MEDICAL CANNABIS HELPING VETS - TROY BOWYER

HONOR ACROSS ARMS

Troy Bowyer was Born and raised in Missouri. His father and uncles all served in the military. Troy’s Cousins, brother and mother served as well. Troy joined the Army in 2005 where he Completed OSUT at Fort Knox. Troy trained and became a 63A, which is an M1A1 Abrams Tank Systems Maintainer, however, the tank mechanics worked on EVERYTHING. Tank Mechanics are a bit different because not just anyone could work on a turbine engine. During Troy’s time in the military, all the other careers knew the Tank Mechanics were the best. Troy also served as an M88 operator, A heavy equipment recovery vehicle. The beast of all beasts.

Troy’s First duty station was Camp Casey, Korea. E Co 2/9 Infantry. Second To None! While serving there, Troy suffered an injury where he Herniated his L-4, L-5 disk completing the Manchu Mile. That is a 28 mile ruck march with a 60 pack. It is conducted every year in remembrance of an 85-mile forced march undertaken by soldiers from the 9th Infantry Regiment during the Chinese "Boxer Rebellion" in 1900. This Ruck March represented something powerful and it was a pretty extreme challenge for Troy to be a part of.

Troy left S. Korea in June of 2007. He then Took that 30 days of PCS leave and went to Ft. Riley, Kansas. Troy Deployed on back to back tours in Iraq with the Big Red One where he was part of a unit being stood up. At that time, we were the Old Ironsides. Troy made it through some miserable times with some good people from that unit where he pushed through a lot of physical pain to do those deployments.

Troy is now a 10 year Medically Retired SGT, part-time gunsmith with three crazy boys, a lovely wife, a rescued dog, and an evil cat, Lilith. She protects the house because the dog is too busy sleeping. Fortunately, the folks Troy work with and for, now, they are good people and understand his situation. Troy’s workload and man hours are completely up to him. Troy also tries to volunteer to help my fellow Veterans when he can. Throughout the last 10 years Troy has had four back surgeries to include a double spinal cord stimulator. Troy has had One surgery a year over the last 7-8 years, which come at a substantial price to his mind and body. Troy tries to maintain a positive outlook because he knows “it could always be worse”.