To Whom It May Concern

The World Is Upside Down

In Iraq Monday, July 31, 2006, two Army National Guard soldiers were driving a military truck in a convoy from Forward Operating Base Delta to Tallil Air Base when their truck was struck by the IED near An Numaniyah.

When this occurred I was on duty in the operations center in charge of the night crew, which is comprised of just two soldiers over the graveyard shift. One of our basic duties is monitoring the messaging system that keeps constant contact with the trucks. At about 10 p.m. we received a message from the convoy commander that they had been hit by an IED (military acronym for ‘roadside bomb’) and needed a medivac. This was a shock, we have not had anyone injured much less killed here. I was on the phone with battalion seeing if they had the information and were contacting the nearest medivac helicopter evacuation center, and sent my ‘runner’ out to wake up the 1SG and commander.

Almost immediately a second message came thru stating “we have no radio contact, are you there, we need help!” This really made my blood run cold because now I knew how it had to be serious. I responded that battalion had the information, and that a ‘bird’ (chopper) was in the air. Another message came thru “how long, we have 2 soldiers, critical condition” and I responded that the bird was in the air but I didn’t know how long it would be. At about this point in time most of the upper NCO leadership and officers in the unit were arriving and they took over while I ran some paperwork about the convoy down to battalion.

At this point I figured that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, this particular convoy commander can get pretty worked up sometimes, so I prayed that perhaps he just thought it was worse than it really was. At battalion things were just crazy, I wasn’t allowed inside of the ‘war room’ where I normally go to drop off items because it was just nuts, our commander and 1st SGT were there though and everyone was around the big television with the maps and the radio was chattering like mad.

I drove back as quickly as I could to our operations center and when I walked in it was completely silent. One of the PLT SGT’s was outside over along the edge of the trailer leaned over, visibly shaken. I knew something was really wrong. I went inside and asked what was up and my PLT SGT turned and told me “___ died”. I asked twice “He died???” because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Most of the upper NCO leadership was in that room and some go back more than 15 years, but this was without a doubt the worst single incident any of us ever had to deal with in the military.

Even though it felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach as hard as they could, my thoughts turned to the other soldier. They showed me the last message that came in, and it said that yes the one soldier was KIA and that the second soldier had lost possibly both his legs, and was in critical condition. At this point you hope for the best with the surviving soldier and try to focus your energy on doing what you can on his behalf. It was just so overwhelming to try and think about losing one of our own, we really didn’t want to lose 2.

The convoy was told to stay the night at the nearest forward operating base to where they were attacked and so here at Tallil we had to go out and wake everyone up, and all we were allowed to tell them is that there was a formation out at the operations center “IMMEDIATELY”. Once everyone was rounded the had a formation and the 1SG broke the news to the troops. I was monitoring the comm’s so I didn’t see what happened, I already knew what was going on therefore I sent everyone out so they could be with the troops, and the battalion chaplain and others were on hand to counsel those who needed it.

Everyone was really hurting at this point. Word came thru finally later that night that the wounded soldier had been stabalized and would lose the bottom portion of one leg, but that the other leg had been saved. Whoever applied the tourniquettes from our combat lifesaver teams had saved his life. This was the first good news we had. Slowly the soldiers filtered back to the living area and after a couple of hours it was just my runner and I again, alone, and really really sad. By about 6 a.m. I had the worst headache I’ve had since arriving in country, and we were both just utterly exhausted. My E-4 runner was stressed, we did a lot of talking about life and people we knew who had died, but nothing could seem to take away that feeling of loss. Thankfully our relief came out about 30 minutes early and we got out of there.

No one really slept much the night before and the next day the PLT SGT’s all had radios with them in case they let the convoy leave the base they were at. But they weren’t allowed to leave till nearly 7 that night (which, to the credit of the base they were at, was the very first allowable time for them to leave, they got our guys out as quick as they could safely do so). I got about 2 hours of sleep that day, I was just so concerned about our guys and also about the soldier’s families back home, who were likely getting the bad news at any time that day.

We all headed back out to the motor pool at about 9 p.m. to wait for the convoy to arrive.
As the trucks rolled in everyone flooded out to comfort the guys who were on that mission, it was really emotional. Our radio/comm’s technician, an E-4, said he wanted some time to himself so he took over in the operations center, which was wonderful of him to do because it allowed me to go out and spend some time with the guys.
The SSG who was out as the convoy commander was overcome with emotion, and many of the other SSG’s surrounded him and just enveloped him with support, hugs, and positive comments. It was not his fault at all, there was nothing he could have done to prevent this, if anything his quick actions may have saved the other soldier’s life, but nothing can take away the pain of losing a soldier under your care, I know this as well as any military leader knows it.

The soldiers were told they could leave their gear on the trucks, us guys on the night crew would watch out for them and keep track of everything, all that was unloaded was crew served weapons and any personal items they needed to take back to the rooms. After the chaplain, the battalion SGT MJR and the battalion commander talked to us, we all hung around for several hours quietly consoling one another. At about 1 in the morning everyone had headed off, leaving me and my E-5 alternate runner out there to finish off the night shift.

I’m reeling right now from this. We were always aware of the possibility of this happening over here. I don’t know if it was because we went for 10 months without this happening, but now that it has I realize I was totally unprepared for the situation. I don’t know if it would have made a difference if it had happened earlier but I do know that running so long without an incident probably made us feel somewhat invulnerable.

We have gone from “Alright!! 2 months left, let’s have fun and get out of this place” to “Please Lord just watch over us and let us get out of here without anything else happening”, and it happened so quick. I don’t claim to know this soldier as well as some other people do, but everyone in the unit has been rocked because we have all gotten so close, like a family here.

I’m still having some difficulty sleeping but I think the healing has begun. Our unit has been pulled from missions right now till after the CID investigation and the memorial service, so at night a lot of the guys hang out outside of their trailers and talk quietly, usually about other stuff but sometimes drifting back to Josh and Ben and stories about them. It’s helping everyone get thru. My heart goes out to their families, we all feel so helpless being unable to console them in any way in person.

I want so badly to believe in what we are doing, right now everything has been rocked though, and I guess the next couple of months are really going to be a lot harder than we had anticipated. But we’ll make it thru, what else can we do? We still have to drive on with our mission, I still may be back out on the road in a couple of weeks myself as they do some rotating out at the operations center, I don’t know. I am just going to do what I’m told, pray for my own safety and that of my soldiers, and look forward to getting back to my family and my friends.

I miss you guys, and I love you. I just want you all to know that.

There are times that God has reasons that reason itself cannot understand.