BRYAN KUTTER

Original publish date:

March-April 2014

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Where is he now?

MN National Guard Staff Sergeant Bryan Kutter’s story first ran in the MarchApril 2014 edition of The Good Life.

Since then, Kutter has transitioned roles to Director of Construction at Designer Homes where he manages field operations and home building projects. Kutter has continued to stay active with the Wounded Warrior Project through which he and his family were invited to attend a St. Cloud State University / University of North Dakota hockey game where he was honored as Veteran of the Game.

Other highlights over the past six years include lots of family time. Most notable were several family cruises with his family to Alaska, the Caribbean, and Mexico. With both of their kids heavily involved in hockey, Kutter and his wife spend much of their time traveling to games and practices as well as attending as many Fargo Force, UND Fighting Hawks, and MN Wild hockey games as possible.

BRYAN KUTTER Sniper Cuts Military Career Short

WRITTEN BY: SOO ASHEIM • PHOTOS SUBMITTED BY: BRYAN KUTTER

In 1996 Bryan Kutter was still in high school when he made the career decision that ten years later placed him in the sites of a sniper. One bullet changed Staff Sergeant Bryan Kutter physically for the remainder of his life and ultimately determined the end of a long planned and hoped for twenty-year career.

With a waiver approved and signed by his parents, Bryan joined the Minnesota Army National Guard when he was going into his senior year of high school. Joining his company for weekend training and drills, Bryan graduated from Fergus Falls High in 1997 and for the next several years between continuous training with the Army National Guard and deployments to Bosnia and Kosovo in 2002-2003 he worked for Menards, where he met a pretty co-worker named Amanda who became his wife in 2005, three weeks prior to shipping out for a sixmonth training in Mississippi

followed by what he expected to be a sixteen-month deployment to Iraq.

As a gunner on a Bradly Vehicle, Staff Sergeant Kutter was with his battalion in Iraq only seventyfive days into their mission of clearing areas of IED’s and securing a village from insurgents when he was taking the place of Commander Eric Marts seat up-top, purveying the area behind what the military refers to as the “Pope Glass.” Call it bad timing or just bad luck, but as he stood behind the Pope Glass with his arms folded, watching the action and movement below he heard and recognized the sound as the sniper’s bullet rang out from inside a Mosque hitting SSG Kutter in the left elbow, traveled up and through his arm into his neck and finally exiting inside the collar of his body armour. Suddenly the excruciating agony of being hit combined with the gush of blood bursting from his arm hit within nanoseconds.

Kutter’s screams of torment brought his driver up from the second tier of the Bradley and within seconds Gunner Mike Felt pulled Kutter down into the bottom tier while attempting to stop the profuse bleeding with pressure and tourniquets as he called the Medevac’s for more help. One tourniquet broke, but Gunner Felt managed to apply the second tourniquet, then their Bradley driver drove to an outpost about a mile away. Amazingly with unimaginable proficiency, SSG Kutter was lifted aboard a helicopter within 14 minutes to fly him to Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, where his medical team attached an external fixator (metal bar) in order to keep Kutter’s arm stable. From Taqaddum he went on to Balad (Iraq) then into Germany where he stayed for three nights and two days.

Staff Sergeant Bryan Kutter’s long journey of pain, surgeries, physical and occupational therapies for the next several months were just beginning. After Germany, Kutter was flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., then on to Augusta, Georgia’s Ft. Gordon’s Eisenhower Army Medical Center to face more surgeries and months of therapy.

DEAR, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?

Not wanting to frighten Amanda any more than necessary, Kutter practiced how to ‘understate’ his condition yet let her know he needed her with him. There is a seven hour difference between Minnesota and where SSG Kutter was able to call Amanda from and knowing that he would awaken her at that hour of the morning, SSG Kutter tried to sound as “upbeat as possible” in order to not send Amanda into a frantic worrying frenzy. Amanda was happy to hear the voice of her far away groom as she shook off her sleepy fog. As Kutter calmly said, “Well, there’s good news and some bad news.”

“Well, there's good news and some bad news.”

PHOTO BY: URBAN TOAD MEDIA

Now fully awake, Amanda asked for the bad news first. “I’ve been shot” Kutter said still trying not to alarm Amanda any more than he knew she already would be. Amanda sat listening then finally asked “what’s the good news?” And just as Kutter began to tell her “I’m coming home,” the phones went dead on both ends. While it was only a matter of minutes before their satellite feed was re-engaged and they were able to hear one another again, for Amanda it seemed an eternity! Once back on the line Bryan was able to finish his sentence and said “I’m coming home.”

Amanda Kutter, Bryan’s mother (Tamrie Kohoutek of Detroit Lakes, MN.,) and Bryan’s father, (Keith Kutter of Breckenridge, MN.,) all flew to Ft. Gordon to be with Bryan. Amanda was the first to arrive very late the same night that Kutter was flown to Eisenhower Medical at Ft. Gordon. It was after the surgery two days later that Bryan’s parents arrived. As an only child not being with him was extremely stressful coupled with Kutter’s medical team still were not able to determine definitively whether they would be able to save his arm or not. At this point, all anyone could tell them was that they were doing all they could. And after the first surgery at Ft. Gordon, the doctors inserted two plates, one pin and some 25 screws into his arm.

As the second surgery required more blood to be transfused into Kutter, he started to feel the worst he had felt since the beginning when he had been shot. At one point Kutter said “for the first time I thought I just might die.” As the medical experts prepared Kutter for his second surgery, this one to graft skin from his leg to the gaping wound on his bi-cep, Kutter was getting the last of five extra pints of blood needed for the surgery. He began to react violently with jerks and gasps. The medical team began checking all the lines hooked to Kutter one by one. Whatever was going on inside him was not getting better, only worse. Finally after several questions and checks with rechecks were going on a doctor in the surgical room simply said “when all else fails, return to the original path.” And with that the doctor grabbed the blood transfusion line being pumped into Kutter and unplugged it. Within mere minutes, Bryan Kutter felt his life had been saved yet again. They found the blood Kutter was having pumped into him for the surgery had bacteria in it that was causing him to basically shut down.

Some five months later, after being in an active-duty rehab unit at the Augusta Veterans Hospital and also in an out-patient wing at Eisenhower, Kutter was sent back home, to Minnesota. In August, Bryan and Amanda spent their very first wedding anniversary together when Amanda flew back to Ft. Gordon to be with Bryan.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

In November of 2006, Bryan was able to transfer home through the Army Community Based Health Care Initiative. During his continued rehab, Bryan went through Merit Care in Fargo (aka Sanford). Kutter’s

PHOTO BY: URBAN TOAD MEDIA

last surgery was in 2007. Bryan was awarded the Purple Heart for and Bronze Star Medal for his service in combat.

Today Brian Kutter is retired from the Army with an Honorable Medical Disability and while he would never want to go through any of his ordeals ever again, when asked if he misses the Army, he doesn’t hesitate to answer “Yes. I miss my friends in the service and I think the mission we were on had merit.” When asked about the injuries he sustained and how they have affected him, Bryan says due to the limitations and obvious disability of his left arm he’s not as physical as he once was. Basketball, a sport he played often and loved he is not able to push to the competitive level he once could. Golf is another sport he enjoyed but he rarely plays anymore nor does he go hunting as he did prior to the deployment to Iraq.

Yet, even with his disability, Bryan understands that he escaped what could have been a much worse fate in Iraq and has learned to appreciate a much calmer and sane lifestyle.

Living the good life for Bryan today is enjoying the extra time he has to spend with Amanda and their two children, Avery and Madison. •