Family Friday - Zach

Hey all,  this is Josh's brother Zach. I asked Josh to let me write a post for something I'm calling “family Friday". I'm probably not as good at writing as Josh is so bear with me. I just wanted to talk a bit about Josh's injury and my take on it. 

Before the shooting, aside from some difficult training in the army, I hadn't really faced any serious emotional or mental obstacles. On February 11th, 2017, that all changed. Immediately following the shooting and for several hours afterward, nothing seemed real. It was almost like I was on auto pilot. I did a little first aid, watched Josh get EKG'd, loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled into an ambulance. I thought “that was it, my life was over”. But I didn't cry. I have no idea why but I couldn't cry. I was in shock, everything was shaking and I was more scared than I have ever been. Josh was taken to the hospital and the only info that I was getting on his condition was from some unhelpful police officer at the crime scene that was once my apartment. I was forwarding all status updates to my parents, who were desperately waiting to board their plane to Seattle. After several hours of standing around and talking with some detectives, my wife and I were finally able to go to the hospital. When we got there, we were told that Josh was stable but was unconscious and would be for a while. I was relieved that he was still alive but I had no idea what would happen from there.  We got to Josh's room, where he was hooked up to all these tubes and wires and stuff and once again I was scared.

Josh joined the Army before I did. I was in college when I went down to watch him graduate his Ranger training and I knew then that I wanted to follow in his foot steps and be a Ranger. Fast forward a year: I was in basic training and he was on his first deployment. All I could think about was getting through my training and joining him in Washington. When I got there as a new private, he showed me the ropes and I really looked up to him. He did very well on his PT tests (much better than me), he was a SAW gunner and I was the new guy who had to carry the litter during training. He always gave me something to strive towards and I was so lucky that we ended up in the same platoon because he pushed me. I'm 3 minutes older, but in the Army, he was the older brother. Seeing this beast of a man hooked up to all these tubes was the hardest part. But it was because he was in such good physical and mental shape that he survived the shooting and the recovery. 

I remember the day that I got the call from my wife telling me that the doctors weren't sure he would walk again. I was at work updating my platoon leadership on how he was doing and I broke down. My squad leader told me to go back to the hospital and I just hugged him and said thank you. Normally, a Ranger squad leader isn't someone you go about hugging but he understood and hugged me back. I have the utmost respect for that man and a handful of other leaders at 2/75 that went out of their way to help. Driving to the hospital was difficult. I kept thinking about how different things were going to be from here on out. Me and my family all struggled with grief and whatnot together, but I remember one thing that my mom told me that helped me the most. I told her how things were never going to be normal again, and she told me that we were just going to have to create a new normal. I still think of that sometimes now, as I go over and visit Josh and Kassidy and we watch TV on the couch with Josh next to us in his chair; or when we go to the bars and he sucks down a shot through his straw like a champ, and I just think “new normal". I've watched him grow and learn from this experience and everyone who's close to him (including myself) has grown as well. As he continues to fight his fight, we will continue to support him. 

That is all, thanks for reading.