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Wednesday, August 17, 2005:

FORT BENNING, Georgia (AP) -- A lightning strike amid a drenching rainstorm Tuesday sent 19 Fort Benning soldiers to the hospital.

Most of the soldiers were treated at Martin Army Community Hospital and released, although four remained hospitalized overnight for observation.

The soldiers, who are in basic training, were on their last day of a field exercise and preparing to head back to their barracks because of the weather.

The soldiers were injured even after they spread out as a precaution against lightning, Fort Benning spokeswoman Monica Manganaro said.

The trainers "had them ground their equipment so they weren't holding weapons," she said. "They did all the right things."

The storm brought between 2 and 3 inches of rain to the area.

Note from one of the victims March 2008

iI was one of the 4 soldiers that had to stay in the hospital. I have been searching for these articles because I am trying to find more info on what happened that day. So far all of the articles i have read have been wrong.

According to your article we were doing everything right and were going to go back to the barracks cause of the storm. But that is wrong what really happened was that we grounded our weapons so they wouldnt get dirty when we were picking up trash in the wood line. the storm rolled in and we where still in the wood line. We were not given any order to come out to the lighting dispersal area. When it started to rain extremely hard Idecided to start heading out. But it was to late, all I remember is a flash of light and waking up on the ground in the rain. so nothing was done right because of that storm.

When it was rolling in they should have got us out then but they didnt and now i am suffering from it. I have had severe migraines every day since then and I am now photo phobic cause of it.

The medical officers never made a LOD (line of duty investigation) of that accident and now i am suffering for it. I think they were trying to cover it up or something and i had to go to my congress man just so that my unit would do something about my problem.

After the congressman got the department of the army to investigate my unit, stuff is starting to get done. they finally put in a LOD after 2 years for me which is wrong. In my mind i would have been medically discharged when i got hit. And my symptoms have been getting progressively worse. Thank you for you time and i just wanted you to know the truth about what happened back then.