Wounded Army veteran tells students his story

Standing in his U.S. Army fatigues in front of Bristol Eastern High School teacher Barbara Kaminski’s class Friday, Cpl. Matt Lavoie told students the worst thing he had to eat in Iraq was a goat’s eyeball.
Eeeeewwwwwww! was pretty much the universal response from the two dozen sophomores and juniors listening to the 21-year-old wounded veteran’s account of his time in the Army.
Lavoie, who is returning to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation’s capital on Sunday for more surgeries on his shattered right arm and his right leg, told the students about Iraq, about his sounds, about what he’s learned from the terrible explosion on Sept. 30 that nearly took his life south of Baghdad.
As he lay bleeding on the ground beside the demolished Humvee he had been driving before the improvised explosive device, Lavoie said he hit bottom, seeing a bright light before starting to shake "and feel real cold."
His buddies kept him from slipping away, he said.
"I opened my eyes and said ‘I aint’ going yet.’" Lavoie told the students.
Seven times, he almost died that day, Lavoie said, but he pulled through with help from his fellow soldiers and a medical response that saved him.
After at least 11 surgeries so far, and many more to come, Lavoie’s right arm, which dangled beside him like a flag flapping in the breeze in the aftermath of the roadside bomb, is a puzzle of skin grafts, bolts, muscle taken from his back.
"It hurts," he said quietly, especially in the cold. "It seems like it’s getting worse and worse. I’ve got screws popping out in different directions."
Lavoie, 21, said he hopes to return to active duty, to deploy again someday with his unit, perhaps to Afghanistan. But he also said the Army will probably kick him out due to the severity of his wounds.
Lavoie said he’s not sorry he enlisted, that the trauma he experienced in Iraq has changed him for the better, has made him into a man.
The "class clown" who graduated from Eastern in 2005 with poor grades but many friends told stu-dents Friday that he made mistakes in high school.
"Don’t try to the cool kid," he told the students, some of whom he knew because they had older siblings. "Stay in school. Get good grades."
"There’s no excuse to be failing school because it’s easy," Lavoie said, adding that working hard and getting through college should be the top goal.
But Lavoie extolled the military as well, offering it as an alternative for some that can help pay for education.
What he loves about serving in the Army, he said, is that "it’s a brotherhood. These people are like family."
He said that he would do anything for the men with whom he served – and has.
When one fell during an ambush, Lavoie said, he instinctively ran through a hail of machine gun fire to rescue him.
"I could feel the wind and whistle of the bullets whizzing by," he said.
Sometimes, though, there’s nothing anyone can do.
A sergeant stepped on a mine about 10 yards from Lavoie during one patrol, he said, and moments later "it rained body parts."
Lavoie said he found a piece of the man in his pocket at the end of the patrol.
He said that he "dropped to my knees. I was just shocked."
"That was the roughest day I’ve seen," Lavoie said. He said he cried.
"It’s always going to burn me," he said. "It’s always going to get to me."
Lavoie said that despite the bloodshed and the horror, he has come to see the value of standing up for his country.
"The flag is the most important thing when you’re a soldier," Lavoie said. "They tell you the starts on the flag follow you into battle."
As Lavoie recounted his experiences, including the poor conditions in Iraq and even the necessity of gunning down youngsters who approach wearing bombs, Mayor Art Ward stood nodding to the side.
He stopped by the classroom to thank Lavoie for his service after learning the young soldier wanted to meet the mayor, who saw more than his share of combat in Vietnam in the U.S. Marines after graduating from high school in 1965.
When Lavoie stopped talking, the mayor walked over to the soldier and hugged him.
"Welcome home, buddy," Ward said.
But at least for now, a part of Lavoie is still back in Iraq.
He said that when someone dropped a pile of plates at a Macaroni Grill, he dived under the table, "just shaking."
"Your body just snaps into something and you’re like a robot," Lavoie said.
When Kaminski asked if he recalled hitting the floor, Lavoie said no.
"I came out of it and it was like, ‘whoah, dude, I’m under the table,’" Lavoie said.
Sometimes he sleepwalks, he said, and often has nightmares.
"I had five last night," Lavoie told the class. "Three hours of sleep."
He said he remains "deathly afraid of driving."
But, Lavoie said, he tries not to show the extent of his horrors.
"I bury it down deep. No one really sees it," Lavoie said.

Also see:
Lavoie comes home for the holidays
Lavoie recounts an awful day in Iraq

*******
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Lavoie comes home for the holidays

U.S. Army Corporal Matt Lavoie grew up in two-story white house in northeastern Bristol, just down the street from Kern Park.
An American flag waves on a pole his father installed in the backyard last summer, with a blue and white 3rd Infantry Division banner fluttering right beneath it.
The stars and stripes hang from a front porch pole as well, with a wooden wishing well on the snowy ground nearby.
Inside is a glittery Christmas tree surrounded with presents, but there’s no doubt what the greatest gift the Lavoie family received this holiday season.
Their son, mangled in a Sept. 30 roadside bomb explosion in Iraq, came home.
“We could have been up on Chippens Hill putting flowers on a grave,” his father, Sam Lavoie said. “We have a lot to be thankful for.”
Lavoie, whose arm looks like a jigsaw puzzle of skin grafts and other repairs, said he is happy for the chance to return to Bristol.
Sitting at his family’s dining room table with his father and his mother Pam, Lavoie said the injuries he received “are not going to stop me from living.”
Lavoie, who still has at least another eight operations ahead of him to try to regain full use of his right hand, was driving a Humvee in the lead position of a patrol in an unsettled area of Iraq when an explosion tossed it six feet into the air.
He wound up pinned to the steering column through his right leg, his right arm limp and gushing blood, his gun snapped in half.
Somehow, Lavoie pulled himself off the metal rod that had pierced his leg and flailed out onto the dirt, where friends dragged him to safety as he struggled to stay and fight.
He nearly died, Lavoie said, but eventually pulled through to the safety of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation’s capital, where surgeons are painstakingly putting his arm back together.
Lavoie got the green light to return home before Christmas. He needs to return to the hospital on Jan. 11.
He said he wished he could have come back to Bristol a month earlier for a community fundraiser that drew 500 people to Nuchies and raised $15,000 for his family. He said he wanted to convey his thanks to everyone and to his mother's boss, Carrie Tonon, who organized the effort.
“I couldn’t believe the whole town would come together” to lend him a hand, Lavoie said.
He said that everywhere he goes in Bristol now, people thank him for his service.
A man who recognized him from the picture that ran in The Bristol Press asked him, “Dude, are you the one who got blown up?”
Lavoie said that despite all the support, it’s still hard.
He has two bolts “kind of popping out of the skin” in his elbow, he said, which “kind of hurts.”
Lavoie has little feeling in his right fingers and not much elsewhere in his arm, which was so torn and shattered that he still wonders if he’d have been better off to lose it entirely.
“I wake up so stiff sometimes that I can’t get up,” he added, leaving him with the sense that his battered body is more like an 80-year-old man’s than one belonging to a former star wrestler who graduated from Bristol Eastern High School in 2005.
“My body has been through absolute hell,” Lavoie said.
He said he gets “a lot of flashbacks” to the explosion and other horrors in Iraq that are seared into his memory.
“Crowds get to me,” too, Lavoie said, and he “freaked” when he had to wade through a big assemblage at an airport on the way home.
He remains “absolutely terrified” of cars, he said, and loud noises can send him sprawling to the ground.
At Stop and Shop, Lavoie said, a bang caused him to hit the deck in the cereal aisle.
Lavoie his “teeth are getting kind of strong” as he uses them to pull zippers, open a can of soda or beer, and more. He set up a Blu-Ray home theater system with his one good hand.
“I really can’t do anything” with the right arm, Lavoie said. “I feel like it’s just dead.”
Still, Lavoie said he hopes that doctors will succeed in restoring at least 80 percent of his hand’s function. He said he’s angling for 100 percent.
Recovering at Walter Reed, where Lavoie spent six weeks flat on his back, he said he got pretty depressed.
But one say New York Yankees great Yogi Berra came through and that made him happy.
After that, a parade of celebrities stopped by, including comedian Robin Williams, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers, Pat Tillman’s mother and his favorite, Jason Bryant Acuña, who plays Wee Man on the television show “Jackass.”
“He jumped up on my bed and just talked,” Lavoie said.
Lavoie said he’s not the same person he was before the bomb went off.
“When you’re that close to death, it changes you,” Lavoie said.
“I went from a punk to a man,” Lavoie said.
With luck, Lavoie said, he’ll be able to return to active duty.
“I’d put my boots on right away,” Lavoie said.
He said that if he can stay in the infantry, he’ll stay in the Army, though his plans to become a Ranger are likely never going to happen now.
If he can’t keep fighting for his country, Lavoie said he’d like to become a SWAT team member when he recovers. If that proves impossible, Lavoie said, he might try firefighting or perhaps become a history teacher.
“When I get older, I think I’ll run for mayor,” Lavoie said, with a hint of mischief.

I will add more information this weekend, including Lavoie's memories of Iraq and perhaps something special beyond that next week.

*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Lavoie recounts an awful day in Iraq

One month ago, Bristol native Matt Lavoie lay wounded on the ground in Iraq, his arm shattered and gushing blood, screaming for his buddy Lennox.

"I remember everything getting cold and blurry, real foggy," Lavoie said Wednesday. "I almost died right there."

But Lavoie, a 2005 Bristol Eastern High School graduate, pulled through from his Sept. 30 injuries caused by a roadside bomb.

Though he remains in pain, and can barely walk, he is on the mend at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation's capital.

"He's got a long way to go," said his mother, Pam Lavoie, who's been at his side most of the time since he arrived back in the United States on Oct. 4. "It's a very bad injury."

Matt Lavoie, a U.S. Army corporal, said he signed up for the infantry after working a number of dead-end jobs after high school. He said he wanted to be a soldier and fight for his country.

Though he said "I wish I'd never signed that paper," he also said that he would give anything "to go back to my boys in Iraq" because he misses them so much.

Lavoie said he spent "my whole tour outside the wire" in Iraq, going on patrols.

On the day the bomb went off, he said, his unit had gone on a patrol at a fish farm and taken roads that appeared "perfectly safe."

But during the 90 minutes the troops were checking things out, Lavoie said, "one of them little slimeballs" put an explosive device along the road they'd taken.

On the way back, Lavoie drove the lead vehicle, which had a mine roller attached to its front that's designed to set off roadside bombs before the truck itself reaches them.

"It's supposed to blow up before you get to it," Lavoie said.

But about a mile and a half down the road, "I heard the biggest explosion of my life," Lavoie said, and realized that he was six feet in the air.

The truck crashed down at a 45-degree angle and the steering wheel went through his leg, he said.

"I honestly don't know what happened to my arm," Lavoie said, but his right arm was "completely shattered" and bleeding profusely.

"All I heard was everyone screaming" to get out, Lavoie said, but he couldn't move. He did, however, manage to shift around so the gunner could step on his head to escape the wreckage.

"I actually yanked the steering wheel out of my own leg," Lavoie said, and then scooted out himself.

He lay on the dirt, he said, and yelled for his best friend, Lennox, who rushed to his side to help with the bleeding. 

As he began to feel cold and groggy, Lavoie said, he thought about "friends and family back home" and snapped to life again. He said he nearly died three times that day, including once on the 15-minute helicopter evacuation to the hospital.

His parents heard from the Army that their son had suffered injuries to his "lower and upper extremities," leaving them worried about all sorts of possibilities.

Four hours later, Matt called from the hospital in Baghdad.

He told his mother that he had "busted my arm."

She asked if it was in a cast and whether he was OK.

"No, Mom, I'm not OK," he answered, explaining that his right arm was shattered.

"I freaked," Pam Lavoie said Wednesday.

But through 10 surgeries so far – with at least a couple more likely – doctors have begun to repair the damage, putting in a titanium rod, attached muscle and skin from other parts of the body and carving out dead and dying flesh and muscle.

Lavoie's mother said she's been able to be at her son's side most of the days he's been at the hospital because her employer, the Plainville-based Gems Sensors & Controls, has been generous and kind.

"I love being here with him," she said, even though "it's the worst that a mother wants to go through" to see her son in so much pain.

Lavoie said he is "tired of being here" and determined "to work my ass off" to get better so he can leave.

The former high school wrestling team captain said he managed to "walk like a little penguin" for four feet this week to a chair in his room. His next goal is walk to the toilet.

But he's got his eyes set on a full recovery as fast as he can do it.

"I want to be in Bristol," he said. "That's my home."

 Fundraiser to help Lavoie

A fundraiser has been scheduled for Nov. 13 to help Corp. Matt Lavoie and his family cope with the expenses related to his care.

Organized by his mother's boss, Carrie Tonon, the $15-a-person pasta dinner fundraiser is slated for 5 to 7 p.m. at Nuchies.

Lavoie called it a "very nice" gesture.

"I wish I could go," he said, adding that he probably can't.

But Pam Lavoie is hoping they can rig up a webcam so at least he can make some sort of appearance.

State Rep. Frank Nicastro, a former mayor who put in 30 years in the military, said that Lavoie is "a young man who placed his life on the line for his country" and deserves the help of the entire community as he tries to recover.

Nicastro said that it is "well worth the money" for everyone to attend the pasta supper and to lend a hand to a brave young soldier.

"This family could use all of our community support," Mayor Art Ward said.

Tickets will be available at the door or by emailing Tonon at tonon@snet.net or ctonon@gemssensors.com.

*******

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Bristol soldier wounded in Iraq

A Bristol soldier, Matt Lavoie, was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Sept. 30, according to state Rep. Frank Nicastro, a Democrat in the 79th District.

He said that Lavoie, a U.S. Army specialist 4th class, received severe injuries to his arm in the attack.

Lavoie is currently recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, according to an email from Carrie Tonon, who is organizing a fundraiser for him.

Lavoie has had 10 surgeries so far in a bid to save his arm, she wrote.

Nicastro, a former mayor who put in 30 years in the military, said that Lavoie is "a young man who placed his life on the line for his country" and deserves the help of the entire community as he tries to recover.

The $15-a-person fundraiser is slated from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13 at Nuchies.

Nicastro said that it is "well worth the money" for everyone to attend the pasta supper and to lend a hand to a brave young soldier.

"This family could use all of our community support," Mayor Art Ward said.

Tickets will be available at the door or by emailing Tonon at tonon@snet.net or ctonon@gemssensors.com.

If anyone has more information or can help me get in touch with Lavoie or his family, I would sure love to hear from you. You can email me at scollins@bristolpress.com.

Update: I spoke with Lavoie and his mom from his room at Walter Reed. I'll tell you his story later today. His mom called him a hero -- and I don't think she's exaggerating.

*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Larson, Visconti re Iraq

U.S. Rep. John Larson, an East Hartford Democrat whose 1st District includes Bristol, issued this statement recently about a trip he made to Iraq:

Washington, DC – Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), Vice Chair of the Democratic Caucus, joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a trip to Iraq this past weekend. The delegation met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Larson confronted al-Maliki with the reality of America’s waning patience with the War in Iraq and the government’s performance there.
Congressman Larson said, “Having spoken with Prime Minister Maliki, I am even more convinced of the need to establish a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The American people have supported the Iraqi government with life, limb and treasure. Now, it is time for Iraqis to stand up and take responsibility for their own future. It is time for Iraq’s neighbors and the Arab League to help create a stable and secure Iraq. It’s incumbent for Iraq’s neighbors and the international community to step up. It seems obvious to me they are content to see this administration go it alone.
“Americans at home are wondering why our troops are paying the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, caught in the midst of a sectarian war. The United States is going deeper and deeper into debt to rebuild Iraq while the Iraqi government is running a surplus.
“Iraq’s government must demonstrate to the United States and the world that it is capable of building a strong coalition to lead their country to stability and security. We have yet to see that sort of leadership from them.
“This continues to be one of the worst foreign policy decisions in our country’s history, the scope of which is eclipsing the Vietnam War.”

Republican challenger Joe Visconti just issued this in response:

WEST HARTFORD, CT -- West Hartford Councilman and Republican First Congressional District Candidate Joseph Visconti today blasted comments made by his opponent who demanded that Iraq increase the pace of its takeover of combat operations from US forces, calling the remarks "political opportunism at its worst."

Last week incumbent Democrat Congressman John Larson flew to Iraq and demanded that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which has won two major battles against Iran-backed terrorists in recent weeks, step up the pace of its combat operations.

"Larson stonewalled our military objectives with rhetoric for years and now he wants to get aggressive?" Visconti said. "John Larson should stop trying to act like a leader in the conflict in Iraq. He doesn’t have experience at it and could do more harm to our military than good.”

Visconti noted that Larson voted against liberating Iraq and preventing that country from becoming a new base for terrorists to launch attacks on the US, then worked against our military objectives as he called for a premature retreat of our troops.

"To put it in perspective," Visconti said, "John Larson lands in a free Iraq, meets with the democratically-elected leader in a newborn democracy, a democracy that American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians died for, which he opposed from the beginning, and now, to cover his own duplicity, arrogantly attacks our new ally."

Visconti also noted that U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker reported Saturday, "You are not going to hear me say that Al Qaeda is defeated, but they've never been closer to defeat than they are now." Crocker said while touring cities in southern Iraq, "The government, (and) the prime minister, are showing a clear determination to take on extremist armed elements that challenge the authority of the government.”

Visconti said Crocker's assessment of progress throughout Iraq shows that "Larson has been out of touch with the realities of what is happening in Iraq as he is in his own district, as evidenced by the lost Pratt & Whitney air tanker contract. He used his position as Congressman to take a taxpayer-funded trip to Iraq to talk directly to a leader of a free country, thanks to Republican leadership, foresight and courage."

"He should applaud the history that has been made: the United States and the Coalition forces' successful liberation of Iraq, and its newly formed democracy where he played the part of naysayer, procrastinator, troop morale under-miner and armchair quarterback.”

*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

A full-time federal guard for Bristol's Social Security office?

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, Congress decided that every Social Security office in the nation needed a full-time guard.
So for the past six years, the federal government has been shelling out more than $60,000 annually to cover the tab for having a guard watching over the 5-person Social Security office in Bristol.
That office is slated to close Nov. 2 so that the Social Security Administration can save about $113,000 annually, officials said.
More than half the savings will come from eliminating the need for a guard in Bristol.
The requirement “makes no sense,” said state Rep. Frank Nicastro, a 79th District Democrat.
“It seems so ridiculous,” said state Rep. Bill Hamzy, a Plymouth Republican whose 78th District includes part of Bristol.
John Leone, president of the Greater Bristol Chamber of Commerce, said it is “like shooting a fly with an elephant gun” to combat terrorism by hiring full-time security for a tiny Social Security office.
The other Social Security workers who are currently in Bristol will simply transfer to a New Britain office that is likely to be moving to new,larger quarters soon.
Local officials and aides for congressional offices who gathered at the chamber offices Friday afternoon said that one way to fight for the Bristol office to remain open may be to reduce its hours so that it would be open only four days a week instead of five.
Apparently, they said, the guard wouldn’t be necessary under the law if the office is less than full-time.
The federal Department of Homeland Security hires the guards and charges the Social Security Administration the cost of paying the guards along with a 15 percent management surcharge.
“It’s overkill,” Leone said, and clearly isn’t necessary in Bristol.
Mayor William Stortz, city councilors, state lawmakers and others said Friday they’re going to push hard to keep the office open.
“Once it’s closed, it’s closed,” said city Councilor Mike Rimcoski. “It would take an act of God to reopen it.”
Nicastro said he can’t understand the priorities in Washington.
“One bomb in Iraq” costs more than it would take to keep serving more than 12,000 people yearly at the Bristol office, Nicastro said.
He said, “We can spend that kind of money overseas - and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere, looks like another Vietnam - and we can’t this office open?”

*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com