dododummie

PITTSTOWN — Spc. Kevin Miller was waiting for his first deployment. The Rensselaer County soldier would serve as a driver and gunner in Afghanistan, and despite some nerves, he was enthusiastic about his mission. "I love it. I eat it up," Miller told a reporter training on the Fort Drum Army base in 2007. "I don't know what to expect, but I'm going to be looking out for anything and everything."
He couldn't look out for this: Chewing tobacco in Afghanistan would almost kill him and another New York National Guardsman in a rare and still unsolved case of international intrigue.
"It's crazy," Miller said this week, months into what he calls a miraculous recovery from cyanide and heroin poisoning. "It's stuff you do not hear about unless you live through it."
Miller can recount the story seven months after awaking from a coma, but he still doesn't feel anything from his right knee down, and suffers from short- and long-term memory loss, tremors in both hands and post-traumatic stress disorder. He recently started walking with a crutch, despite nerve damage in his toes, arm and leg.
Miller, a 26-year-old single father now residing in Johnsonville with his parents, 7-year-old son and two younger brothers, says he suspects Afghan villagers who operated a "haji shop" inside the U.S. base in Gardaze poisoned one of the many cans of Skoal tobacco he purchased from them last summer. He says the cyanide-laced chew also contained traces of heroin, and that he shared it with Sgt. Colin Dudziake of Buffalo, who also fell critically ill. Dudziake is still recovering in Walter Reed Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C., and the pair keep in touch.
Asked about the case, an Army spokesman confirmed that two soldiers were poisoned at the eastern Afghanistan base, fell into comas and were evacuated on life support. A military investigation of the base included searches of every living area and personal belonging. It showed "a likelihood that the soldiers had ingested chew or tobacco-related product of local origin." No arrests were made.
Shortly after the incident, the U.S. issued a new policy prohibiting the use of tobacco products not purchased through supervised channels, National Guard Lt. Col. Paul Fanning said.

hotshotbrian

Chewing Tobacco is disgusting

Chopz504

that shyt stink and its bad