Injured Soldiers find way to assist

Tax Center job offers new sense of accomplishment

Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord/5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

Specialist Lucas Sutton has always believed that in life things happen for a reason.

So when a severe knee injury interrupted his ability to perform as an infantryman and shattered his longtime dreams of becoming an Army Ranger, he let his faith run its course.

“It’s sad, but I’m a very positive person, and I like to think on the upside of life,” he said. “I’m a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason.’”

Now, little more than a year after a serious case of runner’s knee brought his aspirations to a screeching halt, he has found himself in a rather peculiar situation for combat Soldiers — still serving in the Army, but now preparing taxes instead of training in the field.

And although the 23-year old admits he never would have seen himself in the Army and working in an office job at the same time, he’s happy.

Sutton works with 26 other Soldiers at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Tax Center located off 41st Division Drive, across from the Lewis Main Exchange, preparing taxes for the installation’s servicemembers and their families, government civilians and military retirees.

“It’s not as action-packed, obviously,” Sutton said. “It’s less running around, and over here it’s calmer. “It’s like hot and cold, really; it’s a complete opposite.”

He joined his new team at the center in November 2010 from his infantry company in 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, after doctors discovered the cartilage in his left knee had worn down so severely that the ends of his bones had begun to scrape against one another.

It looked as though his 2009 deployment to Iraq and the miles of running with his squad for physical training each morning had done Sutton in.

After his diagnosis he worked details — odd jobs, essentially — because he’d been deemed unfit to remain in his infantry unit.

“I was on detail after detail after detail,” he said. “Instead of going out and training, they put me on a detail at the motor pool to do checks on the Strykers.”

Sutton said he felt empty.

But today he might thank his leadership for choosing him to join other Soldiers from units across JBLM to support the center, which now stays open year round and offers its services Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

And like the other Soldiers serving there with him, who traded in their old jobs — some for a few months and some for good — Sutton is now fulfilling a higher purpose.

“It’s definitely a big sense of pride and pleasure,” Sutton said. “Helping Soldiers out is a big thing in most people’s lives. I don’t know who wouldn’t want to help out Soldiers.

“You get some people here who get pretty high refunds, so it’s definitely a big pleasure thing.”

“They’re in a situation where they feel valuable, and they’re utilized,” said Capt. Sean Flood, the officer in charge at the tax center, which opened its doors Jan. 23 for those filing their 2011 taxes.

Flood said many of the Soldiers working in the center, whom Internal Revenue Service representatives and experienced Army financial personnel trained for approximately two months to use software to file taxes and master related forms, were selected by their leaders because of injuries that no longer allowed them to remain in their former occupations.

They’re infantrymen, engineers and military police. Some are former squad leaders, some team leaders. Sergeant Brian Slates was a cavalry scout.

That was before a roadside bomb struck his squad’s Stryker fighting vehicle in 2010 during his deployment to Iraq with 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Slates’s unit sent him to Balad, Iraq, for two weeks to receive medical care, but for the next several months he tried to tough it out.

Eventually, however, an MRI scan revealed torn tendons in both his ankles.

“I need like four surgeries on my ankle, one on my knee and possibly something on my back,” said Slates, called back by the Army from the inactive ready reserves to active duty for deployment.

“I told them if I was going back in, I’d just go active,” he said. “Very shortly after, I re-enlisted. I was having a good time.”