Alabama Ft. Hood soldier intends to deploy to Iraq

Posted today in The Birmingham News:

An Alabama-born Army officer who was shot three times during the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, still has his good days and bad days, but he had a good one over the weekend when he rode on a float in the Saturday Christmas parade in his hometown of Eclectic.

“I had a wonderful time,” said Warrant Officer Christopher Royal, who was the parade’s grand marshal. Royal said he wanted to do what he could to support civic improvements in Eclectic and would be back in town next week to talk about that with local officials.

By mid-January, Royal, 37, will be following events in Eclectic at an even longer distance than he is now. He expects to be on his fourth deployment in Iraq.

“I plan on deploying … in January whether I’m at 100 percent or not,” Royal said Monday during a telephone interview while he was driving back to Fort Hood. “I’ve made provision to deploy and … I’m trusting God that that’s the right thing to do. I feel it’s the right thing to do because if it was the wrong thing, then he would have took me completely out of that realm. But he did not, he allowed me to be able to perform as a soldier, so I am going to continue to be all that I can be.”…

Read the full article here.

God bless you, W.O. Royal!