Nightmares trump Iraq vet’s job opportunity

Nightmares trump Iraq vet’s job opportunity

By: David Wecker

The U.S. Postal Service was within its rights to fire Eric Huth. He reported an hour or more late on four occasions in the two months he’d been on the job, and the probationary period for postal jobs is three months. Rules are rules.

Right, but in some cases, rules get in the way of taking the higher path. This strikes me as one of them. See what you think.

Huth is 23, a 1999 graduate of Live Oaks Vocational School in Milford. He enlisted in the Army his senior year because he wanted to serve one’s country; simple as that. He was assigned to the Third Infantry Division. He takes pride in the fact that he served in Audie Murphy’s old company.

He was sent to Kuwait in October 2002. On March 20, 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Huth was behind the wheel of the seventh American vehicle to cross into Iraq.

“We didn’t get into much fighting until we got to Najaf,” he says. “It was a good town to take. Had an airfield, a good staging area. Besides, on the road to Baghdad, there was no way around it.”

Six days later at dusk, Huth and the rest of his company were refueling in the suburbs of Baghdad, preparing to enter the city. He says an Iraqi nearby must have phoned in their position. In any case, it began raining artillery. One shell — the Iraqis were using 103-millimeter artillery shells, basically a bomb with the girth of a grapefruit — landed 6 feet away from Huth. The impact threw him 30 feet.

“I must’ve been in the umbrella of the blast. A shell, when it explodes, blasts up and out. If I’d been a foot closer or farther away from the where it hit, it would’ve been curtains.

“Instead, the impact lifted me up and threw me back. I felt the shock and then heard a ringing. Everything sounded far away. You can’t breathe because the blast fills your lungs with sulfur fire.

“You’re seeing everyone else  getting torn up. It was like I was looking through a window, watching all this happen.”

Huth’s legs were peppered with metal shards and hot gravel. He kept one piece that imbedded itself in his body armor — a 3-inch-long, 6-ounce chunk of jagged steel.

The brigade aide station where he sought medical treatment was shelled two hours after he arrived. He was back in combat the next day.

Months passed before he received anything resembling proper care. He endured three infections. Huth’s battalion sergeant finally decided Huth would lose his left leg if he weren’t evacuated immediately. His leg had swollen to twice its normal size.

Following two months of rehab, Huth received a Purple Heart and his honorable discharge, dated Aug. 22. He returned to his parents’ home in Mt. Carmel and, near the end of October, took the entrance examination to work for the Postal Service.

He scored a 93 out of a possible 100 on the exam. At his interview, he presented a copy of a report from the Department of Veterans Affairs, dated March 10, 2004, stating that he receives $454 a month in disability payments as a result of his wounds and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The latter causes him to have a chronic sleep impairment. He is in treatment and believes that, with time, the problem will resolve itself.

“What happens is, I have trouble sleeping sometimes. There are six or seven nightmares that keep happening, very vivid, like movies. And I can’t wake up until the movie plays itself out. That causes me to oversleep.”

In one of the nightmares, Huth says, he’s picking a buddy’s severed hand from out of the dirt, putting it on his buddy’s chest, stumbling around in a state of shock as he struggles to evacuate his six-man team from their sitting duck position somewhere in the suburbs of Baghdad — just as he did on the evening of April 6, 2003, in the minutes after nearly losing his life.

He hired on as a clerk at the Kings Mills post office Sept. 4. He reported late to work four times when his supervisor, Ruth Fisher, contacted Tim Breen, president of the Cincinnati Local of American Postal Workers Union, and asked him to talk to Eric.

Breen made the trip to Kings Mills Oct. 22.

“She asked me if I thought she should give Eric a break just because he’s a disabled vet; that’s exactly how she put it — ‘just because he’s a disabled vet,'” Breen said.

“I told her, yes, she should. There’s a million places the post office could put him, a million different schedules they could put him on where he could function without any problem.”

At the end of the next working day, Ms. Fisher fired Huth.

Ray Jacob, Cincinnati-area spokesman for the Postal Service, defended her decision: “We do require our employees to fulfill the basic responsibilities of their positions. Coming to work and coming to work on time is one of those requirements.”

Contrast that with what Sears is doing to help about 200 of its employees who are serving in Iraq.

When reservist employees are called up, employers are required by law to hold their jobs open. Sears has taken the extra step of voluntarily paying any difference in salaries for all reservist employees called to duty for up to five years. The company also is continuing all medical and dental benefits and bonus programs.

That seems like a pretty good reason to go Christmas shopping at Sears.

For his part, Huth is having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year — not because he’s angry with the post office. He says it’s more that he’s upset with himself.

“I ought to be able to wake up,” he says.

“I ought to be able to report to work on time. From everything I’ve heard, I should be able to get over this stupid disorder.

“It’s just going to take some time. And I’m going to have to find a place to work where they’ll be a little patient with me.”