Recently we here at Stack-Up received a unique request…
Hi all,
My name is Samuel Buffington; I am a service disabled veteran dealing with PTSD. I wanted to take a moment and thank you guys for all you do; I am a true believer that this community can really help us, vets, out!
I need to ask if you guys have the ability to help a vet out here at home. I have been slowly acquiring parts and building a gaming computer for about a year now (you guys know how the VA C&P pays) well, it’s not fancy but has been getting the job done, that is until I dumped a whole Dr pepper into the case (yeah it was a long day taking everything apart cleaning) well since that event, the computer hasn’t worked.
Do you guys have the ability to help me out? I’m sure my CPU and RAM and Power supply are okay, but the video card and motherboard ate it.
Anyhow, I thought I’d ask. I love what you guys are doing, and I’d love to be of any assistance, let me know.
Samual
As this was a bit off mission for us here at Stack-Up we had a bit of back and forth with Sam. We certainly wanted to help a veteran get back up and gaming, however, our supply crates are normally limited to consoles due to the requirements of shipping overseas. Helping a vet get his gaming rig back up and running was just something we had never attempted before.
Sam went on to share his amazing story with us, and that further strengthened our resolve to get this sailor back up and running. He has graciously allowed us to share his full story with you…
In 2007 I enlisted in the United States Navy as a Master at Arms (military police). Shortly after boot camp, I was sent to San Antonio TX to receive my formal training as a military police officer. It was in San Antonio that I realized that I was not satisfied with being a military police that I heard about a newer type of unit within the Navy and I jumped at the opportunity to get involved. As a part of the new unit of MSS 3 DET Bahrain myself and others who volunteered were forward deployed to Bahrain for upwards of three years, truth be told I spent very little time in that country.
We were tasked with operations throughout many Middle Eastern countries providing specialized security to civilians, convoy operations and later we anti-piracy (the latter being my favorite). To give you an idea of what my day was like: if I were on a pirate mission. We generally stood a 12-hour watch. After our watch, we spent a couple hours training, a few cleaning weapons. Fit in some time to work out and before you knew it was time to sleep. Most days I might get 5-6 hours of rest but if we went into a high threat area, we might have as much as an 18 hour watch day. This was my favorite of our mission responsibilities because days flew by pretty fast. We used to have a saying, if buffy hasn’t fired at least three 203 rounds, then the day has been a complete failure.
It was a regular occurrence to get shot at but things got a bit out of control in 2009. We were conducting a new form of anti-piracy, we were the bait. We had boarded a small container ship and instructed the crew to travel a particular hot spot. Meanwhile, myself. and 11 other team members hid inside of the containers. We would wait till the bait was taken, but only when they were close enough that they couldn’t escape or hide the evidence. Several hours later we had received several hundred rounds of AK47 rounds and 9 RPG rockets. That was a rough day we were lucky things didn’t end worse than it did. A few years later and convoy ops in Iraq and I was finally got stateside orders a riverine squadron in Virginia.
I never thought anything was wrong with me, partially I was in denial, and the other was that I was trying to make a career of my military time. My wife had been threatening to leave me for months and still I didn’t see the truth until one day in Virginia. I was driving across the base in an up-armored Humvee when I flashed back to Iraq. I could feel the heat and smell the familiar smoke from firearms being fired. I turned down an abandoned road to put pressure on an enemy position. The person in the passenger seat ripped the wheel from my hands just in time. I had actually turned down a one-way road into oncoming traffic and was accelerating into oncoming traffic. It was a miracle that I was not alone because the car in front of me was a young mom and her kids in the back. My Humvee would have destroyed her car.
That was the tipping point in my military career but I was lucky to have a corpsman that had my trust and my best interest at heart. So after nearly 6 years I found myself out of the job, and it was several jobs before the state sat me down and said, “No more work, just concentrate on getting better”.
Well after hearing all that Sam has gone through, how could we leave him down? We went to work sourcing the parts and gathering everything needed to get Sam up and running again. If anyone can appreciate the therapeutic effects of gaming, it is us here at Stack-up, and we did not want to let this vet go without.
We reached out to a friend of the organization Rick Givens of VisionTek who volunteered his own personal time to work on the rig and get everything up and running for Sam. After everything was put together and the machine was thoroughly tested and put through its paces, we got it shipped off to Sam who was eagerly awaiting its arrival.
Once the new PC arrived, Sam was sure to share his excitement and also his thanks. Plus he sent us some awesome pics of the new rig!
Thanks Sam for sharing and we hope the new machine lives up to the rigorous gaming demands required of it. If you need some help from us here at Stack-Up, please make your own request HERE and we will get back to you! If you would like to help there are many ways you can do it but one of the easiest is by donating to our Call To Arms fundraising drive found HERE!
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