I'm thrown back 50 yards.

My plate carrier had been blasted off me, my helmet was blasted off me, and my weapon

had broken into three into three parts.

My info was destroyed.

I'm initially caught up with KIA.

When you enlist and take the oath of service, you take the oath by yourself, but you don't

take it on your own.

The oath implicates not only your family and friends, but also your future spouse and

children.

It implicates people you haven't met yet, and in the case of a distant enemy, people you

may never meet.

When a soldier swears to defend the country and constitution from all enemies, there's

no way to know how they'll be asked to answer that promise.

And that is what makes it a courageous vow.

When Brian Avalos joined the army in his mid-20s, he was on his own.

But by the time he left, struggling with the after effects of a traumatic brain injury,

he would have to make use of a support system that spread well beyond the other soldiers

with whom he served.

When I first woke up and I first realized what was going on, I asked my dad a hundred

times what's going on, what happened, and he would tell me, and I would break down

crying.

And that was probably the hardest thing for my parents and Kimmy as a, they had to

...