Loved ones,
 
 I finally found some internet!
  I just had to get blown up to find it.
 
I was out with my platoon today in a bad place, looking for bad things, hidden by bad men.  
 
my 1st squad was walking through vineyards, stooping low to duck the criss-cross of wires that held up the vines, grapes dangling nearby.  i was nearby, destroying bad things, when i heard a huge explosion, and immediately grabbed my radio,
"red, report contact"
 
the agonizing five seconds of silence was too long, they usually respond quicker....something was wrong.
 
then my platoon sergeant came on the net, strained,
"red, i need a medic and a litter!"
 
"why would he need a medic?" i thought, "the medic is with..."
it took me a moment to realize, that our medic, who was always with my platoon sergeant, had been hit. 
 The immensity of the explosion ran through my head again, and my stomach choked.
 I grabbed a squad, and ran to the site 300 meters away.  As I approached, exhausted, my men yelled for me to stop, and go around a different way.  "Land mines!" they yelled.
I arrived to find my platoon sergeant squatting a little way in the vineyard over my medic with another soldier.  the rest of the squad pulled security nearby.  no one was to go near him unless absolutely necessary unless there were other mines.  i jumped on the radio and echoed my platoon sergeant's description of the injuries and requested a MEDEVAC.  i ensured we had security and brought the litter up to "Doc."  My heart leapt when I saw him there, cantankerous as he always is, barking orders to his caretakers on how to fix him.  He was a mess, lying there with a shattered leg and foot, broken arm, and fragmetns and cuts all over.  I scrambled behind my platoon sergeant (who was doing a phenomenal job) and handed the necessary medical supplies while they stablized him and splinted him under his clear, calm, cool instructions.
  I looked left, and saw the crater where he had stepped....he had been walking....and was the 2nd person to pass that exact, narrow spot in the vineyard rows....and heard the explosion.  At first he thought it was someone else, and he needed to help them, until he realized he was on the ground.  He scrambled to check what was most important first....his manhood.  Good..ok....His right arm was moving....now  the second...wait...he couldn't see it?  Oh...there it was, twisted the wrong way on the ground.  With his free hand, before anyone reached him, he grabbed  the injured arm, twisted it back, and, gritting his teeth, shoved it back into his shoulder.  Then help came.
  Once I had passed off the bandages and litter, I backed off, to let them work, and rounded up four strong dudes to standby and carry him.  the CO and 1SG had arrived, and the combat camera, an attachment we get sometimes on missions to film soldiers and "tell their story" had arrived as well, filming, and dropping their cameras to help carry. 
  As soon as he was ready, we cross loaded our equipment, and grabbed him up in the litter.  We pushed quickly over the rough terrain, making sure to walk were we had previously, and moved around 600 meters hurrying to the link up point where a stryker was waiting.  I've never been so tired, and struggled to keep a grip on him.  It was a poleless littler, stretched canvas, and I had his mid-section, and most of the weight.  My platoon sergeant, with his feet, tried to get someone to replace me, but I refused. My fingers held tight. 
  We loaded him up, and got him away safely. 
  I rounded up the men, and talked to them for a bit, re-grouping and resting.  In the meantime we blew up the bad things we had found, and sent round after round of steel rain into the vineyards, to destroy any other booby-traps or mines in there.  After resting, we had to continue on, back through, to finish the mission. 
  We weren't messing around anymore.  We had found plenty of stuff and this was a bad area. As we pulled up in the morning, two individuals in a car saw us and fled, leaving the car in the middle of the road.  We destroyed it, and knew that we had judged right, as we heard hundreds of rounds, "cooking off" or exploding that had been kept in the car.
 I burned some nearby haystacks, some 20 meters in diameter, and watched them blaze.  we returned to the vineyards and began searching again, this time throwing grenades ahead to clear out anything. 
  With us were about 38 Iraqi Army.  The point is to make them take charge of their country and encourage these joint operations, and although they are necessary, they are also painful.  They were out of water, and tired, and sitting the shade or standing around doing very little.  We use the term, "herding cats" for them. 
  I found a spot, by the side of the next vineyard to take a break for my men.  We sat down, in anothter little 3 foot ditch, in the shade and under cover.  My platoon sergeant came up and sat next to me, and I pulled out my map to talk about our next course of action.
  My world disappeared then and turned into a nightmare.  The air around me smacked me, and a deafeaning crack lifted the dust around us, turning the blue sky into brown, knocking me forward, whacked my body, and pierced my ears.  I remember screaming, but not being able to hear it over the ringing of my ears....just feeling the scream in my chest.  My back and rear were screaming too, and I was grunting trying to breathe.  Dazed for a moment, I climbed back onto the path to see my terp, lying face down, his arm bent the wrong way. 
  I remember doing a lot of things at once....ripping at my medical pouch and grabbing the bandages....yelling at my RTO to give me a grid to our location and report the situation, yelling for security (i thought it might have been a grenade) to look out and around, asking who was hit, and pushing men to treat others, fumbling with my shaking hands at the radio and screaming to my victor, my favorite squad leader, what was going on.  I remember screaming orders, and inbetween, trying to breathe, grunting and forcing breaths through my heavy body armor.  It hurt to breathe.  I figured the concussion had knocked the wind out of me.  I remember having to stop, because I was holding this weird thing in my hands, and asking myself, forcing myself to think,
"what is this?"
its a bandage dummy
"what do i do with it?"
stop the bleeding....
i shook myself out of it and got to working on my interpreter with another soldier. my terp had favored him, calling him part of his tribe, "Al-Alawi"...I remember telling him, "more, you're going to be ok, you look good!"  and he did, compared to what i expected after that deafening slap.  I expected to find pieces of him.  "Al-alawi" my soldier, stood over him and worked smoothly and furiously.  He was wonderful and didn't miss a beat. I remember seeing my interpreters wounds and the guys asking what was that, pointing at them, and me telling them a phrase my mom has ingrained in me.
"its just flesh." "its ok, get the bandage on there, stop the bleeding."
  He had sat down behind me and my platoon sergeant....on a land mine.  His groin and abdomen were hurt severely, and his leg and arm were broken.  I looked around quickly, scanned the woodline for anyone, and checked my other men.  Four others had been hit, and were being treated by their buddies.  The IA, meanwhile, had either run away, or were shooting randomly and wildly.  It didn't help.  One of them shot his buddy in the ass, and we had to treat him as well, adding to the chaos as they screamed in panic.  Then we heard gunfire.  I realized that most of my platoon was injured or treating them, and we would be in trouble.  What I didn't realize was that the haystacks I had set fire to, had hidden munitions in them (as we guessed), and were now cooking off nearby. 
  We managed to get the IA to stop shooting and go get their ambulance.  Ours was on the way.  I looked at my platoon sergeant.  Sitting right next to me, he had been hit, and was dazed, his back shoulder bleeding.  My RTO was bravely patching him up, while reporting to company at the same time.  My other squad had run quickly back to the vehicles, over 700 meters away, within moments of the blast, knowing we needed stretchers and to guide the medics in. 
  I didn't have a medic.....he had been MEDEVAC'ed earlier.  But my men exercised their training, and calmly took care of each other.  I am so tremendously proud of them, they were superb.  I thought, for a flash, of the slow days back in the barracks, when one would make a smart alec remark, or be caught idle, and I'd inflict an imaginary wound on one of them, and make them treat him, quickly. 
 At this point one of my soldiers grabbed me, and said, in his deep slow country voice, "Sir, you're hit."  He pointed to my arm.  He cut off my sleeve while I finished working on my terp and began to treat me. 
 "Sir, you're also hit here."  He coaxed me into getting my armor off to check me, which was a feat considering I wanted nothing to do with it and was convinced I was fine, and didn't want to be treated, I didn't want to be the weak one, I didn't want to stop helping my men. 
  Soon my top came off, and more holes were found.  I realized things were more under control, and took a breath for myself.  But I couldn't.  It reminded me of being on top of Mt. Rainier, taking short breaths and not feeling like you were getting enuogh.  
  The doctor arrived then, and I quickly pointed him to the most critical casualties, my interpreter, and the ass-wounded IA.  He began his work, and one of my men reported to him my condition, and he immediately made me the priority.  I felt like I was being weak, a pansy, but he was adamant that I go out on the litter with my breathing.  Oh yeah....I was coughing blood too.  I spat some on my glove to show him. 
  I prayed. I prayed for my men, and for myself.  I felt on the verge of tears, as I had been earlier loading my wounded medic on the stryker.  I was scared.  I quickly pushed it aside, and told myself not now.  They loaded me on the stretcher, and my wounded platoon sergeant, country (and also wounded) soldier, and a few others began carrying me out.  Laying down, I couldn't breathe, and we were moving slowly and painfully over the rough gruond.  I stopped them and got up to walk.  I would move quicker and save their energy by walking.  I felt better too. 
  I tried making a joke, "godammit...here's my platoon sergeant," I said, "trying to one up me again, injured like me, but moving out with his gear still on."
  They argued that I was worse off. 
 "I love you sir," I heard the country soldier say in his deep drawl, "We all love you."
 We moved out quickly, the way we came, across the hot scrub.  I clutched my arm and tried to breathe gently, wearing only my boots and pants at this point.  700 meters later I staggered up to the vehicle, and climbed inside.  Soon the others were loaded, and the company had the situation under control.  The nightmare began to shift into a dream as we sped down the roads to the FOB and the hospital. 
 As the ramp dropped I was met by welcoming hands.  I briefed my caretakers on my injuries while holding my unbuttoned pants up with my uninjured hand.  They rushed me into the emergency room and set me up on a stretcher.  I remember hands poking, grabbing, fixing everywhere, hearing my interpreter scream in the next room.  My pants disappared, my watch disappeared, and I had a blue paper towel to, "cover his junk."  I was asked questions, "what's your birthday?"
"where were you?"
"where does it hurt?"
"what's your name?"
They were concerned about my breathing.  The oxygen helped, but it still hurt.
Their work was fast, caring, intent, and amazing.  Within moments I was bandaged, pumped full of antibiotics and fluids, and wrapped and ready to go in crinkly thin tin foil emergency blanket, strapped to my litter like a christmas present.  I was rolled out, backinto the sunlight, past my 1SG who gave me a HOOAH, and onto a waiting ambulance, sped to the helipad and onto a waiting helicopter.  My interpreter came with me, moaning.  Everyone else's injuries were small enough to stay on the FOB.  The bird took off and I watched the Diyala countryside stretch below me. 
 At Balad, I was rolled off the helipad quickly and remember all of a sudden entering a shed, and seeing the beautiful stars and stripes, a giant american flag on the ceiling.  They roll all casualties through it, and it made me so happy to see....
"Home," I thought.
The dream continued with scans, and questions, and pokes and prods, lifts and rolls, puffs, and breaths, gooed and ultrasounded, anesthesia and surgery, pain and daze.  I remeber such professional caring people....I was being taken care of better than any other person could be in the world.  I awoke not too long ago.....in a bed right next to my medic...who was suffice to say, very surprised to see me, but happy.  He was in good spirits and I was glad to see him.
 My injuries are as follows:  Two shrapnel wounds to my right rear flank.  One piece of shrapnel is deep near my hip, and too small and deep for remove.  One piece of shrapnel removed from my back tricep, straight through the arm.  One piece of shrapnel that went in my back right shoulder and next to my lung, also too deep and small to remove.  I guess I wasn't a pansy, and my doubts were wrong...every medical professional was absolutely right to get me out quickly, and knew something might be bad.  My lung was bruised as well. 
 My body armor had saved my life (I still want to see what it looks like), and the shrapnel had only managed to penetrate me in the gap where my arm came out of the armor. 
  Soon Colonel's, seargeant major's, and even two generals stopped by to visit.  I was touched to have them visit.  I was presented with a purple heart and a combat infantryman badge.  I wasn't mad, but I wasn't exactly happy either, so I didn't smile in my photo.
  Hopefully, I'll be out of here in a day or two, to get back to my guys, and heal up with them.  I've managed walking, and found the computer lab to catch up on the news.  I feel fine...just sore, like someone beat me up.  I also haven't slept in 24 hours, and had three hours sleep before that, and four before that....so right now I'm going to thank all of you for your prayers (they worked today), and sleep a very deep, happy, safe sleep, and dream of my wife.
cheers,
-dave