Brandon Forte, a sniper with 40th Cav, 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was 300 meters away from Ford Observation Base one night at an 8 p.m. house raid when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded five feet away from where he was walking.
He saw the flash and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground.
Still conscious, he called over the radio and said he was hurt and the platoon sergeant carried and ran him back to the safe area, where a truck was waiting.
Forte's body was pumping with adrenaline, he said, and he didn't know what had got hit.
The second to last in line of snipers, he took a piece of metal in the arm, knees, chest and a couple in the face.
Blood flowed out where the metal had hit right underneath his armpit, and as the adrenaline faded he got light-headed.
He was given shots of morphine, and the rest of the evening was a blur.
"It was all happening really quick," he said.
With only 2 or 3 months left on his deployment, after Forte was injured he knew he wasn't going back.
"I wanted to go back to see everyone there, but I knew I wouldn't be of much help being injured," he said.
He saw a unit doctor the next day, and due to the blood loss Forte's forearm was larger than his bicep.
After two surgeries in Baghdad, Forte was evacuated from Iraq and spent four days in Germany for two additional surgeries on his arm before coming back to the U.S.
As part of his sniper duties, Forte would go in a couple hours or a day before a team would go into a mission, setting up 500 feet away from houses they were going to look at and giving early warning if anything were to explode.
"We were shot at on a regular basis; startled me a little bit, but we trained so much that it became natural reaction to get down and return firing," he said.
The fear of going into dangerous missions didn't really faze Forte until after he returned from deployment.
"A lot of times I tried not to think about it," he said.
He then spent a year in Alaska at a wounded warrior transition unit, where the mission is to get soldiers to transfer to regular army or civilian life.
The hardest thing when he returned to the United States was digesting everything that happened and adjusting to a lighter civilian schedule after his injury, but receiving bad news back from the base lowered his spirits.
About a month after he returned to Alaska, Forte's team leader and best friend notified him online that their lieutenant was shot and killed.
"That was one of the hardest feelings I had because I wasn't there to be able to help," Forte said.
Forte said it was at that point he had to relearn to find something to do to keep himself occupied.
A tendon transfer he received in Alaska limited its mobility, so Forte started lifting a lot in Iraq, relearned how to lift weights and played a lot of Guitar Hero to get his thumb working again.
"That time wasn't very good," he said. "It kind of plays with your head a little bit."
He went from being active all day to spending a couple months without using his thumbs and hand — a mental and physical blow for the former sniper, who worked out on a daily basis prior to his injury.
"A lot of people ask if it's messed with me any head-wise and making sure I'm OK," he said, then paused. "It's difficult at times. I have a lot of good friends I can work through things whenever I have problems, but I haven't really regretted anything."
Forte spent that year in Alaska taking classes and had between 50 and 60 credit hours before coming to Ball State last spring.
After he got back from Iraq, Forte had a lot of interest in teaching people how to rehabilitate after injury.
"It was a big deal to me to relearn how to work out and be able to do exercises again," he said.
Now Forte is in inactive ready reserves, meaning he doesn't have to do anything for the Army unless he gets called back overseas. A Greenville, Ohio native, he had to go to Dayton a lot last year to get exams done for disability rating and is for the most part physically recuperated.
Forte said the one thing he misses about the army is the friendships he made throughout meeting people across the country.
"It's easier to get to know people there quicker, because you spend all day every day with them," he said. "You train with them and you all live in the same barracks, you see them day and night."
Now a junior majoring in accounting at Ball State, Forte, 23, said adjustment to finding a similar sense of community on campus was at first a little more difficult. Because he's a couple years older than a lot of his classmates he doesn't typically know how to interact with civilians.
Thanks to a grant from the Military Research Institute in Purdue, it was possible to create a Student Veterans Organization this year, of which Forte is president.
The main goal of the group is to have family members and veterans share stories and feel comfortable around each other to share and talk, he said.
So far its main issue is getting the name out and getting members signed up and not letting it fail after it starts; the group has about a dozen members and meets once a month, he said.
"It's more about being proactive about it and finding friends and being able to have somebody to share with and go do things with. So far I've been able to make a lot of friends on campus that help me out," he said.
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