Tomas Young, an Iraq War Army veteran who was paralyzed by a sniper's bullet and became one of the first veterans to oppose the war, has died at age 34.
Young passed away in his sleep early Monday morning at his home in Seattle, just one day before Veterans Day, his wife Claudia Cuellar Young told ABC News.
Young was paralyzed in April, 2004 at the age of 24 in a battle in Sadr City, Iraq, after being in the country for just five days. He was riding in an unarmored, open air Humvee when he was shot by a sniper's bullet and instantly paralyzed from the chest down, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He had joined the Army two days after September 11, 2001 and became one of the first veterans to publicly oppose the war, recorded famously in the 2007 documentary about his life Body of War co-produced by Phil Donohue.
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Cuellar Young said they had only moved to Seattle a month ago after her husbands pain medications were tapered down by the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Portland, Oregon, where they moved last September from Youngs home in Kansas City. Cuellar Young said she was battling with doctors at the Portland VA who she believes labeled him a junkie and she hoped her husband would be able to get his normal dose of pain medication if they relocated to Seattle.
I dont know why he had to beg, he fought for his country, Cuellar Young told ABC News Tuesday evening.
Courtesy Tomas Young
PHOTO: Tomas Young is shown here in uniform in 2003.
When they relocated they did see a doctor in Seattle, but were told, according to Cuellar Young, they would need to come back November 24 to meet with the pain team.
He didnt make it that long. Cuellar Young said she tried to stretch out his pain medicine, but he would wake in the middle of the night with breakout pain.
She said she called the VA in Seattle to tell them she was running out of pills and told them my husband took a bullet for his country, but was told to calm down.
Cuellar Young said her husband just never woke up Monday morning.
People say, He died peacefully. Im not sure how peaceful he was. He just left, he never came back. I dont think it was peaceful, she said. All we wanted was to be home and pain-free.
Courtesy Lucie Goodhart
PHOTO: Tomas Young is seen in this undated handout photo with his wife, Claudia Cuellar Young.
The King County Medical Examiners office in Seattle said the cause of death was unknown pending toxicology results.
In March, 2013, after almost 10 years of struggling with a paralyzed body, deteriorating health, a regimen of dozens of pills a day, intense abdominal pain that led to the removal of his colon -- and on top of all that, a pulmonary brain embolism in 2008 that made him even less mobile -- Young decided he was done fighting. That decision, he realized, meant he could be abstaining from medicine, food and water for weeks until he died.
But then he had a change of heart, deciding to live longer to spend as much time as he could with his wife, Young told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz in an interview that aired in December. Raddatz has covered the war in Iraq extensively, writing a book, "The Long Road Home" about the battle in Sadr City in which Young was injured.
That day, Young was reunited with the man who saved him in that 2004 firefight, Robert Miltenberger.
"I will always respect him and admire Robert Miltenberger until the day I leave this earth," Young said that day about the man he had not seen since the battle named Black Sunday. "He's become one of my heroes and I have the deepest and most outright respect for Robert."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/tomas-young-iraq-war-veteran-antiwar-activist-dead/story?id%3D26846330
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