MANATEE COUNTY – Former Army Spc. Travis Pendergrass cannot forget what happened in Iraq, when he and other soldiers fired on a car speeding toward their roadside checkpoint.

Instead of an attacker, it turned out to be a father rushing his family home before curfew. The man’s 8-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were killed.

Although Pendergrass never saw the dead children, he is haunted by what happened; since returning to the U.S., he has been unable to keep a job and was even arrested.

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