‘Too ornery to die yet’

[unhappycamper]

Army Spc. Scott Stephenson tries his luck at video game bowling on the Nintendo Wii while friends Shaun Emry, left, and Andrew Henry cheer him on at Stephenson's parents' home outside Atchison, Kan., earlier this year. Despite being severely injured in Iraq, Stephenson has kept a positive attitude.


‘Too ornery to die yet’
By Lee Hill Kavanaugh - The Kansas City Star
Posted : Friday Nov 23, 2007 11:39:04 EST

ATCHISON, Kan. — The stares bother him the most.

People see the red flesh that creeps along his cheekbone and jaw. The dangling left arm with permanent nerve damage. The wheelchair. The stump where his lower left leg was.

“It’s what I gave for Iraq,” Army Spc. Scott Stephenson, 23, says with a shrug, and then he’s quiet for a moment.

He’s grateful that the rest of him is back in the U.S., even if his home for nearly a year has been the Brooke Army Medical Center at San Antonio. Soon he’ll be home for good in Atchison.

For Stephenson, the fact that he is alive at all, when doctors gave his family “no hope at all,” is a miracle.

“I had a 5 percent chance of surviving,” he says. “But my hearing is real good, and it drives me crazy when people whisper about me behind my back. I can hear just fine.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/ap_comeback_071123/

[wake.up.america]

1. He should have never gone there in the first place. Best wishes to him and his family.

[bigscott]

2. i think you mean

either
"he never should have been SENT there in the first place"
or
"The USA should never have gone there in the first place"

[wake.up.america]

3. Or maybe he should he had refused to go there in the first place.

[wake.up.america]

4. . Or maybe he should have refused to go there in the first place.