Captain Christopher Hanson
U.S. Army – Physician Assistant
3rd Battalion/172nd Infantry
Guantanamo Bay/Afghanistan
April 1999 – June 2015
U.S. Army – Physician Assistant
3rd Battalion/172nd Infantry
Guantanamo Bay/Afghanistan
April 1999 – June 2015
Christopher Hanson was born in the mountains of Rutland, Vermont in April of 1973. Rutland is a small town about 10 minutes away from the well-known Killington ski area. Chris’ mother was a single mom, and they lived with her parents in Fair Haven, Vermont. His grandfather was a carpenter, and he showed young Chris the tricks of the trade. “I’ve been using a jigsaw pretty much since I was seven”.
Chris’ mother remarried and the family moved to Chittenden, Vermont. “It has the dual distinction of being the largest town land wise and the smallest population”. Chris and his younger brother grew up among mountaineers spending lots of time outdoors hunting, skiing and back packing. Several years later the family moved back to Fair Haven and bought his grandparents’ home. Chris attended school Fair Haven Union High School. “I wasn’t a motivated student. A C student”. Chris was on the wrestling team and a member of the Civil Air Patrol and graduated in 1991 in a class of 120 students.
Chris contemplated joining the military directly from high school but a teacher in the school had served in the military and he suggested Chris to get a job for a year. If after a year, Chris still wanted to enlist, he would gladly drive Chris to the recruiting station. He wanted Chris to be sure he was enlisting because it was something he truly wanted to do.
In high school Chris had some friends that were members of the local volunteer fire department and were emergency medical technicians (EMTs). This appealed to Chris and he joined. After high school Chris worked in a local forge making wrought iron steel products until the company hit hard times and he was laid off. “After six months of unemployment…I knew what I wanted to do”. He applied to a paramedic school near Boston, where his girlfriend was attending college. He was accepted and moved to Massachusetts in July of 1992. By July of 1993 he was working for a private ambulance company based in Sommerville, Massachusetts.
In June of 1995 Chris joined Boston EMS. “A pretty well renowned organization…that I’ve been very fortunate to have been a part of”. “…they elevated performing the basics of their craft to an art form. That was how good they were. What they did was just absolute focus on the basics of what they were doing”. When the EMTs were proficient in the basics they learned the more advanced techniques and procedures. Everyone started at the bottom and proved themselves before they were moved ahead. As Chris looks back now on that group, he can see a very military like approach.
While working with Boston EMS, Chris picked up 60 credits at Salem State College at night, but joining the military was still in his mind. Some of his friends with Boston EMS had joined the Navy Reserves. Chris decided it was his time and he enlisted. Chris headed to Great Lakes Naval Station for bootcamp and then attended Navy Corpsman School in New Orleans. Chris quickly learned that the Marines did not have their own medical services and instead used Navy medics when he was assigned to the 1st Battalion/25th Marine Division as a corpsman. Chris recalled how hard the unit trained despite being a Reserve unit. They did their training one weekend each month and two weeks each summer. “We did a lot of cold weather training”. Chris recalled the coldest two weeks of his life were during training in Rangely, Maine on the Canadian border where it reached 50 below zero. Chris wanted to learn more about being a corpsman, but this was before the attacks of 9/11 and there was no money in the Navy to send reserve members to schools.
Chris had some friends that joined the Army National Guard, and he thought that would be a good path to learn more. Chris switched to the Army National Guard in March 2001 and changed his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) to Infantry. In early 2003 he attended an abbreviated, but intense, two-week infantry training in the mountains of Vermont. “It was six in the morning until 10 at night. It was kind of two weeks of Ranger School”.
In August of 2003 Chris deployed to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. The interior operations were managed by the Military Police and his unit provided perimeter security in mounted or dismounted patrols. “There were several hundred (detainees) that were in the detention center while we were there”. In his off time, he spent a lot of time at the Dive Center and became a certified SCUBA diver. In August of 2004 Chris returned to the states.
Chris wanted a bigger role than EMT or paramedic and during 2001 enrolled in Physician’s Assistant (PA) School. Chris tried to manage the rigorous school program and the demands of full-time job in EMS, but it didn’t work out as planned. However, the U.S. military had a PA school at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas and it is open to members of all branches of the service. Chris applied, was accepted and moved to Texas to start school in December 2005. It was a very rigorous program where students completed 120 hours of course work in 11 months. Chris recalled it was like, “Academically drinking from a fire hose”. “From the second week of 2006 through the second week of December there were three exams” each week.
After 12 months of intensive didactic work the students were assigned to a medical facility at a military installation. Chris was assigned to Fort Knox in Kentucky. “We went out and practiced our new art on unsuspecting soldiers across the United States”. At Fort Knox Chris was assigned to the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic. He thought he would have a few days to mentor with one of the doctors but that was not to be the case. He was told, ‘Your office is right down there. Your first two patients are in the waiting room’. For the next 12 months Chris was a full-time medical provider in a very intense learning environment under the tutelage of a crusty old school Vietnam vet, Willie Parker French. He was former Drill Instructor (DI), and the PAs under his command quickly learned that. They all benefited and they all learned their standards of medical fitness. At times it wasn’t pleasant but later Chris was greatly appreciative for the intense rigor and being held to high standards.
It was 2007 and during his rotations in this year of fast and furious learning, Chris did a rotation through the Emergency Room (ER) at the Fort Knox hospital where he met Kim, a single mother of two teenagers and the Nurse Manager of the ER. Military medicine is “occupational health with trauma care…so we spent a lot of time in the ER learning emergency medicine. Any time we had any free time our expectation was get your butt down in the ER and see patients”. A romanced developed and “we lived in sin for two years” before they were married. Chris received a crash course in raising teenage children.
Chris left active duty and the family moved back to Lebanon, New Hampshire where he joined the 3rd Battalion/172ndInfantry of the Vermont National Guard. “They’re one of the few National Guard Units that I was with that really believed they were in the Army”. They qualified on their rifles twice each year and they had to pass the PT test twice and were held to actvide duty weapons and fitness standards. The unit was a designed for mountain warfare and that is the way they trained, in the mountains “doing specialized climbing skills”. At summer training 600 soliders went through 250,000 M4 rounds, 1,500 mortar rounds and 25,000 rounds of linked ammunition. “Incredibly realistic training”. After their kids had graduated from high school Kim and Chris moved back to Louisville, Kentucky. Chris stayed part of the Vermont National Guard.
Chris learned he would be deploying to Kabul, Afghanistan. Prior to deployment Chris went through three weeks of Tactical Combat Training at Fort Sam Houston and two weeks of further training at Fort Benning. In May of 2011 he boarded a plane to Kuwait and from there took a C130 to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The next night he took a helicopter to Kabul.
Chris was an individual augmentee and initially was not assigned to a specific unit. Later he was assigned to a Massachusetts National Guard infantry unit. It turns out they didn’t have a role for Chris, so he offered his services to any unit that needed medical support and made a lot of friends doing that. He volunteered his services to a unit that picked up weapons at Bagram and delivered them wherever they were needed throughout Afghanistan. “I got to see most of Afghanistan with them…”. They transported the weapons by truck convoys. “So that was where we got in the most trouble because the Taliban knows what you’re hauling around”. The convoys would frequently take enemy fire and be subject to rocket attacks and IEDs.
“It didn’t matter what your MOS was. It’s what the needs of the mission were. We had a Special Forces detachment on the base…they had their own medics…we’d hang around in the clinic. They invited me to go out with them on a mission…that was a whole ‘nother level of interesting. There was nothing they did that wasn’t aggressive”.
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were a regular hazard for convoys traveling by land. Chris pointed out that the design of the Humvees improved as the war went on. The later design equipped the underside of the vehicles with V shaped armor plating that deflected the blast waves away from the vehicle which reduced severe physical injuries. The soldiers inside the vehicles were often physically intact, but they likely had a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The IED explosion was often followed by enemy small arms and RPG fire. The convoy under attack would take a defensive posture and attempt to maximize their fire at the greatest threat while they assessed the damage. Often the convoys would have dedicated air cover or could call in air support such as Apache Helicopters and AC 130 Gunships. The point where the convoy was ambushed was known as the “X” and the goal was to get off the “X” as quickly as possible because that is the kill zone. Part of the Army’s combat drilling was to prepare the soldiers to react to instinctively when attacked. “The people that were doing it (responding), because we had done it so much, were really good at it”.
What is a TBI like? “It’s like a concussion of varying grades…that rushing sound and then everything comes back to you”. In a war zone, the concussion protocol is to stay in a quiet dark room for 24 hours. “If you avoid it (another concussive blast) within 24 to 48 hours, you would likely not have any long-term effects. But if you got another one…” there could be serious permanent damage. Despite this knowledge, it was tough to get GIs to comply with the protocol. Soldiers want to get back in the fight and be there for their battle buddies.
Chris talked about the power and the speed of the blast waves from the IED and the distance they travelled. “It goes through anything”. For example, if vehicle 1 detonated an IED, the soldiers in vehicles 4 and 5 would get hit with the blast and could potentially receive a TBI.
Chris talked about the Afghani society and explained how difficult it was to deal with the Afghan National Army. The Afghan society is divided into two sects, Pashtun and Dari. Chris described the Pashtun Afghani’s as “really good people, farmers primarily, just very honest people”. The Dari sect was not viewed the same. “…some of the most corrupt sons of bitches I have ever met in my entire life…they would knock over their grandmother for an ill-gotten gain. They were just not good people”.
Chris recalled putting a tourniquet on an injured Dari soldier and while he was doing that another Dari soldiers reached into his medical kit to take some supplies. Chris pushed his hand away, but he continued. He reached in again and Chris stood up and knocked him over. Undeterred he came back again and this time Chris grabbed his rifle and “butt stroked him”. He was on the ground bleeding, but he finally got the message. “They don’t respond to subtle suggestion. They only respond to violence”.
There was a Ministry of Health clinic was not far from their base. The U.S. provided the clinic with supplies and on occasion, U.S. soldiers conducted inspections. While Chris was there an inspection found roughly two thirds of the supplies the U.S. had provided were not in the clinic. When the Afghani doctor arrived in a Mercedes sedan being driven by his chauffer, Chris had a pretty good idea where the supplies were going. Chris asked the doctor where the supplies were. The doctor began weaving an unbelievable tale and Chris stopped him and said, “I will be back here in three days and if those supplies aren’t here there’s going to be trouble”. The doctor became indignant and yelled that he couldn’t be threatened because he had friends in the Ministry of Health. Chris cut his tirade short, put his pistol in his face and said, “I’m going to come back in three days and if those supplies aren’t here, I’m going to kill you myself”. The doctor now understood. “They didn’t respond to subtle suggestion”, only force.
There were also moments of cultural learning experiences mixed with humor. Chris recalled relaxing in his bunk when his buddy knocked on his door. He told Chris to bring his rifle and personal protective equipment (PPE; body armor and helmet) and be ready to leave in 30 minutes. They mounted their vehicles and drove three miles up the road to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) that was home to soldiers from Germany, Italy and Great Britain. They were living large with a German and Italian restaurant on the FOB. The Americans settled in for an authentic German meal including beer. Regulations prohibited the Americans from drinking alcohol because the Afghani’s were supposed to abstain from drinking alcohol. “Which is funny because most of the ministers were the most debaucherous alcoholics you ever wanted to meet”.
Chris recalled the emotions of his first few firefights. “It was scary the first couple of times. What I noticed is your point of focus becomes withdrawn and narrowed. Everything comes right down in front of you, and you really have to push your consciousness to get beyond, literally, an arm’s length. That initial terror draws everything back to being close”. At times it could be mentally exhausting but fortunately for Chris his daily duties were quite varied, and he believes that prevented burn out.
Soldiers returning home have survived the dangers of a combat zone, but many will face the battles of re-acclimating into the routine of everyday life. Civilians have little appreciation for the short time between boarding a plane to leave Afghanistan and a soldier stepping back into their house. For Chris, it was 36 hours. “Tuesday, I got back from a convoy. Wednesday, I saw patients at the clinic. Thursday, I boarded a C130 and because of the time change I was back in the states on Thursday”. “Friday midday I’m sitting in my living room”. The process of re-acclimation for veterans after returning from a deployment in a combat zone can be very difficult and is under appreciated by those who have never had such an experience. It’s been a problem for as long as there has been war. Call it shell shock, battle fatigue or PTS (veterans prefer you drop the D) it’s always been an invisible injury that many veterans have to deal with.
Chris described the first six months as incredibly difficult and often disorienting. “We damn near got divorces so many times in the first six months”. Chris talked about how the Army told him not to drive right away but never gave a reason for the warning. Chris didn’t drive on his deployment because he was an officer. He sat in the front right seat, and his job was to look for potential problems. Chris decided to drive and soon found himself having a heightened sense of alertness when cars slowed down. He found himself looking for buried IED detonator cords. In Afghanistan, if there were no kids around that was a signal that a fire fight was imminent. People on a rooftop could be a lookout or sniper. Vehicles never stop on bridges or culverts because they are an ideal spot to plant an IED. “It takes a good six months to get out of your system”. As you might imagine this was all unsettling to his wife, Kim, especially the first time she stopped on a bridge.
Chris recalled going to the post office to pick up mail. A young male in a white Toyota Tacoma was driving too fast around the traffic circle which made the truck tires squeal. The Taliban’s vehicle of choice was a white Toyota Hilux which is very similar to the Tacoma. That sight and sound triggered Chris’ situational awareness to combine with his training. “When I came to, I was under the vehicle with an imaginary weapon pointing in the direction of the kid’s car”. Chris knew he needed to talk to somebody about this. Luckily, he had a friend working at the VA he went to speak to. In late 2025 Chris is still working to keep this under control.
Chris talked about how every veteran’s deployment experience will affect them in different ways. Chris feels fortunate that when he returned home, he had Kim, the children and family that provided him with a strong support structure. Some guys and girls that didn’t have that support structure.
It’s not only military personnel who suffer from PTS. Chris recounted traumatic calls while he was an EMT. He talked about a particularly tough call where children were horribly burned and eventually died. Everyone who participated in that call were taken off duty and sent to a Critical Incident Stress Management program which allowed everyone to talk through what they had just experienced. He found that helpful but noted it is not widely employed.
After returning from Afghanistan Chris was welcomed back to his job at the Veterans Administration hospital. The family moved back to Kentucky in the summer of 2012. Kim transferred to the Louisville VA but Kentucky’s laws made it a challenge for Chris to find a permanent job as a PA until 2013 when he took a position at the VA in Lexington as a Hospitalist. The 85-mile commute between Louisville and Lexington took a toll on Chris. In 2014 both Kim and Chris found positions working at the VA in Orlando, Florida.
In the Fall of 2014, the couple relocated to Florida. Chris was working at the VA, but the environment wasn’t what he had hoped for, and he began looking for another job. Along the way Chris earned a Doctorate in Healthcare Administration. That helped him land his next position with a company that provides healthcare quality improvement. Chris is part of the company’s innovation team, and he manages a team that is focused on bringing automation to healthcare through the use of AI. “It’s fun. It’s a very different life”. “The ambulance world and the military were very different from what I am doing now”.
Looking back on his path Chris said he would not change anything he has done. He feels that if he changed one aspect of his life it would have a ripple effect, much like in the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life. “Yup. No regrets”.
Chris and Kim are making the most of their free time. They enjoy traveling as well as spending time socializing with friends in their community. Chris is also active in the Knights of Columbus and a bagpiper.
Chris, you have spent a lifetime serving others in both the military and as an EMT. You lead by example and set an example for others to follow. Thank you to you and your family for all that you have sacrificed and all that you have endured to selflessly protect the people of our country”.
“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. And when he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Clarence Oddbody, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’
Chris’ mother remarried and the family moved to Chittenden, Vermont. “It has the dual distinction of being the largest town land wise and the smallest population”. Chris and his younger brother grew up among mountaineers spending lots of time outdoors hunting, skiing and back packing. Several years later the family moved back to Fair Haven and bought his grandparents’ home. Chris attended school Fair Haven Union High School. “I wasn’t a motivated student. A C student”. Chris was on the wrestling team and a member of the Civil Air Patrol and graduated in 1991 in a class of 120 students.
Chris contemplated joining the military directly from high school but a teacher in the school had served in the military and he suggested Chris to get a job for a year. If after a year, Chris still wanted to enlist, he would gladly drive Chris to the recruiting station. He wanted Chris to be sure he was enlisting because it was something he truly wanted to do.
In high school Chris had some friends that were members of the local volunteer fire department and were emergency medical technicians (EMTs). This appealed to Chris and he joined. After high school Chris worked in a local forge making wrought iron steel products until the company hit hard times and he was laid off. “After six months of unemployment…I knew what I wanted to do”. He applied to a paramedic school near Boston, where his girlfriend was attending college. He was accepted and moved to Massachusetts in July of 1992. By July of 1993 he was working for a private ambulance company based in Sommerville, Massachusetts.
In June of 1995 Chris joined Boston EMS. “A pretty well renowned organization…that I’ve been very fortunate to have been a part of”. “…they elevated performing the basics of their craft to an art form. That was how good they were. What they did was just absolute focus on the basics of what they were doing”. When the EMTs were proficient in the basics they learned the more advanced techniques and procedures. Everyone started at the bottom and proved themselves before they were moved ahead. As Chris looks back now on that group, he can see a very military like approach.
While working with Boston EMS, Chris picked up 60 credits at Salem State College at night, but joining the military was still in his mind. Some of his friends with Boston EMS had joined the Navy Reserves. Chris decided it was his time and he enlisted. Chris headed to Great Lakes Naval Station for bootcamp and then attended Navy Corpsman School in New Orleans. Chris quickly learned that the Marines did not have their own medical services and instead used Navy medics when he was assigned to the 1st Battalion/25th Marine Division as a corpsman. Chris recalled how hard the unit trained despite being a Reserve unit. They did their training one weekend each month and two weeks each summer. “We did a lot of cold weather training”. Chris recalled the coldest two weeks of his life were during training in Rangely, Maine on the Canadian border where it reached 50 below zero. Chris wanted to learn more about being a corpsman, but this was before the attacks of 9/11 and there was no money in the Navy to send reserve members to schools.
Chris had some friends that joined the Army National Guard, and he thought that would be a good path to learn more. Chris switched to the Army National Guard in March 2001 and changed his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) to Infantry. In early 2003 he attended an abbreviated, but intense, two-week infantry training in the mountains of Vermont. “It was six in the morning until 10 at night. It was kind of two weeks of Ranger School”.
In August of 2003 Chris deployed to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. The interior operations were managed by the Military Police and his unit provided perimeter security in mounted or dismounted patrols. “There were several hundred (detainees) that were in the detention center while we were there”. In his off time, he spent a lot of time at the Dive Center and became a certified SCUBA diver. In August of 2004 Chris returned to the states.
Chris wanted a bigger role than EMT or paramedic and during 2001 enrolled in Physician’s Assistant (PA) School. Chris tried to manage the rigorous school program and the demands of full-time job in EMS, but it didn’t work out as planned. However, the U.S. military had a PA school at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas and it is open to members of all branches of the service. Chris applied, was accepted and moved to Texas to start school in December 2005. It was a very rigorous program where students completed 120 hours of course work in 11 months. Chris recalled it was like, “Academically drinking from a fire hose”. “From the second week of 2006 through the second week of December there were three exams” each week.
After 12 months of intensive didactic work the students were assigned to a medical facility at a military installation. Chris was assigned to Fort Knox in Kentucky. “We went out and practiced our new art on unsuspecting soldiers across the United States”. At Fort Knox Chris was assigned to the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic. He thought he would have a few days to mentor with one of the doctors but that was not to be the case. He was told, ‘Your office is right down there. Your first two patients are in the waiting room’. For the next 12 months Chris was a full-time medical provider in a very intense learning environment under the tutelage of a crusty old school Vietnam vet, Willie Parker French. He was former Drill Instructor (DI), and the PAs under his command quickly learned that. They all benefited and they all learned their standards of medical fitness. At times it wasn’t pleasant but later Chris was greatly appreciative for the intense rigor and being held to high standards.
It was 2007 and during his rotations in this year of fast and furious learning, Chris did a rotation through the Emergency Room (ER) at the Fort Knox hospital where he met Kim, a single mother of two teenagers and the Nurse Manager of the ER. Military medicine is “occupational health with trauma care…so we spent a lot of time in the ER learning emergency medicine. Any time we had any free time our expectation was get your butt down in the ER and see patients”. A romanced developed and “we lived in sin for two years” before they were married. Chris received a crash course in raising teenage children.
Chris left active duty and the family moved back to Lebanon, New Hampshire where he joined the 3rd Battalion/172ndInfantry of the Vermont National Guard. “They’re one of the few National Guard Units that I was with that really believed they were in the Army”. They qualified on their rifles twice each year and they had to pass the PT test twice and were held to actvide duty weapons and fitness standards. The unit was a designed for mountain warfare and that is the way they trained, in the mountains “doing specialized climbing skills”. At summer training 600 soliders went through 250,000 M4 rounds, 1,500 mortar rounds and 25,000 rounds of linked ammunition. “Incredibly realistic training”. After their kids had graduated from high school Kim and Chris moved back to Louisville, Kentucky. Chris stayed part of the Vermont National Guard.
Chris learned he would be deploying to Kabul, Afghanistan. Prior to deployment Chris went through three weeks of Tactical Combat Training at Fort Sam Houston and two weeks of further training at Fort Benning. In May of 2011 he boarded a plane to Kuwait and from there took a C130 to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The next night he took a helicopter to Kabul.
Chris was an individual augmentee and initially was not assigned to a specific unit. Later he was assigned to a Massachusetts National Guard infantry unit. It turns out they didn’t have a role for Chris, so he offered his services to any unit that needed medical support and made a lot of friends doing that. He volunteered his services to a unit that picked up weapons at Bagram and delivered them wherever they were needed throughout Afghanistan. “I got to see most of Afghanistan with them…”. They transported the weapons by truck convoys. “So that was where we got in the most trouble because the Taliban knows what you’re hauling around”. The convoys would frequently take enemy fire and be subject to rocket attacks and IEDs.
“It didn’t matter what your MOS was. It’s what the needs of the mission were. We had a Special Forces detachment on the base…they had their own medics…we’d hang around in the clinic. They invited me to go out with them on a mission…that was a whole ‘nother level of interesting. There was nothing they did that wasn’t aggressive”.
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were a regular hazard for convoys traveling by land. Chris pointed out that the design of the Humvees improved as the war went on. The later design equipped the underside of the vehicles with V shaped armor plating that deflected the blast waves away from the vehicle which reduced severe physical injuries. The soldiers inside the vehicles were often physically intact, but they likely had a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The IED explosion was often followed by enemy small arms and RPG fire. The convoy under attack would take a defensive posture and attempt to maximize their fire at the greatest threat while they assessed the damage. Often the convoys would have dedicated air cover or could call in air support such as Apache Helicopters and AC 130 Gunships. The point where the convoy was ambushed was known as the “X” and the goal was to get off the “X” as quickly as possible because that is the kill zone. Part of the Army’s combat drilling was to prepare the soldiers to react to instinctively when attacked. “The people that were doing it (responding), because we had done it so much, were really good at it”.
What is a TBI like? “It’s like a concussion of varying grades…that rushing sound and then everything comes back to you”. In a war zone, the concussion protocol is to stay in a quiet dark room for 24 hours. “If you avoid it (another concussive blast) within 24 to 48 hours, you would likely not have any long-term effects. But if you got another one…” there could be serious permanent damage. Despite this knowledge, it was tough to get GIs to comply with the protocol. Soldiers want to get back in the fight and be there for their battle buddies.
Chris talked about the power and the speed of the blast waves from the IED and the distance they travelled. “It goes through anything”. For example, if vehicle 1 detonated an IED, the soldiers in vehicles 4 and 5 would get hit with the blast and could potentially receive a TBI.
Chris talked about the Afghani society and explained how difficult it was to deal with the Afghan National Army. The Afghan society is divided into two sects, Pashtun and Dari. Chris described the Pashtun Afghani’s as “really good people, farmers primarily, just very honest people”. The Dari sect was not viewed the same. “…some of the most corrupt sons of bitches I have ever met in my entire life…they would knock over their grandmother for an ill-gotten gain. They were just not good people”.
Chris recalled putting a tourniquet on an injured Dari soldier and while he was doing that another Dari soldiers reached into his medical kit to take some supplies. Chris pushed his hand away, but he continued. He reached in again and Chris stood up and knocked him over. Undeterred he came back again and this time Chris grabbed his rifle and “butt stroked him”. He was on the ground bleeding, but he finally got the message. “They don’t respond to subtle suggestion. They only respond to violence”.
There was a Ministry of Health clinic was not far from their base. The U.S. provided the clinic with supplies and on occasion, U.S. soldiers conducted inspections. While Chris was there an inspection found roughly two thirds of the supplies the U.S. had provided were not in the clinic. When the Afghani doctor arrived in a Mercedes sedan being driven by his chauffer, Chris had a pretty good idea where the supplies were going. Chris asked the doctor where the supplies were. The doctor began weaving an unbelievable tale and Chris stopped him and said, “I will be back here in three days and if those supplies aren’t here there’s going to be trouble”. The doctor became indignant and yelled that he couldn’t be threatened because he had friends in the Ministry of Health. Chris cut his tirade short, put his pistol in his face and said, “I’m going to come back in three days and if those supplies aren’t here, I’m going to kill you myself”. The doctor now understood. “They didn’t respond to subtle suggestion”, only force.
There were also moments of cultural learning experiences mixed with humor. Chris recalled relaxing in his bunk when his buddy knocked on his door. He told Chris to bring his rifle and personal protective equipment (PPE; body armor and helmet) and be ready to leave in 30 minutes. They mounted their vehicles and drove three miles up the road to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) that was home to soldiers from Germany, Italy and Great Britain. They were living large with a German and Italian restaurant on the FOB. The Americans settled in for an authentic German meal including beer. Regulations prohibited the Americans from drinking alcohol because the Afghani’s were supposed to abstain from drinking alcohol. “Which is funny because most of the ministers were the most debaucherous alcoholics you ever wanted to meet”.
Chris recalled the emotions of his first few firefights. “It was scary the first couple of times. What I noticed is your point of focus becomes withdrawn and narrowed. Everything comes right down in front of you, and you really have to push your consciousness to get beyond, literally, an arm’s length. That initial terror draws everything back to being close”. At times it could be mentally exhausting but fortunately for Chris his daily duties were quite varied, and he believes that prevented burn out.
Soldiers returning home have survived the dangers of a combat zone, but many will face the battles of re-acclimating into the routine of everyday life. Civilians have little appreciation for the short time between boarding a plane to leave Afghanistan and a soldier stepping back into their house. For Chris, it was 36 hours. “Tuesday, I got back from a convoy. Wednesday, I saw patients at the clinic. Thursday, I boarded a C130 and because of the time change I was back in the states on Thursday”. “Friday midday I’m sitting in my living room”. The process of re-acclimation for veterans after returning from a deployment in a combat zone can be very difficult and is under appreciated by those who have never had such an experience. It’s been a problem for as long as there has been war. Call it shell shock, battle fatigue or PTS (veterans prefer you drop the D) it’s always been an invisible injury that many veterans have to deal with.
Chris described the first six months as incredibly difficult and often disorienting. “We damn near got divorces so many times in the first six months”. Chris talked about how the Army told him not to drive right away but never gave a reason for the warning. Chris didn’t drive on his deployment because he was an officer. He sat in the front right seat, and his job was to look for potential problems. Chris decided to drive and soon found himself having a heightened sense of alertness when cars slowed down. He found himself looking for buried IED detonator cords. In Afghanistan, if there were no kids around that was a signal that a fire fight was imminent. People on a rooftop could be a lookout or sniper. Vehicles never stop on bridges or culverts because they are an ideal spot to plant an IED. “It takes a good six months to get out of your system”. As you might imagine this was all unsettling to his wife, Kim, especially the first time she stopped on a bridge.
Chris recalled going to the post office to pick up mail. A young male in a white Toyota Tacoma was driving too fast around the traffic circle which made the truck tires squeal. The Taliban’s vehicle of choice was a white Toyota Hilux which is very similar to the Tacoma. That sight and sound triggered Chris’ situational awareness to combine with his training. “When I came to, I was under the vehicle with an imaginary weapon pointing in the direction of the kid’s car”. Chris knew he needed to talk to somebody about this. Luckily, he had a friend working at the VA he went to speak to. In late 2025 Chris is still working to keep this under control.
Chris talked about how every veteran’s deployment experience will affect them in different ways. Chris feels fortunate that when he returned home, he had Kim, the children and family that provided him with a strong support structure. Some guys and girls that didn’t have that support structure.
It’s not only military personnel who suffer from PTS. Chris recounted traumatic calls while he was an EMT. He talked about a particularly tough call where children were horribly burned and eventually died. Everyone who participated in that call were taken off duty and sent to a Critical Incident Stress Management program which allowed everyone to talk through what they had just experienced. He found that helpful but noted it is not widely employed.
After returning from Afghanistan Chris was welcomed back to his job at the Veterans Administration hospital. The family moved back to Kentucky in the summer of 2012. Kim transferred to the Louisville VA but Kentucky’s laws made it a challenge for Chris to find a permanent job as a PA until 2013 when he took a position at the VA in Lexington as a Hospitalist. The 85-mile commute between Louisville and Lexington took a toll on Chris. In 2014 both Kim and Chris found positions working at the VA in Orlando, Florida.
In the Fall of 2014, the couple relocated to Florida. Chris was working at the VA, but the environment wasn’t what he had hoped for, and he began looking for another job. Along the way Chris earned a Doctorate in Healthcare Administration. That helped him land his next position with a company that provides healthcare quality improvement. Chris is part of the company’s innovation team, and he manages a team that is focused on bringing automation to healthcare through the use of AI. “It’s fun. It’s a very different life”. “The ambulance world and the military were very different from what I am doing now”.
Looking back on his path Chris said he would not change anything he has done. He feels that if he changed one aspect of his life it would have a ripple effect, much like in the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life. “Yup. No regrets”.
Chris and Kim are making the most of their free time. They enjoy traveling as well as spending time socializing with friends in their community. Chris is also active in the Knights of Columbus and a bagpiper.
Chris, you have spent a lifetime serving others in both the military and as an EMT. You lead by example and set an example for others to follow. Thank you to you and your family for all that you have sacrificed and all that you have endured to selflessly protect the people of our country”.
“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. And when he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Clarence Oddbody, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’