Abstract
Lieutenant Colonel David E. Cabrera, MSC, U.S. Army was killed in combat on Saturday, October 29, 2011 in Kabul as a result of a suicide bomb attack on the NATO convoy in which he was riding. Dr. Cabrera was a member of Traumatology’s editorial board, contributor, and frequent reviewer for the journal.
Dr. Cabrera, a licensed clinical social worker and assistant professor of family medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), was born in Boynton Beach, Florida, and later moved to Houston, Texas. He graduated from Sam Houston High School in 1988, earned his undergraduate degree in psychology in 1992 from Texas A&M University in College Station, and was a lifelong Aggie fan.
He earned a master of science degree in social work from the University of Texas, Arlington, and in 2006, he completed his PhD in social work at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He joined the U.S. Army in January 1996 as a medical service corps officer. After his initial training, he was immediately deployed in support of Operation Joint Endeavor/Joint Guard (Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia).
He spent more than 15 years on active duty, with assignments in Wurzburg and Heidelberg, Germany; Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.; and twice at Fort Lewis, Washington, where his latter assignment was as the Brigade Behavioral Health Officer for the 3/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Dr. Cabrera managed the behavioral health and combat operational stress programs for more than 4,500 soldiers in six battalions and five separate companies. In June 2006, he was deployed with the 3/2 Stryker Brigade to northern Iraq for 5 months.
In February 2010, Dr. Cabrera joined the faculty of USU in Bethesda, Maryland—the nation’s only federal health sciences university—as the director of social work. He held an appointment as assistant professor in the USU Department of Family Medicine, where he saw patients, taught 3rd- and 4th-year military medical students, conducted research in the fields of resilience, PTSD, and posttraumatic growth, and avidly participated in a number of university field training exercises and activities. He was military principal investigator for the Combat Medic Mettle Study that has surveyed combat medics in Europe and Ft. Hood over a 3-year period. He died during the final year of the project. He was instrumental in acquiring permission from the U.S. Army for the team to video interviewing those recognized with “combat medic mettle” as part of the effort to understand and help combat medics thrive in their important work.
Dr. Cabrera’s humor, easy-going nature, and infectious smile made him popular with family, friends, colleagues, medical students, and patients alike. His dedication to the troops he served throughout his career was evident in his caring and compassionate approach to his work. Dr. Cabrera’s research interests also conveyed his commitment to improving the lives of service members, veterans, and their families. He was an unstoppable adventurer who traveled the world with his family and friends, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Rainier, and other mountain peaks. However, it was the ocean to which he was most drawn, and his love of the sea was evident to all who knew him. He was a truly loving and devoted husband and father and is survived by his wife August Cabrera and sons Maxwell and Roanin Cabrera, of Maryland, son Corbin and daughter Gillian Cabrera, of Texas.