Joshua Clark This is Me

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1. 1. Vets For Freedom

   www.vetsforfreedom.org/news/Re - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/25/2006   Last Visited: 10/31/2006

   Specialist Josh Clark, Connecticut, Connecticut National Guard, 143rd MP Company, Iraq Vet, Purple Heart

2. 2. Vets For Freedom

   www.vetsforfreedom.org/news/cl - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/19/2004   Last Visited: 12/3/2007

   Joshua Clark finds it odd to walk the streets of his hometown without the protection of a truck full of weapons, wondering who's trying to kill him.
   
   Clark is a military police officer with the Connecticut National Guard. He still has shrapnel in his neck, leg and arm from the explosion that killed one of his friends and wounded two others on a Baghdad bridge last June.
   
   "I'm here, but I still feel like I'm there," he said quietly, looking down at his clean, brown Army-issued boots.
   
   It's been a year since President Bush's order began the military's march through the Iraqi desert into Baghdad. In the last 12 months seven Connecticut soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq, and three have died in Afghanistan. Of Connecticut's 2,100 National Guard members deployed to Iraq, 13 were seriously wounded.
   
   Clark walked into the National Guard recruiting center in Willimantic three years ago. He wanted to go to college, but with four siblings and step-siblings there wasn't much money to go around. So he joined the National Guard for its tuition benefit.
   
   "Around here you either go to jail or go to war," he said.
   ...
   Clark and two others were badly wounded. Doctors told him his helmet, shredded by the blast, saved his life.
   
   He was airlifted first to a makeshift hospital in Iraq and then to an American military base in Germany. Later he was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland.
   
   "We clear for mines, and we did that day, I guess," he said.
   
   Clark's half-brother Ernie Rivera, 19, is entering the National Guard just as Clark, 21, is wrapping up his service.
   ...
   Rivera leaves for basic training in June, around the same time Clark will be getting out of the military.
   
   He's ready to follow in his footsteps, no matter the consequences.

3. 3. www.vetsforfreedom.org

   www.vetsforfreedom.org/news/ws - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/11/2006   Last Visited: 12/3/2007

   by Wade Zirkle and Josh Clark
   ...
   Mr. Clark was a specialist in the Connecticut National Guard who served in Baghdad. Both authors were wounded in action.