He is convinced that Thompson’s body lying outside the post kept Taliban fighters from coming inside. Rodriguez shot them in the back as they walked past.
A survivor comes home
Eight U.S. soldiers died during the Battle of Kamdesh and 22 more, including Rodriguez, were wounded. Rodriguez was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal and was honorably discharged a year and two days after the fight. He returned home listless, guilt-ridden and depressed.
When Rodriguez arrived at Reagan National Airport in October 2010, a limousine filled with family and friends picked him up. When the limo crossed into Stafford County, it was joined by a police escort. And when the limo arrived at the Potomac waterfront home of Rodriguez’s girlfriend, the party was joined by dozens of others — a hero’s welcome.
But Rodriguez shrank from the spotlight. Several people who attended the party said he seemed uncomfortable and distant.
“You could just see in his eyes that he was a different person,” said Veronica Rodriguez, Daniel’s older sister. “I remember looking over at him and he was just sitting at the bar in a daze. You could tell he was a million miles away.”
Rodriguez remained there — wherever he was — for the better part of a year. He could sleep only two to three hours at a time. He was rarely hungry, and his communication with friends and family became erratic. Stephan Batt, one of Rodriguez’s closest childhood friends, said he couldn’t remember seeing Rodriguez without a gun during that time .
“So many of these soldiers are committing suicide, and when you see them showing these symptoms that Daniel was showing, that is always a concern that’s in the back of your mind,” said Vanessa Adelson, the mother of Stephan Mace, a 21-year-old from Loudoun County who died as a result of injuries suffered during the Battle of Kamdesh. Adelson became a confidante of Rodriguez’s after Mace’s death.
Rodriguez acknowledged drinking heavily upon his return from the Army. On Oct. 17, 2010, Adelson’s husband and Rodriguez were guests of friends of the Adelson family in a suite at FedEx Field during a Washington Redskins game against the Indianapolis Colts. Vanessa Adelson described Rodriguez as “a belligerent drunk at that game.”
Rodriguez took classes at Germanna Community College during the spring of 2011 and spent the following summer traveling in Central and South America, as well as Spain. He said he returned from that trip ready to begin his life again.
“Some soldiers, they try to go back to school and they just can’t cut it,” Rodriguez said. “They can’t adjust, and they drop out. I adjusted. I loved it.”
Rodriguez never before had applied himself in school. Four days after his high school graduation in 2006, his father — a staff sergeant in the Army in the 1970s — died of a heart attack. Having received interest only from a few Division III football programs, Rodriguez elected to join the military. He served 15 months in Iraq and then spent a year in Fort Carson, Colo., where he met a soldier named Kevin Thompson.
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