Unbreakable Bonds by Dava Guerin

Author:Dava Guerin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

JEFFREY SHONK AND TAMMY KARCHER

TAMMY KARCHER IS UNIQUE AMONG THE MOMS AT WALTER REED. SHE met the man who tried to kill her son, Jeffrey Shonk.

They met, Tammy and US Army Specialist Neftaly Platero, at his June 2012 trial for murder in a military courtroom at Fort Stewart, Georgia, about 6,750 miles from the base in Iraq where Platero killed two soldiers and wounded Jeffrey Shonk almost two years before.

Tammy wanted to confront the man responsible for her son’s life-altering injuries. She wanted to ask, “Why would you do this?”

“This” was a shooting on September 23, 2010, just west of Baghdad, at Camp Fallujah, as the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were preparing to turn in for the night.

According to the press accounts, Private First Class Gebrah Noonan, of Watertown, Connecticut, had just returned from the showers to the room he shared with three others. Specialist John Carrillo Jr., of Stockton, California, was kneeling down, rummaging through his backpack. Jeffrey Shonk, of Maryland, was lying on his bunk, watching a movie on his computer. The military would later say that the four roommates had been arguing about keeping their room cleaned, but the “why” of what happened next may never be fully explained.

Platero drew his weapon and opened fire, eighteen times in all. Noonan, twenty-six, was hit in the side and the back. Twenty-year-old Carrillo, who was married with two children, one a newborn when he deployed just two months earlier, was shot in the back seven times. Private First Class Shonk, then twenty-one, was shot in the left leg, the right hand, and the head. Neither Noonan nor Carrillo survived his wounds. It wasn’t immediately clear if Shonk would either.

“Why would you do this? That was my biggest thing,” Tammy said years later, still in disbelief. “Why turn the gun on your brothers?”

It was an unfathomable thought for Tammy, whose father, George Glenn, had served as a Green Beret in Vietnam, and whose husband had been a career Navy man. She knew the bonds service members had with each other, and had seen it most dramatically when her father attended Jeffrey’s basic training graduation. It was one of the few times she’d seen her father cry. As anyone in the military knows, risks come with the job. Military families understand this. Threats from the enemy in times of war are a constant source of worry. But from one of your own? Part of your extended military family?

Tammy’s extended family, what she calls her “friends for life,” began developing years ago. Some date back to when Jeffrey was born in Carthage, New York, near Fort Drum, where his father, Tammy’s first husband, was stationed. Two of those friends, Terry and Barb, shared Thanksgiving and Christmas with Tammy and her family, and they later became godparents to Jeffrey. In fact, as Tammy said, “They got to see him before my family did.” They stayed close, and there were many other close friends along the way.

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