf War, (Operation
Iraqi Freedom) — getting these
guys into these board positions.
I simply came out and started
trying to get these guys togeth
er,” he said. “I don’t really care
to be in a leadership role or
anything, I just knew that I
knew a lot of people.”
His efforts are aimed at help
ing veterans forge connections
with one another and the com
munity at large.
“A lot of these guys aren’t
encouraged to evolve from their
past experiences into their new
experiences, their new world,”
Seely said. “If you don’t have
exposure to healthy, happy life
styles and you see what the alter
native is to isolationism, you’re not
going to grow. A lot of these guys
who have committed suicide, it’s
tragic when you look at what could
have been done to prevent that.”
For the worst cases, the
PTSD Foundation is one of the
groups working to fill that void.
It handles “more of the nitty-
gritty stuff,” Walley said.
“That’s (for) the veterans who
are in dark areas. Helping
them, sometimes we’ll have to
go to the Salvation Army to see
if there are vets in there.”
The foundation runs an inten
sive camp, similar to a boot
camp, in Houston, Texas,
where veterans are broken
down and, instead of being
turned into soldiers, are turned
back into citizens.
Despite the wedges of suicide
pushed between the fellow sol
diers in his platoon, Walley’s
connections to his friends
remains strong. He knew, he
said, that he could pull his
phone out of his pocket and
dial any of them — just to talk,
to vent, to ask for help.
He recalled his time in the
VA hospital in Washington,
when a fellow soldier was has
sling a down-and-out Walley to
get to work on his PT.
“My old squad leader used to
give me crap in the hospital
because he’s a quad-amputee,
and he’s walking around,”
Walley said, laughing. “He’d
always tell me, ‘Walley, you
need to get to walkin’.’”
His interview with The Times
was scheduled after he finished
with classes for the day. Toward
the end of the talk, Walley’s
girlfriend sat down with him.
They talked about their plans
for the evening, about whether
he was going to head to the
gym and what they might do
for dinner that night.
Seven years after a terrorist
flipped the switch that almost
ended his life, Walley is walk
ing just fine.
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