How Can I Help? | How Can I Help Tommy Murphy? |
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Dear Friend:
A young Army Ranger who served our country through three tours in our current wars - and his mom and dad - urgently needs our help. Together, we can help this family and build an organization to help others like them.
One of the unexpected consequences of the United States’ efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the enormous increase in soldiers living with psychological injuries like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Studies indicate that 16% or more of our young men and women are returning home with psychological injuries. The military is overwhelmed and unable to properly serve and treat the sea of soldiers suffering from PTSD. Officers and military lawyers are not trained to identify behaviors associated with PTSD and use informed judgment to get our soldiers the help they need. As citizens, we can do little to change this problem as a whole, but we can come together to help save one soldier, Tommy Murphy.
To you, Tommy Murphy is a stranger. This 22-year-old active duty Army Ranger from Birmingham, Alabama and Boston, Massachusetts likely has no connections to you or any aspect of your daily life. You, however, have the potential to impact this soldier’s life greatly.
Tommy and the Murphy family face huge challenges right now. A veteran of two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one tour serving the U.S. efforts in Iraq, Tommy is currently charged by the Army with offenses he allegedly committed while he was suffering a dissociative episode (what you may know as a psychotic break) due to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). No one was physically injured and no person lost any property as a result of Tommy’s actions during this incident. Believing he was preparing for patrol, he took and cleaned guns and dressed in his Ranger gear. Instead of being taken to treatment, he was charged with theft by an inexperienced young JAG Officer.
Tommy has yet to receive any treatment for PTSD even though the diagnosis was made by an Army Psychologist. He currently faces a 50-year-sentence in military prison and a dishonorable discharge from the Army. A dishonorable discharge would strip him of the right to get help at the Veteran’s Administration Hospitals.
Boston natives Bev Murphy, a nurse, and Joe Murphy, a private investigator, are struggling to keep their son out of prison and get him the help he needs. To provide Tommy with a competent defense, the Murphy’s spent their life savings and sold all they could sell for a private attorney and experts for Tommy’s trial—his first trial.
When the presiding judge ended the first trial due to gross misconduct by the prosecutor and perjured false testimony by a military doctor, Tommy and his family were placed back at square one—Tommy now faces a second trial, but the Murphy family cannot afford a defense, much less a good one.
Like most loving parents, Bev and Joe did everything in their power to save their son. But it wasn’t enough. Now they are helpless, afraid and broke. They gave their son to our country. Tommy gave his country everything he could give until he was left mentally broken and delusional. But we can help them – and we should.
SaveOneSoldier.Org is a group of concerned citizens trying to help Tommy—some of us are friends of Tommy and the Murphy’s, others are people who have never met Tommy yet feel compelled to help the Murphy family out of human concern and civic responsibility. SaveOneSoldier.Org is not an anti-war or activist group. We seek to serve brave soldiers with mental injuries and their families – one at a time, starting with the Murphy family. Tommy Murphy deserves our help—in whatever form it may take—because it is the compassionate, patriotic and moral thing to do. SaveOneSoldier.Org is organizing a fundraising effort to help Tommy and the Murphy family. Tommy was trained to serve as an “Army of One,” now we need to form an army to serve one soldier.
We lack the knowledge, power and resources to help every soldier in Tommy’s situation—there are far too many—but we can SAVE ONE SOLDIER. Please be a part of the solution for Tommy Murphy and his family:
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