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ANDOVER, Kan. (KSNW) — Scott Sexton served his country as a combat engineer and a bomb dog handler in the U.S. Army. The demolition specialist had many close calls with improvised explosive devices (IED) in Iraq and Afghanistan. He even stepped on an IED and lived to tell about it.
Sexton is a product of the coal fields of poverty-ravaged Eastern Kentucky. The son of a coal miner who died from severe black lung disease and the youngest of 14 children, Sexton figured out at a young age a career in the U.S. Army would be less dangerous than a lifetime underground in the mines.
Sexton was a 17-year-old senior-to-be when he volunteered to join the Kentucky National Guard.
“That way, before I went to basic training, I knew exactly what was going on with the military,” he said.
Sexton was the only one of 14 kids in his family to graduate from high school. Two weeks after graduation, he left his Kentucky home for basic training in Missouri.
“I went to Fort Leonard Wood for what they called OSUT, which is One Station Unit Training, and I did my basic military training, and then I did training to be a combat engineer. And they told me I’d get to blow stuff up, so why not?” Sexton said.
He trained to be a demolition specialist.
“What we did as combat engineers, we would find roadside bombs and stuff,” Sexton explained. “And instead of trying to defuse them or anything like that, we would just blow them up. We would take them, throw a stick of C-4 on it, and just blow it up.”
Upon completion of basic training, Sexton returned to Kentucky, still a reserve in the National Guard. He wanted to be on active duty, so he spoke to a one-star general and explained his situation. There weren’t any jobs back home, so the only chance he had to do anything with his life was to be a soldier.
Sexton received a call from an active duty recruiter, and soon, he was on his way back to Fort Leonard Wood, where he was stationed as an active duty soldier.
“When I was in processing at Fort Leonard Wood, the lady there at the front desk asked me, ‘Are you the canine guy?’ Like no, I’m an engineer. I blow stuff up. And she’s like, ‘Oh, we’re waiting on a canine guy.’ So, she went back to get my paperwork and came up to me is like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to the canine unit,’” he said.
So, in 2007, Sexton was sent to Lackland Air Base to learn how to be a bomb dog handler. His first bomb dog was named “Tucker.”
“My dog actually got to the point where they had to medically retire him, and it was gonna be a couple of years before I could get another dog. So, I decided to just deploy as a regular engineer,” he said.
Sexton joined a combat engineer unit at Balad Air Base in Iraq. His unit’s primary mission was route clearance.
“When you get used to looking at the roads and know what’s natural, and if we spotted something that looked out of place, we had a piece of equipment called the Buffalo,” said Sexton. “It’s this giant semi-truck-looking thing that has a hydraulic arm on it, and we would use it to dig at the dirt to try to see if there’s something in there. And if we found wires or something, we would just throw a stick of C-4 on it and blow it up.”
It goes without saying this was a very dangerous job.
“I’ve actually been blown up four times. Three times in Iraq sitting in the Buffalo doing that. You would be sitting there, and all of a sudden, you hit something, and the entire front of your truck is gone,” Sexton said with a laugh. “I had two concussions from it. Because the blast is still going to have that concussive force. So, I got two concussions from it, but nothing too crazy.”
After 18 months in Iraq, Sexton was ordered to go to Germany for a year before being deployed to Afghanistan.
He had a very close call in Afghanistan.
“I actually had an IED go off under my feet. I got super lucky that they did not bury it correctly because I still have my toes and my legs and stuff,” Sexton recalled. ” It knocked me back 10 feet and knocked me unconscious. I got a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, but I still have my toes, which is awesome.”
“I have a lot of friends that were nowhere near as lucky as I was. So, the big man was looking out for me that day for sure,” he continued.
Sexton was sent home to the States to Fort Knox, where he was medically discharged in 2012. When he returned home, he says he had 11 or 12 jobs within a year and a half. His mind wasn’t right. He realized he was still shellshocked.
“I want to say that I fully stabilized right away after going through so many jobs and having issues with my mental health and stuff like that. The VA finally said, ‘Hey, maybe right now you shouldn’t be working.’ So they increased my disability to individual unemployability to where they were able to take care of me while I got my mental health taken care of,” Sexton said. “I’ve focused on my mental health and stuff and getting myself back to just being a normal citizen up until 2019.”
Sexton started his own nonprofit to help veterans. It was called “The Forgotten 22,” and it raised awareness about veteran suicide.
“I’ve actually lost more of my friends and soldiers since coming back than I did in combat,” he said.
Sexton now works at the Andover Dog Training Center.
“And now I’m a professional puppy-petter. I play with puppies all day,” he said. “Mainly, this whole thing is a form of therapy for me. That’s kind of the whole reason why I started it.”
Sexton said when he was discharged from the Army, he was a soldier who was afraid to open up and talk to anyone. He’s come a long way. Now, he’s the one who helps his fellow veterans understand that they need to talk about their experiences. They have options other than suicide.
Sexton says he feels like he’s in a steady, stable place. He and his wife, Tasha, live in Andover with their two boys.
If you want to nominate a veteran for our Veteran Salute, email KSN reporter Jason Lamb at [email protected].
