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With only one or two missions left on his second tour, Tomlinson was atop a roof in an Afghan village controlled by the Taliban while other troops looked for weapons and bomb-making materials. "We were doing that for about five or six hours. I want to say it was the middle of the day, and I got up to move and as soon as I got up ...," Tomlinson said. "It wasn't like I heard anything or really felt anything. It was like a sudden shock to my body, and then my vision went kind of obscured, and I couldn't move and I just started falling back and
'boom,' hit the roof, and that's when I realized I'd probably been hit." The slug entered the back of Tomlinson's left shoulder near the base of his neck and traveled to his chest, damaging his spine and leaving him unable to move from the chest down. Evacuated from Afghanistan first to Germany and then the United States, he spent months at a hospital in Tampa, Fla., before returning home to Alabama on Jan. 18 to a hero's welcome: People lined the roads for miles leading from the airport to Jacksonville, and U.S. flags were everywhere. Businesses all over town put out welcome home signs. Several thousand people filled the town square for a ceremony, and some 800 students and faculty from Jacksonville High greeted him at his house, which is directly across the street from the school. "All I could say was, 'Wow,'" Tomlinson said. With such a welcome home, Tomlinson said he knew he hadn't been forgotten
-- his worst fears weren't realized. "People I didn't even know were thinking about me when this happened," he said.
Stewart, himself a Vietnam veteran, said such receptions can only help troops coming home from multiple deployments after a decade of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Everyone is familiar with the horrendous reception we Vietnam veterans received when returning from the war and we must never, ever let that happen again," he said. "We must honor our heroes. We must remember their sacrifices."
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated
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