Chris Amico: Journalist

Download PDF

LANCASTER — Spc. Eric Huff is ready to be done with the Army. Ten months after an attack by three fellow American soldiers outside his barracks in South Korea that nearly killed him, the stricken soldier has not fully recovered.

Deborah Huff, Eric’s mother, wants her son out of the military, too. “I know my son is not fit to be in the U.S. Army anymore,” she said in an interview at her Lancaster home.

Huff spent a weekend in Lancaster, where he grew up, following the last of his attackers’ courts-martial. He has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., since the attack.

“He’s come a long way, but he’s not like a normal 20-year-old male,” Deborah Huff said. “He can’t do things he’s supposed to be able to do.” (more…)

PALO ALTO — Three weeks after a brutal attack by fellow U.S. soldiers, Spc. Eric Huff is learning to walk again.

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 10, three soldiers from the 305th Quartermasters Company attacked Huff outside his barracks at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea.

According to a preliminary report by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, the three soldiers knocked Huff to the ground, then punched, kicked and stomped on his face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembers is waking up in the base hospital, his parents at his bedside. Huff had been scheduled to leave South Korea on Dec. 10 after a two-year tour of duty.

Only a week ago, Huff could only take a few steps on his own. He did not leave his mother’s Lancaster home without a wheelchair. Now, he walks independently through the halls of a Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto. (more…)

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Army Spc. Eric Huff remembers a knock on his barracks door just after midnight on Dec. 10, the day he was scheduled to leave South Korea after a nearly two-year tour of duty.

Two other American soldiers stood outside. He walked out and shut the door behind him.

Then came a blow from behind, on the head, and Huff went down. His three assailants punched, kicked and stomped on Huff’s face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembers is waking up in the base hospital two days later. His parents, who live in the Antelope Valley, were at his bedside. (more…)