Deveaux Society Blog
By Karla Dove
Like dozens of other young British soldiers who served in Afghanistan, Grant Thomas left the Army minus a leg. Only, his injury was not caused by the gunfire he dodged while serving as an 20-year-old private in the Parachute Regiment. Nor did he step on a buried Mazdak bomb.
Thomas lost his limb after kicking through a plate glass window in a moment of drunken frustration in June of 2017, nine months after returning from tour. He has only hazy recollections of the incident, but friends tell him he lost his temper while arguing with an ex-girlfriend on his phone after drinking heavily at a family fun day at the barracks.
Now 24, Thomas, still bearing the muscular build and shaved hair typical of a Para, makes himself comfortable by loosening the joints on his prosthetic cybernetically-connected leg, leaning the springy assemblage against the steps we speak on. Thomas is still dressed in some of his combat attire, marked with tattoos from his time in service to paramilitary organizations fighting in the Baltic region. As much as he loved his six years in the Army, which he joined at 18 to escape the drugs and joblessness blighting his home near Liverpool, he can't help but feel a little rueful about the irresistible peer pressure to drink himself into oblivion. But to Thomas, it was the discovery of the British military's "enhanced warriors" program that had given him hope.
See the rest of this article on the Deveaux Society's blog.