Ch 1
Necessity
I never even heard the explosion, it was more or less an instant transition from normal sounds. The loud whining of the hummer and the banter of crewmates, into an ominous humming. Not too loud, but the hum had a pressure to it, muscling out any other noise begging to be heard. It felt difficult to keep my eyes open and the picture of what I was seeing changed from that of reality to that which you experience in a dream….
It was our second month in Iraq, really only our third week on patrols. Our Battalion had the misfortune of our first KIA that month from our engineering company (that night we were across the river taking friendly fire from another unit), but it had been three days before I saw my first enemy contact. My Tank Commander (TC) had been sniped by an improvised “zip tie gun” which had lodged a six inch metal rod in his arm.
That morning was to be just another run into Kabul (being the second holiest city in Iraq, an agreement had been reached to not take tanks into the city) so our leadership could meet with theirs. Our Hummer was the last of four and I was gliding by at a confident 55mph just to keep up. I do not recall ever hitting those speeds on an Iraqi road outside of the desert ever again…
Instantly there were flames engulfing the racing hummer. In addition to a sudden struggle with grogginess I found myself looking out a windshield painted in oblique flames. They were coming up the sides and racing towards the middle but luckily there was still visibility in the center. The only thought running thru me at that time was to get the vehicle to a stop without flipping it.
Unknown to me all four tires had already blown out (as well as our gas tank.. and the spare gas tanks in the trunk…) and hitting the brakes would surly spell disaster. Fighting the wheel I would not have been able to tell you my name, where I was from or was. My brain was in a primitive survival mode, like a computer with it’s memory erased to speed it up. After a few hundred meters of zigzagging that last bit of consciousness faded away, and with my last act I turned towards the median…
Waking up in a burning vehicle of any sort is defiantly considered “getting up on the wrong side of the bed”. The pull back to reality was quick but not complete. I felt ungodly pain but I had no clue from where, it was just pain in a pure, whole body form.
The first process my brain strung together was an assessment of the rest of the crew, but to my surprise I was all alone. By this point my hearing shot back to me with a bang, and then another. With horror I realized not only were these erratic noises bullets, but bullets blowing up from inside the hummer (we had several cases of ammunition in the back ready to pass up to the gunner that were cooking off from the fire) for they were not ticking off the outside of the vehicle, but ricocheting inside.
This revelation helped hone in more of my senses and I quickly pulled a knife to cut my seatbelt. I honestly do not remember even checking to see if it would unfasten on it’s own, maybe I did without thought and acting before I knew why, no one exactly practices cutting themselves from their car. Next I reached to my left to open the door. After the first try I turned and used both hands yet to no avail. Now panic sank in as I looked thru the flames out the window to nothing (well, no one, all I was interested in was help out, the rest did not matter).
During the course of what was probably less than a second I had that moment, the one with many names. My life did not exactly flash before my eyes, but never before or since have I ever had so many thoughts and memories crammed in to so little time. In the end of it I had recollected myself enough to determine I was not going to burn alive then or there.
My Kevlar had been blown of with the original explosion so I knew the best way to go would be arms first and behind my head in a lunge to the passenger seat. With the body armor on it is typically a tight squeeze past the radios between the two seats but I have never shimmied quicker than on that day (later I found almost a dozen metal fragments in my armor and cloths). With the door already open I thrust out the door and landed halfway headfirst out the hummer.
Now this is the first and only time until being medivaced to Bagdad that I could tell what, where and why I was in pain, and it was burning. I had crossed partway into what was a shell of fire engulfing the hummer. Already drained I summoned up enough strength to kick myself out and start crawling away. I only wanted to get as far away from the deathtrap as possible before sliding back into slumber. After dragging myself on all fours a few yards I finally collapsed….
I did not pass out like I presumed would occur, instead I saw people. With new vigor about me I fought my way up to my feet and with a drunken stumble dashed my way to the group. I made the distance before again collapsing to all fours vomiting my lungs.
It was three of my four crew about a hundred meters away from the hummer which was still burning and cooking off rounds. I was Privet First Class at the time so at first I was expecting, nay hoping, for orders. Hearing everything going on though I understood this trauma was not mine alone. There were no orders, just the aftermath of a disaster.
Again I acted without even the memory of thinking about it. I gave the orders and with this assertiveness they were followed. We secured shelter, got our interpreter who was the most badly injured of the four of us there and found out Truck Commander. Those who could pulled guard as I ripped away at my shirt to patch up some of the larger holes in our interpreter.
Finally another Hummvee from our convoy pulled up and the medic with our platoon was the first on site. We did the best we could to a man who looked like Swiss cheese. He might have died had the fragments not burned the tissue they ripped into to slow the bleeding. After checking up on everyone and with no other life threatening injuries, we all started gabbing like chickens in the coup until the medivac arrived ( I actually took the time to complain about the cache of Dr. Peppers I had just taken from the chow hall that morning, pretending it was a big deal).
The choppers showed up, and I helped carry our wounded to load up. After loosing the battle of playing down my injuries, I was force onboard finally. It was not until we were sitting that two sensations washed over more than just myself in that flight I.
Relief, and Pain.
