The Cavalry at Home: A soldier’s wounds and a will to live

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/12/14/2948507/the-cavalry-at-home-a-soldiers.html

Spc. David Matakaiongo survived a deadly betrayal in Afghanistan when six of his allies in the Afghan National Police turned their weapons on his team in an isolated lookout in Zabul province. The Sept. 16, 2012 attack claimed the lives of Sgt. Sapuro Nena, Spc. Joshua Nelson, Pfc. Genaro Bedoy and Pfc. Jon Townsend. Matakaiongo was shot six times and is recovery at Joint Base Lewis-McChord's Warrior Transition Battalion. Video by Adam Ashton TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE

The Cavalry at Home: A soldier’s wounds and a will to live
By ADAM ASHTON; PHOTOS BY DEAN J. KOEPFLER
Staff writer
December 14, 2013 Updated 10 hours ago

More than a year back from war, Spc. David Matakaiongo can’t shed the feeling that he’s still in Afghanistan.

He plays with his toddler son at home on Joint Base Lewis-McChord and remembers the Afghan girl whose body fell apart in his arms as he lifted her right after a bomb struck her.

The once gregarious islander from Tonga now prefers to stay inside the smallest room of his house, the better to protect his wife and child.

He walks with a cane inscribed with the names of the four young soldiers who died next to him on the night traitors in the Afghan police attacked them. The four are never far from his thoughts.