Shot Throught the Heart

forty-four

Over the course of my military career, I have never experienced a worse injury to recuperate from then a broken ribs. Now, times that by four, and the fun real beings. The first week at moms house was a world wind. Getting used to the fact that I basically have a kid, my body being half broken, Morgan being here and mine in all the ways I have wanted for years, trying to adjust back to civilian life at home and not worry about bombs that could come raining down from the sky at any moment and kill us along with the jetlag from the time difference, there was a lot going on.

I knew that I didn't want to stay with moms forever, but being here around them again made it hard to leave. After talking it over with Morgan, we decided to stay for a month. It would give me some more time to recoup from my injury and to just have the extra help with getting Kuzma adjusted. The day after we got home, Mom and Peyton gave us the run down of what happened while Dominic took Kuzma out for lunch.

When I called Peyton from the farm, she put her team to work in getting to him. They got to the farm about a week after the call. From there, Petro gave them some more information about where Kuzma lived and the team went over to his house to try and find any documents for him. They were able to find some things but not a lot. From there Peyton and her team did a deep dive to see if there was he had any remaining next of kin. After a long search with all the information they were able to find, there were no results. Once Peyton was sure, she got Major Collins involved and the team brought Kuzma to the base in Poland. Even though Emmett reset his arm that night, it wasn't healing straight so he needed surgery to have the bone rebroken and fixed so he wouldn't have any issues later in life with it.

He stayed on base with other refugees while he was recuperating. With Major Collins' help, Peyton started to file paperwork to try and get Kuzma refugee status so they could send him here to be with moms. The paperwork was stalled in the overworked system so Kuzma just stayed on base while we worked our way through Ukraine. After our mission success and my picture went viral, the President of Ukraine wanted to set up a ceremony to meet us and Major Collins was able to tell him about Kuzma and what we did that night in Mykolaiv.

From there it was worked out by the President. Kuzma's paperwork came through and Major Collins was able to put him on a plane heading to Fort Bragg where Peyton and Mom picked him up. He was here for about two weeks before we came home. The paperwork the President of Ukraine gave me was the final approved documents. From here, I have to apply to formally adopt Kuzma, which apparently, is already pending, just waiting for the court date home in Georgia.

It was a lot to take in. The fact that everyone was working behind the scenes to get Kuzma here, and the fact the Morgan even helped them during this too once she woke up from her own surgery in Poland. While Peyton knew a few languages, Ukrainian wasn't one of them. So often times they would have her translate. I was disappointed nobody told me, but at the same time I understood. I was barely able to hold it together when I finally got to see Morgan again, if they told me about Kuzma, I probably would have flown the coup to get home as fast as I could. The conversation I had with the President of Ukraine when he gave me the documents also started to make sense now. One day, I do want to bring Kuzma back to Ukraine so he can still feel connected to his home country.

The information was a lot to take in. By the time they were done, I had a lot to work through my brain. After taking a few minutes to let it all sink in, I asked if we could have Kuzma's parents buried. Nobody ever mentioned what happened to there bodies after Peytons team went back to the apartment. Peyton gave me a sad smile before handing me a piece of paper. On it was a location and Kuzma's parents names. It took a second for me to realize what the latitude and longitude were and I gave squeezed her hand.