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  1. #1
    Awake
    Guest
    Illusion of Invincibility Shattered -- Painfully

    Brian Avery thought his U.S. passport would protect him when he journeyed
    to the Mideast to be a 'human shield.'

    By Allen G. Breed, Associated Press Writer



    CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - When Brian Avery called home in early January to say
    he was heading for Israel, his parents realized that they could not stop
    him. But they had to try.

    "This issue has been there for so long," his father, Bob Avery, tried to
    reason with his son, 24. "How do you think you can change it?"

    "If everyone took the position that there's nothing I can do, then
    nothing's ever going to change," Brian replied.

    Brian knew that peace activists had been wounded in the
    Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and that a humanitarian worker had been
    killed the year before. But that had supposedly been an accident, a fluke.

    Voicing another fear, Bob Avery brought up the imprisoned "American
    Taliban," John Walker Lindh, who was nearly killed fighting U.S. troops in
    Afghanistan.

    "I'm not going to be a fighter," Brian assured him. "I'm going to report
    on the events and write articles."

    The words "human shield" didn't come up until later.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Julie Avery had always called her son Brian "my free spirit."

    The ponytailed rock drummer had studied music in college, but dropped out
    after a year to work on an organic farm. He worked with the homeless and
    poor in Chicago.

    Brian viewed the world in terms of the big guy versus the little guy, the
    corporate behemoth against the family farmer, Goliath and David.

    While studying herbal medicine in Albuquerque last winter, Brian had
    become involved with the local Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance. Eventually, he
    decided to volunteer with a group called the International Solidarity
    Movement.

    Founded in 2001, ISM operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - lands that
    Israel seized in 1967 and 1973 after attacks by Arab neighbors who denied
    the 56-year-old Jewish state's right to exist.

    Some Israelis see these lands as a necessary buffer against continuing
    sniper attacks and suicide bombings; Jewish settlers claim them as a
    biblical birthright.

    For Palestinians, the Israeli presence there is a heavy-handed occupation
    of their homeland. They bridle at Israeli Army checkpoints and other
    restrictions.

    The United Nations has called for Israeli withdrawal. There have been
    pullbacks, but renewed violence has begotten reoccupation.

    The latest Palestinian up- rising began three years ago. Since then, 2,400
    Palestinians and 830 Israelis have died in the fighting.

    ISM's founders saw themselves as an international peacekeeping and
    monitoring presence that the United Nations could not or would not
    provide. To the Israeli government, ISM's activists are meddlers whose
    actions range from negligence to outright abetting of terrorism.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Brian Avery hadn't been in the West Bank city of Nablus a week when his
    parents got a lengthy e-mail.

    His group's main "actions," as he put it in the Jan. 31 note, consisted of
    "being monitors and witnesses at military checkpoints" and "lodging in the
    homes of the families of individuals who chose suicide bombing as their
    method of resisting the occupation."

    Brian's parents had pictured him handing out food and medicine. Instead,
    he was negotiating with armed border guards and occupying "martyr houses."

    Brian told them that he believed that his American citizenship put him in
    a special position.

    On the one hand, it made him feel partially responsible for what was
    happening in the territories because of U.S. aid to Israel. At the same
    time, though, he saw his American passport as a unique asset - a "badge of
    invincibility" that he would share with the Palestinians.

    Six weeks later, the Averys learned just how little protection a U.S.
    passport provided.

    On March 16, another ISM member, Rachel Corrie, 23, a college student from
    Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death while trying to stop an Israeli
    bulldozer demolishing a row of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip town of
    Rafah.

    Israeli officials said that she was in a blind spot and that the driver
    couldn't see her, despite her bright red vest.

    "Please get out of Palestine while you can!!!!" Julie Avery begged her son
    in an e-mail afterward.

    But Brian had trained with Rachel, and her death made him even more
    determined.

    Still, he tried to reassure his parents: He had a couple more weeks left
    on his visa, after which he would see them. Besides, he was headed north
    to Jenin, even farther from the volatile Gaza Strip.

    "Don't worry, Mom," he said in a rare telephone call. "They don't shoot
    Americans."


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Bob Avery was sitting in his basement office on April 5, watching the rain
    that had washed out his softball game, when the phone rang.

    "I'm afraid I've got some very, very bad news for you," came a voice in
    heavily accented English.

    It was Tobias Karlsson, head of ISM's Jenin office.

    Just minutes before, he and Brian had heard gunfire in the streets below.
    The city was under curfew, but the two went out to meet four other
    activists and investigate.

    That's when they noticed two Israeli vehicles rumbling up behind them.

    Slowly, they backed up under a street lamp and put their arms out at their
    sides to let the vehicles pass, Karlsson said. Only Brian was wearing a
    reflective vest, identifying him as a peace activist.

    Suddenly, they were being pelted by bits of shattered pavement.

    The Israelis would often fire two or three warning shots at a wall,
    Karlsson said, but this time, 10, 15, 20 rounds were fired.

    When the shooting stopped, he turned to find Brian lying on his stomach in
    the street, blood seeping between the fingers wrapped around his face.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    Three days later, Bob Avery arrived at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center. From
    the doorway of the intensive car unit, he caught sight of his son.

    Brian's face was twice its normal size, its hue a surreal yellowish-purple
    from massive bruising.

    X-rays showed that the bullet had entered just below the right tear duct.
    There was a large hole where Brian's nasal bone should have been. The
    bullet exited the left cheek. Half of the teeth were missing on the top
    left side and another on the bottom. His lower left jaw had been sheered
    in half.

    "He'll never go back together," Avery said to himself.

    April 10 was Brian's 25th birthday. The hospital staff sang to him. The
    next day, a surgeon laid out a plan to harvest bone from the sides of
    Brian's skull to rebuild the nasal area.

    Bob Avery tried to cheer his son. "They said they needed a model for what
    you've got to look like. I gave them a picture of Elvis."

    This would be just the beginning of the effort to reconstruct Brian's
    shattered face.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    The Israel Defense Force released its findings on Brian's shooting in late
    May.

    The armored personnel carrier crew reported firing on three occasions that
    day, but no casualties were identified.

    But the army noted that vehicles enforcing the curfew were directed to
    keep their hatches closed for protection, creating "enhanced chances of
    misidentification and misunderstandings."

    The report's conclusion: "Mr. Avery's injury is an unfortunate incident."

    Bob Avery, a 30-year U.S. Navy veteran, was outraged. Through his own
    investigation, he made what he considered a key discovery:

    ISM had said Brian's injury occurred at 6:30 p.m., a time when the army
    showed the APC several blocks away.

    Actually, it was an hour later. Israel had just begun observing the
    equivalent of daylight-saving time, but clocks in the Palestinian sector
    were still set an hour earlier.

    That put the Israeli vehicles in the shooting area around the right time,
    Avery concluded. But the IDF would not budge.

    It paid for Brian's treatment in Haifa. But when he left the hospital, he
    was on his own.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------



    By the time that Brian returned to the United States on June 14, 2 1/2
    months on a liquid diet had shrunken the former defensive lineman to 115
    pounds.

    When he talks, the sound echoes inside his skull. He cannot breathe
    through his nose and he has no sense of smell.

    He faces at least five more rounds of surgery in the coming year. More
    bone will be taken from his skull to rebuild the left jaw so that
    artificial teeth can be implanted.

    He has no insurance.

    Brian thinks often of Rachel Corrie. He thinks of Tom Hurndall, an ISM
    activist from Great Britain who was shot the same month by IDF forces
    during a Gaza protest and is brain dead in England.

    Brian knows that he's the lucky one.

    He regrets that his medical needs have thrown his parents' retirement
    plans into financial chaos. He regrets that he may never again smell a
    rose or smile as before.

    But he insists that he does not regret his decision to go.

    And he wants to return to the region someday. Only next time, he'll go as
    a true observer.

    He has no more illusions of invincibility.


    __________________________________
    Do you Yahoo!?
    The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
    http://shopping.yahoo.com




    See More: Israeli Butchers blow face off American




  2. #2
    Dr Wakk
    Guest

    Re: Israeli Butchers blow face off American

    >ILLUSION OF "INTELLIGENCE" SHATTERED -- PAINFULLY
    (HA HA HA HA HAH HAH HAA HAWWWW!)

    good bye AWAKE

    you are really ASLEEP.


    "Awake" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    > Illusion of Invincibility Shattered -- Painfully
    >
    > Brian Avery thought his U.S. passport would protect him when he journeyed
    > to the Mideast to be a 'human shield.'
    >
    > By Allen G. Breed, Associated Press Writer
    >
    >
    >
    > CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - When Brian Avery called home in early January to say
    > he was heading for Israel, his parents realized that they could not stop
    > him. But they had to try.
    >
    > "This issue has been there for so long," his father, Bob Avery, tried to
    > reason with his son, 24. "How do you think you can change it?"
    >
    > "If everyone took the position that there's nothing I can do, then
    > nothing's ever going to change," Brian replied.
    >
    > Brian knew that peace activists had been wounded in the
    > Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and that a humanitarian worker had been
    > killed the year before. But that had supposedly been an accident, a fluke.
    >
    > Voicing another fear, Bob Avery brought up the imprisoned "American
    > Taliban," John Walker Lindh, who was nearly killed fighting U.S. troops in
    > Afghanistan.
    >
    > "I'm not going to be a fighter," Brian assured him. "I'm going to report
    > on the events and write articles."
    >
    > The words "human shield" didn't come up until later.
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > Julie Avery had always called her son Brian "my free spirit."
    >
    > The ponytailed rock drummer had studied music in college, but dropped out
    > after a year to work on an organic farm. He worked with the homeless and
    > poor in Chicago.
    >
    > Brian viewed the world in terms of the big guy versus the little guy, the
    > corporate behemoth against the family farmer, Goliath and David.
    >
    > While studying herbal medicine in Albuquerque last winter, Brian had
    > become involved with the local Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance. Eventually, he
    > decided to volunteer with a group called the International Solidarity
    > Movement.
    >
    > Founded in 2001, ISM operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - lands that
    > Israel seized in 1967 and 1973 after attacks by Arab neighbors who denied
    > the 56-year-old Jewish state's right to exist.
    >
    > Some Israelis see these lands as a necessary buffer against continuing
    > sniper attacks and suicide bombings; Jewish settlers claim them as a
    > biblical birthright.
    >
    > For Palestinians, the Israeli presence there is a heavy-handed occupation
    > of their homeland. They bridle at Israeli Army checkpoints and other
    > restrictions.
    >
    > The United Nations has called for Israeli withdrawal. There have been
    > pullbacks, but renewed violence has begotten reoccupation.
    >
    > The latest Palestinian up- rising began three years ago. Since then, 2,400
    > Palestinians and 830 Israelis have died in the fighting.
    >
    > ISM's founders saw themselves as an international peacekeeping and
    > monitoring presence that the United Nations could not or would not
    > provide. To the Israeli government, ISM's activists are meddlers whose
    > actions range from negligence to outright abetting of terrorism.
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > Brian Avery hadn't been in the West Bank city of Nablus a week when his
    > parents got a lengthy e-mail.
    >
    > His group's main "actions," as he put it in the Jan. 31 note, consisted of
    > "being monitors and witnesses at military checkpoints" and "lodging in the
    > homes of the families of individuals who chose suicide bombing as their
    > method of resisting the occupation."
    >
    > Brian's parents had pictured him handing out food and medicine. Instead,
    > he was negotiating with armed border guards and occupying "martyr houses."
    >
    > Brian told them that he believed that his American citizenship put him in
    > a special position.
    >
    > On the one hand, it made him feel partially responsible for what was
    > happening in the territories because of U.S. aid to Israel. At the same
    > time, though, he saw his American passport as a unique asset - a "badge of
    > invincibility" that he would share with the Palestinians.
    >
    > Six weeks later, the Averys learned just how little protection a U.S.
    > passport provided.
    >
    > On March 16, another ISM member, Rachel Corrie, 23, a college student from
    > Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death while trying to stop an Israeli
    > bulldozer demolishing a row of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip town of
    > Rafah.
    >
    > Israeli officials said that she was in a blind spot and that the driver
    > couldn't see her, despite her bright red vest.
    >
    > "Please get out of Palestine while you can!!!!" Julie Avery begged her son
    > in an e-mail afterward.
    >
    > But Brian had trained with Rachel, and her death made him even more
    > determined.
    >
    > Still, he tried to reassure his parents: He had a couple more weeks left
    > on his visa, after which he would see them. Besides, he was headed north
    > to Jenin, even farther from the volatile Gaza Strip.
    >
    > "Don't worry, Mom," he said in a rare telephone call. "They don't shoot
    > Americans."
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > Bob Avery was sitting in his basement office on April 5, watching the rain
    > that had washed out his softball game, when the phone rang.
    >
    > "I'm afraid I've got some very, very bad news for you," came a voice in
    > heavily accented English.
    >
    > It was Tobias Karlsson, head of ISM's Jenin office.
    >
    > Just minutes before, he and Brian had heard gunfire in the streets below.
    > The city was under curfew, but the two went out to meet four other
    > activists and investigate.
    >
    > That's when they noticed two Israeli vehicles rumbling up behind them.
    >
    > Slowly, they backed up under a street lamp and put their arms out at their
    > sides to let the vehicles pass, Karlsson said. Only Brian was wearing a
    > reflective vest, identifying him as a peace activist.
    >
    > Suddenly, they were being pelted by bits of shattered pavement.
    >
    > The Israelis would often fire two or three warning shots at a wall,
    > Karlsson said, but this time, 10, 15, 20 rounds were fired.
    >
    > When the shooting stopped, he turned to find Brian lying on his stomach in
    > the street, blood seeping between the fingers wrapped around his face.
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > Three days later, Bob Avery arrived at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center. From
    > the doorway of the intensive car unit, he caught sight of his son.
    >
    > Brian's face was twice its normal size, its hue a surreal yellowish-purple
    > from massive bruising.
    >
    > X-rays showed that the bullet had entered just below the right tear duct.
    > There was a large hole where Brian's nasal bone should have been. The
    > bullet exited the left cheek. Half of the teeth were missing on the top
    > left side and another on the bottom. His lower left jaw had been sheered
    > in half.
    >
    > "He'll never go back together," Avery said to himself.
    >
    > April 10 was Brian's 25th birthday. The hospital staff sang to him. The
    > next day, a surgeon laid out a plan to harvest bone from the sides of
    > Brian's skull to rebuild the nasal area.
    >
    > Bob Avery tried to cheer his son. "They said they needed a model for what
    > you've got to look like. I gave them a picture of Elvis."
    >
    > This would be just the beginning of the effort to reconstruct Brian's
    > shattered face.
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > The Israel Defense Force released its findings on Brian's shooting in late
    > May.
    >
    > The armored personnel carrier crew reported firing on three occasions that
    > day, but no casualties were identified.
    >
    > But the army noted that vehicles enforcing the curfew were directed to
    > keep their hatches closed for protection, creating "enhanced chances of
    > misidentification and misunderstandings."
    >
    > The report's conclusion: "Mr. Avery's injury is an unfortunate incident."
    >
    > Bob Avery, a 30-year U.S. Navy veteran, was outraged. Through his own
    > investigation, he made what he considered a key discovery:
    >
    > ISM had said Brian's injury occurred at 6:30 p.m., a time when the army
    > showed the APC several blocks away.
    >
    > Actually, it was an hour later. Israel had just begun observing the
    > equivalent of daylight-saving time, but clocks in the Palestinian sector
    > were still set an hour earlier.
    >
    > That put the Israeli vehicles in the shooting area around the right time,
    > Avery concluded. But the IDF would not budge.
    >
    > It paid for Brian's treatment in Haifa. But when he left the hospital, he
    > was on his own.
    >
    >
    > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > By the time that Brian returned to the United States on June 14, 2 1/2
    > months on a liquid diet had shrunken the former defensive lineman to 115
    > pounds.
    >
    > When he talks, the sound echoes inside his skull. He cannot breathe
    > through his nose and he has no sense of smell.
    >
    > He faces at least five more rounds of surgery in the coming year. More
    > bone will be taken from his skull to rebuild the left jaw so that
    > artificial teeth can be implanted.
    >
    > He has no insurance.
    >
    > Brian thinks often of Rachel Corrie. He thinks of Tom Hurndall, an ISM
    > activist from Great Britain who was shot the same month by IDF forces
    > during a Gaza protest and is brain dead in England.
    >
    > Brian knows that he's the lucky one.
    >
    > He regrets that his medical needs have thrown his parents' retirement
    > plans into financial chaos. He regrets that he may never again smell a
    > rose or smile as before.
    >
    > But he insists that he does not regret his decision to go.
    >
    > And he wants to return to the region someday. Only next time, he'll go as
    > a true observer.
    >
    > He has no more illusions of invincibility.
    >
    >
    > __________________________________
    > Do you Yahoo!?
    > The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
    > http://shopping.yahoo.com
    >






  3. #3
    JRW
    Guest

    Re: Israeli Butchers blow face off American

    See, I told you those Early Temination Fees were rough!




  4. #4
    DrWakk
    Guest

    Re: Israeli Butchers blow face off American

    """ouch!!"""

    "JRW" <no_addy@no_.com> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    > See, I told you those Early Temination Fees were rough!
    >






  5. #5

    Re: Israeli Butchers blow face off American

    As I told you on another group, pick a side, grab a rifle and go
    fight. The rest of us just don't care that these people want to kill
    each other. You need to put your hatred to use and if that happens to
    be killing the "jews" that you hate so much, so be it.

    On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:31:42 +0000 (UTC),
    [email protected]er (Awake) wrote:

    >Illusion of Invincibility Shattered -- Painfully
    >
    >Brian Avery thought his U.S. passport would protect him when he journeyed
    >to the Mideast to be a 'human shield.'
    >
    >By Allen G. Breed, Associated Press Writer
    >
    >
    >
    >CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - When Brian Avery called home in early January to say
    >he was heading for Israel, his parents realized that they could not stop
    >him. But they had to try.
    >
    >"This issue has been there for so long," his father, Bob Avery, tried to
    >reason with his son, 24. "How do you think you can change it?"
    >
    >"If everyone took the position that there's nothing I can do, then
    >nothing's ever going to change," Brian replied.
    >
    >Brian knew that peace activists had been wounded in the
    >Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and that a humanitarian worker had been
    >killed the year before. But that had supposedly been an accident, a fluke.
    >
    >Voicing another fear, Bob Avery brought up the imprisoned "American
    >Taliban," John Walker Lindh, who was nearly killed fighting U.S. troops in
    >Afghanistan.
    >
    >"I'm not going to be a fighter," Brian assured him. "I'm going to report
    >on the events and write articles."
    >
    >The words "human shield" didn't come up until later.
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >Julie Avery had always called her son Brian "my free spirit."
    >
    >The ponytailed rock drummer had studied music in college, but dropped out
    >after a year to work on an organic farm. He worked with the homeless and
    >poor in Chicago.
    >
    >Brian viewed the world in terms of the big guy versus the little guy, the
    >corporate behemoth against the family farmer, Goliath and David.
    >
    >While studying herbal medicine in Albuquerque last winter, Brian had
    >become involved with the local Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance. Eventually, he
    >decided to volunteer with a group called the International Solidarity
    >Movement.
    >
    >Founded in 2001, ISM operates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - lands that
    >Israel seized in 1967 and 1973 after attacks by Arab neighbors who denied
    >the 56-year-old Jewish state's right to exist.
    >
    >Some Israelis see these lands as a necessary buffer against continuing
    >sniper attacks and suicide bombings; Jewish settlers claim them as a
    >biblical birthright.
    >
    >For Palestinians, the Israeli presence there is a heavy-handed occupation
    >of their homeland. They bridle at Israeli Army checkpoints and other
    >restrictions.
    >
    >The United Nations has called for Israeli withdrawal. There have been
    >pullbacks, but renewed violence has begotten reoccupation.
    >
    >The latest Palestinian up- rising began three years ago. Since then, 2,400
    >Palestinians and 830 Israelis have died in the fighting.
    >
    >ISM's founders saw themselves as an international peacekeeping and
    >monitoring presence that the United Nations could not or would not
    >provide. To the Israeli government, ISM's activists are meddlers whose
    >actions range from negligence to outright abetting of terrorism.
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >Brian Avery hadn't been in the West Bank city of Nablus a week when his
    >parents got a lengthy e-mail.
    >
    >His group's main "actions," as he put it in the Jan. 31 note, consisted of
    >"being monitors and witnesses at military checkpoints" and "lodging in the
    >homes of the families of individuals who chose suicide bombing as their
    >method of resisting the occupation."
    >
    >Brian's parents had pictured him handing out food and medicine. Instead,
    >he was negotiating with armed border guards and occupying "martyr houses."
    >
    >Brian told them that he believed that his American citizenship put him in
    >a special position.
    >
    >On the one hand, it made him feel partially responsible for what was
    >happening in the territories because of U.S. aid to Israel. At the same
    >time, though, he saw his American passport as a unique asset - a "badge of
    >invincibility" that he would share with the Palestinians.
    >
    >Six weeks later, the Averys learned just how little protection a U.S.
    >passport provided.
    >
    >On March 16, another ISM member, Rachel Corrie, 23, a college student from
    >Olympia, Wash., was crushed to death while trying to stop an Israeli
    >bulldozer demolishing a row of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip town of
    >Rafah.
    >
    >Israeli officials said that she was in a blind spot and that the driver
    >couldn't see her, despite her bright red vest.
    >
    >"Please get out of Palestine while you can!!!!" Julie Avery begged her son
    >in an e-mail afterward.
    >
    >But Brian had trained with Rachel, and her death made him even more
    >determined.
    >
    >Still, he tried to reassure his parents: He had a couple more weeks left
    >on his visa, after which he would see them. Besides, he was headed north
    >to Jenin, even farther from the volatile Gaza Strip.
    >
    >"Don't worry, Mom," he said in a rare telephone call. "They don't shoot
    >Americans."
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >Bob Avery was sitting in his basement office on April 5, watching the rain
    >that had washed out his softball game, when the phone rang.
    >
    >"I'm afraid I've got some very, very bad news for you," came a voice in
    >heavily accented English.
    >
    >It was Tobias Karlsson, head of ISM's Jenin office.
    >
    >Just minutes before, he and Brian had heard gunfire in the streets below.
    >The city was under curfew, but the two went out to meet four other
    >activists and investigate.
    >
    >That's when they noticed two Israeli vehicles rumbling up behind them.
    >
    >Slowly, they backed up under a street lamp and put their arms out at their
    >sides to let the vehicles pass, Karlsson said. Only Brian was wearing a
    >reflective vest, identifying him as a peace activist.
    >
    >Suddenly, they were being pelted by bits of shattered pavement.
    >
    >The Israelis would often fire two or three warning shots at a wall,
    >Karlsson said, but this time, 10, 15, 20 rounds were fired.
    >
    >When the shooting stopped, he turned to find Brian lying on his stomach in
    >the street, blood seeping between the fingers wrapped around his face.
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >Three days later, Bob Avery arrived at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center. From
    >the doorway of the intensive car unit, he caught sight of his son.
    >
    >Brian's face was twice its normal size, its hue a surreal yellowish-purple
    >from massive bruising.
    >
    >X-rays showed that the bullet had entered just below the right tear duct.
    >There was a large hole where Brian's nasal bone should have been. The
    >bullet exited the left cheek. Half of the teeth were missing on the top
    >left side and another on the bottom. His lower left jaw had been sheered
    >in half.
    >
    >"He'll never go back together," Avery said to himself.
    >
    >April 10 was Brian's 25th birthday. The hospital staff sang to him. The
    >next day, a surgeon laid out a plan to harvest bone from the sides of
    >Brian's skull to rebuild the nasal area.
    >
    >Bob Avery tried to cheer his son. "They said they needed a model for what
    >you've got to look like. I gave them a picture of Elvis."
    >
    >This would be just the beginning of the effort to reconstruct Brian's
    >shattered face.
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >The Israel Defense Force released its findings on Brian's shooting in late
    >May.
    >
    >The armored personnel carrier crew reported firing on three occasions that
    >day, but no casualties were identified.
    >
    >But the army noted that vehicles enforcing the curfew were directed to
    >keep their hatches closed for protection, creating "enhanced chances of
    >misidentification and misunderstandings."
    >
    >The report's conclusion: "Mr. Avery's injury is an unfortunate incident."
    >
    >Bob Avery, a 30-year U.S. Navy veteran, was outraged. Through his own
    >investigation, he made what he considered a key discovery:
    >
    >ISM had said Brian's injury occurred at 6:30 p.m., a time when the army
    >showed the APC several blocks away.
    >
    >Actually, it was an hour later. Israel had just begun observing the
    >equivalent of daylight-saving time, but clocks in the Palestinian sector
    >were still set an hour earlier.
    >
    >That put the Israeli vehicles in the shooting area around the right time,
    >Avery concluded. But the IDF would not budge.
    >
    >It paid for Brian's treatment in Haifa. But when he left the hospital, he
    >was on his own.
    >
    >
    >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    >By the time that Brian returned to the United States on June 14, 2 1/2
    >months on a liquid diet had shrunken the former defensive lineman to 115
    >pounds.
    >
    >When he talks, the sound echoes inside his skull. He cannot breathe
    >through his nose and he has no sense of smell.
    >
    >He faces at least five more rounds of surgery in the coming year. More
    >bone will be taken from his skull to rebuild the left jaw so that
    >artificial teeth can be implanted.
    >
    >He has no insurance.
    >
    >Brian thinks often of Rachel Corrie. He thinks of Tom Hurndall, an ISM
    >activist from Great Britain who was shot the same month by IDF forces
    >during a Gaza protest and is brain dead in England.
    >
    >Brian knows that he's the lucky one.
    >
    >He regrets that his medical needs have thrown his parents' retirement
    >plans into financial chaos. He regrets that he may never again smell a
    >rose or smile as before.
    >
    >But he insists that he does not regret his decision to go.
    >
    >And he wants to return to the region someday. Only next time, he'll go as
    >a true observer.
    >
    >He has no more illusions of invincibility.
    >
    >
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