Tate Mallory: A Survival Story

When speaking with Tate Mallory, it becomes abundantly clear that he is a very humble man.  But he really has no reason to be.  I guess it is just in his nature.  He tells an absolutely amazing and horrific story of sadness, triumph, depression, anger and about every other emotion like he’s just explaining where he had lunch yesterday.

Mallory was sent over to Iraq as part of Dyncorp International’s team that would train Iraqi citizens to become police officers.  Mallory did feel a great sense of pride when doing this.  However,  talking to him, he is just happy that the people he trained are becoming what they want to be.  However on a recruiting mission, his humvee was shot with a rocket-propelled grenade.  It went through the back of his vehicle through his back and abdomen and then through his leg and out onto the floor of the vehicle.  Blood gushed out as shock set in.  Mallory didn’t figure he had much of a survival chance as he saw the blood come out like water from a faucet.  He even told his commanding officer to tell his kids that he’s sorry he came over to Iraq in the first place.  Paramedics were able to cauterize the wound and get him to a hospital for the first of 12 surgeries that ranged from Iraq to Germany and back in the states.

When getting back, Mallory suffered greatly from post traumatic stress disorder.  He became very isolated and angry.  He would lash out at family and rent hotel rooms just to be alone for days on end.  He didn’t enjoy anything anymore.  He told his sister that she was dead to him.  He even told his brother that he was going to kill himself.  Luckily, Mallory has such a strong support group.  His family got him to go to a therapist and psychiatrist to talk about what he’s gone through.  He was referred to the USD counseling center in Vermillion.  The counseling saved his life and family, Mallory says.  He told me that he would endure the physical pain from the grenade and operations twice over if he never had to deal with the psychological pain again.

Talk to him now and he still gets depressed here and there.  But he is able to come out of it.  You may see him walking around the USD campus.  Miraculously, he is able to walk albeit for only short periods of time.  He has only four classes remaining before he gets a degree in criminal justice.  Mallory will never be a patrol cop again, which he understands and says it just wasn’t meant to be.  But he would like to stay in the field whether it be in parole or what have you.

Mallory tried telling me that his story isn’t that great.  I guess that is just the kind of guy he is.  The kind of guy that surprises you left and right.  I can’t remember being so enthralled in a story.  I have to beg to differ with you on this one Tate.  Your story is one of the most amazing that I have ever heard.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100226005887&newsLang=en

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14548

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_61288680-3513-11df-b931-001cc4c03286.html

Homework over Spring Break…bad choice

This blog is in conjunction with the link posted on my links tab about doing homework over spring break.  Long story short, it’s called a break for a reason.  I know a good, studious student should plan ahead and always be thinking forward.  Yeah well this ain’t Leave it to Beaver.  This ain’t your grandma’s spring break.  I’m not saying anyone and everyone should just go somewhere tropical and make bad decisions that will haunt them.  However, it is a break.  Students shouldn’t just blow off school completely but it shouldn’t be a week long stress fest because some teachers feel the need to have a big project or paper due right when the break is over.  I can’t say for sure but I’m guessing these professors were young at one point and enjoyed having fun.  Not every fun-hating professor was a curmudgeon.  I know the arguments.  we pay for this education.  We need to take it seriously.  Yeah I know.  But that works for my argument as well.  We do pay for this and we do take it seriously.  Let us have a week where we don’t have to worry about citing sources and reading chapter 8 in the too-highly priced textbook.  More to come on this week’s U.Blog segment on U.News.

The Tiger Woods “Press Conference”

This post is in response to the Tiger Woods ESPN link under the links tab on my page.  Tiger Woods is obviously a control freak and has always been that way.  He very rarely did anything, whether it be an interview or appearance, without knowing exactly what was going to happen from beginning to end.  That is how he built his “empire” if you will.  He makes all the decisions and that is that.  Well, he finally lost control and things spiraled downhill for him after his untimely run-in with the fire hydrant.  Tiger finally came forward, sort of, on Feb. 19th.  He held what he called a press conference.  However, in true Woods fashion, there were only certain people invited to the press event.  He only invited media that he knows and trusts.  He also had friends and family at the speech.  Secondly, there were to be no questions from reporters after his comments.  There was also a special room that other reporters could sit in and watch the event.  Well that sounds an awful lot like what everyone else in the country was doing.  From a public relations standpoint, this didn’t help his cause all that much.  I know he loves being in control.  But if you want us to believe you’re human and humans make mistakes and you’re trying to recover from it and make things better, then treat us like people.  I’m not so sure that it hurt him to do it that way.  But for crying out loud get up there and face facts.  I know “addiction” is something that is hard to deal with and understand.  But, get up there and answer questions and be honest with us.  He didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.  We know it’s not Elin’s fault.  We get that.  We know you screwed up.  We don’t need to sit and listen to you like a nervous 9th grader giving his first speech in class.  Tiger sounded more like the voicemail lady on cellphones than a real person.  Thing about it is Tiger: you lost control of your life and yourself.  Trying to handcuff the media in your road to recovery will not make it any easier.  It’s silly to call that a press conference, because it wasn’t.  But it certainly got the ball rolling with all kinds of opinions.  It was certainly a trending topic on Twitter.  ESPN, along with most news outlets, went wall to wall coverage of Tiger.  To sum it all up with some advice, let the media be your friend Tiger.  And remember, you brought this on yourself.

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