“I hear something, think of something, see something out of the corner of my eye, and I’m on high alert.” “Mainly, I just can’t sleep” for more than three hours. I’m not having flashbacks and going crazy,” he says. “People have a misconception of what post-traumatic stress is. But that animal instinct doesn’t just go away after 10 years of service. I survived it because we trained our animal instinct and intuition. “I haven’t survived five combat tours out of luck. “Psycho’s a little strong, but I bet most civilians might think that. “I have a different perspective on how to handle things,” he laughs. He points to the “psycho” tattoo he got on the inside of his lower lip when he was 15. The 209-pound Kocher – one of triplets – has never really considered himself “normal” anyway. But when you get out, you have all these physical and mental changes, and, all of a sudden, you’re nobody,” he says. “You’re trying to fit in in a world where you no longer fit in. In 2006, a roadside bomb exploded beside his Humvee, throwing him 15 feet in the air, breaking the same arm, and earning him another Purple Heart.įive tours in Iraq and Afghanistan left the 28-year-old a walking trove of shrapnel and broken bones.īut all that pain was nothing compared to coming home after being discharged in 2006. “I got blown up two years ago,” he says.Ī member of the elite Marine First Reconnaissance Battalion, which was the “tip of the spear” in the Iraq invasion, Kocher shot his way through Iraqi insurgents with one arm in a tourniquet during a 2004 rocket attack in Fallujah, for which he received a Bronze Star, the United States’ fourth-highest military medal, and a Purple Heart. I got to get a CAT scan or something.”įor two weeks, he’s endured “debilitating” migraines. “The doctors think it’s traumatic brain injury. “I’ve been in the ER all weekend,” former Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Kocher says.
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