On the evening of
Veterans Day in 2004, and one day before his
birthday, 1st Lt. Timothy Hornik was shot in the
head by a sniper.
Firing almost invisibly from about 300 meters away,
the sniper, perched on the second floor of a nearby
building, was popping off rounds almost undetected.
No one saw a muzzle flash and barely anyone heard
the shots as they were fired consecutively. A
soldier on a nearby security team was shot first.
Hornik popped his head out of his Bradley's turret
and scanned the area with binoculars.
Then a shot rang out.
Hornik collapsed in his vehicle.
He now lives each day with the constant reminder of
what befell him nearly four years ago.
The bullet that entered through his left temple and
exited through his right eye, left him with
permanent scars and damage. He has no vision
in his left eye nor can he focus it. "It's
like a shutter lens that can't move," Hornik said.
He can't see in low light, and has trouble in bright
light. Sweat that gets in his eye is highly
irritating.
The vision in his right eye was corrected to 20/50,
and he wears a contact lens and uses a magnifier to
read.
He no longer drives a car, and his wife takes him to
work every day.
And yet, he is extremely positive, upbeat and
optimistic.
He doesn't put down the Iraqi people, doesn't speak
badly of the sniper who shot him, doesn't wallow in
misery, and smiles constantly.
Simply, he is happy to be here.
He appreciates the Iraqi people's taste in art and
architecture and says the mosque near where he was
shot, "has to be the second prettiest one in the
Baghdad area."
The sniper who shot him was just doing his job, he
said.
As for that round that penetrated between the end of
his helmet and the start of his protective eye
glasses, "two millimeters in any direction and I'd
have a different life right now."
"Life is only as hard as you want it to be," Hornik
said.
He takes responsibility for what happened that day,
suggesting that he shouldn't have poked his head out
of the turret.
"I've come to terms with it," he said, and doesn't
deny going through a period of self pity.
"I've gone through all seven stages of loss, you
can't bypass any of them (if you expect to
recover)."
He also hasn't given up on the Army.
Now a captain, he has worked as the operations
officer for the Operational Test Command on West
Fort Hood for three years and was recently accepted
into a Master's program at Kansas State University
where he will work toward a degree in clinical
social work.
He wants to stay in the service for 20 years and
work with wounded soldiers and veterans who have
endured similar situations.