Godspeed SSGT James Alford

I'm 99% certain that I've posted his story as a "Someone You Should Know" on my blog, but I'm not going to shift through 3 years worth of blog entries trying to find it. Also, I blogged about it while he was still fighting for his life.

So here's a quick re-cap:

By the time he shipped out for the war in Iraq in January, Special Forces Sgt. James Alford was a wreck of a soldier. For five months, he had been doing odd things. He disappeared from Fort Campbell, Ky., for several days last year. He lost equipment and lied to superiors. In December, he was demoted from staff sergeant to sergeant.

In the Kwaitidesert, he came apart. The hotshot Green Beret who a year earlier ran circles around his team members and earned a Bronze Star in Afghanistan was ordered to carry a notepad to remember orders. By March, he was being cited for dereliction of duty, larceny and lying to superiors. He couldn’t even keep up with his gas mask.

Finally, in April, his commanders had had enough. They ordered him to return to Fort Campbell to be court-martialed and kicked out of the Special Forces.

“Your conduct is inconsistent with the integrity and professionalism required by a Special Forces soldier,” Lt. Col. Christopher E. Conner of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group Headquarters in Kuwait, wrote April 10.

Confused and disgraced
Confused and disgraced, the soldier moved back into his off-base home where he ate canned meat and anchovies, unaware of the day, the month or the year.

Sensing something was wrong, a neighbor called Alford’s parents. They drove 600 miles from East Texas to find a son who’d lost 30 pounds and could no longer drink from a glass, use a telephone, button his shirt or say Amber, the name of his soldier wife who was still stationed in the Middle East.

They rushed him to an emergency room. A month and several hospitals later, Alford’s family learned he was dying of a disease eating away his brain. He had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an extremely rare and fatal degenerative brain disorder akin to mad cow disease that causes rapid, progressive dementia.

The Army reversed direction quite quickly, and re-instated his rank, re-instated him into the Special Forces, and dismissed all charges against him. They also allowed him to stay on active duty, even though he was bed ridden.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90 percent of people who have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease die within a year. Jamie survived for SIX YEARS. Unbelievable.

On December 1st, 2008 SSGT James Alford finally lost his battle with the disease.

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