I remember the mine fields that we had to clear and dead body clean up details. I can vividly recall the twisted and
mangled bodies of our enemies as we removed them from the scene. There were not only soldiers, unfortunately,
but innocent women and children caught in the crossfire of opposing forces. Those were the worst.
I can recall April 7, 2003 as if it were yesterday. I had spent the night sleeping a few hours on 2500 lbs of C-4
(plastic explosives). I slept fully clothed and ready for an early morning and a long day. If I had only known what
was going to go down in the next few hours I may have moved slower to prolong the outcome. We were doing
our 2nd assault on Baghdad and ironically were sent to take over the amusement park and the zoo. Intel said the
enemy was dug in deep in that location. They were not wrong! Our raid started as planned, eliminating all threats.
The more we advanced, the more intense the battle. I had just put 30 tracer rounds into a bunker and it, long with
the machine gunner inside, was a total blaze. I thought I had seen an old style grenade get thrown at us. I yelled
“grenade!” to my crew to warn them. The grenade never went off. We found out later that they were not properly
trained on those grenades and forgot to pull the pin. Moments later we were in a cloud of solid black smoke and
could not hear each other yelling due to the deafening explosion. We confirmed that an RPG hit our armored personnel carrier (APC). The vehicle was not moving. Immediately I realized why. As our LT. stood unleashing a lead
wall at our attackers, I went directly to the driver. I had to crawl over people to get to him, my best friend, Joe.
The RPG had hit the vehicle right beside his head which was enough to kill him. Suddenly our ATV started to
move again as I got a thumbs up. He was alive and driving! Why isn’t he dead? Who knew that when I attached
my ruck sack to the vehicle by his head that it would be enough to save his life?
We continued on in the pressing action. As we were making a turn to move closer to our objective, I watched a
40mm grenade fly through the window of a small guard shack. The impact of the grenade, when it hit the man’s
chest, disintegrated him instantly. Finally, it’s only 7am local time, we crash through the gates of the amusement
park. Everyone is picking targets and dropping them like flies. After the action died down we moved into a defensive perimeter. No one in - no one out. I find the only remains of my clothing from the RPG hit. A smoking,
scorched, half sole of my boots and 2 t-shirts. Our area is quiet. The only noises were coming from the zoo assault
next to us. As we fix ourselves behind our rifles, preparing to shoot anyone sneaking around, all action seems to
slow to a deliberate halt. Then from nowhere, a single gunshot. As we wait for the location of the sniper to be
called out, my left arm starts to feel weird. Immediately a rush of extreme pain screams throughout my shoulder. I
tell my team that I’ve been shot. They did not believe me at first then I turned around to address them and to sit. )]