Text 27677, 57 rader
Skriven 2007-03-08 14:27:20 av Stan Hardegree (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 27674 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Marines
===============
This morning I was sitting at my computer when, out of the blue, my son,
Mike, IMd me from Baghdad on a computer reserved for that purpose (emails
and IMs to and from family).

He told me that after a daylight mission late last week, his unit was
returning to their operating base when their convoy was hit by an IED.  A
friend of my son's - Josh - took the brunt of the blast - along with their
platoon medic.  Mike said that he and several others converged on the
wounded men and began lifesaving procedures they have trained on - stop the
bleeding, treat for shock, etc...  The dazed medic came to a few minutes
after the explosion and helped the rest work on the more badly wounded
Josh - whose right hand was "hanging by a thread" as Mike put it (much
screaming and blood spattering omitted as the men worked).

Because Josh's hand was so badly damaged, the medic applied a tourniquet to
the wrist, and they whisked the wounded soldier off to the unit aid station,
which has doctors standing by.  The doctors amputated Josh's hand, cleaned
it up, iced it, and sent it along with him to the rear, and eventually to
North Carolina.  At last report, docs have re-attached the hand, and Josh is
recuperating at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, home of their
unit.  Josh's wife and children can be with him there, and, I'm sure,
accelerate healing.

I would imagine that Josh has many months of therapy ahead of him in an
effort to regain use of his hand.  He is right handed, which troubles me
greatly.  But the silver lining here is that Josh had well-trained friends
around him when this happened, and that they did exactly the right thing in
aiding him.

But a cautionary note: Mike said the IED that hit his convoy was the
conventional frag-type device.  He said that if it had been one of the new
devices they are seeing - likely provided by Iran - Josh and several others
would have died.  The new ones discharge some sort of copper material which
cuts through people and HUMVEEs "like butter," he said.

Around lunch today, I stopped by to see Becky Lauritzen at her shop to
update her on Mike's status.  Her son Micah has just returned from Iraq
after a tour there with his Marine unit.  Like my son, Micah is Infantry -
they both enlisted at the same time, with Mike choosing the Army.  Becky
said that she asked Micah if he would tell her about his time in Iraq.  He
answered, "I will tell some but not all.  Some of it stays with me,"  she
said.

When I left Becky's shop in my truck, I drove past Ada Large locking up her
shop for lunch.  Her son Sam was killed about a year ago along with several
other Marines in a helicopter crash off the coast of Africa.  Sam was the
fourth young man to die from this area during the war.

Mike is tentatively scheduled to deploy home in June, and Micah is scheduled
to re-deploy to Iraq at the end of the year.

Today is a beautiful day in small-town Georgia, sunny and about 75 degrees,
but I'll be damned if the day doesn't feel like something out of a David
Lynch movie.

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