Soldier Re-Enlists Hours After IED Injury

Spc. Christopher Hoyt, an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis, WA re-enlisted in the Army just hours after being seriously wounded in an improvised explosive attack near Zaganiyah, Iraq, Nov. 13:

FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARHORSE, Iraq – A U.S. Soldier re-enlisted in the Army just hours after being seriously wounded in an improvised explosive attack near Zaganiyah, Iraq, Nov. 13.

Spc. Christopher Hoyt, an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis, Wash., suffered severe lacerations to his legs and torso when an IED exploded near him while conducting a dismounted patrol. Two of his fellow Soldiers were killed in the attack.

Hoyt was rushed to the emergency room at Logistics Support Area Anaconda, where he decided to re-enlist for four more years in the Army.

“He said he wasn’t finished,” said Hoyt’s battalion commander Lt. Col. Mark Landes, who re-enlisted the Soldier. “He said, ‘I still have a job to do.’ I’ve never seen the like.”

Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, the brigade’s top noncommissioned officer, was also on hand for Hoyt’s reenlistment.

“It takes a person of very strong character to go through an incident where another Soldier five feet away was killed and he was severally wounded and still say ‘I believe in what we are doing and I want to stay on the team. I want to support the United States Army and my country.’

“Spc. Hoyt is the epitome of what a Soldier should be,” Troxell continued. “He is a model for what all men and women should be, and that is very patriotic and very selfless.”

Hoyt, whose hometown is Clemente, Calif., is currently recovering in an Army hospital in Germany.

At the same time the residents of Washington State were standing in lines preventing his fellow soldiers from returnning home and blockading their equipment from being offloaded at the port so it could return to Fort Lewis. Disrespectful doesn't even begin to explain their actions while one of our finest re-enlists to continue the mission despite being injured in combat.

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H&I Fires* 20 NOV 2007 from Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys.