(Our truck as it was seen at the base in Al Quaim 72 hours after the IED tore through the bottom of our truck)
It's hard to describe what it feels like to have a bomb explode under your feet at 57mph. There is nothing that can be compared to it, the only way to explain how it feels would be similar to having a car wreck that starts from underneath you while you are still traveling in a forward motion. Nothing I have experienced before or since can compare….
As I came to, I open my eyes and looked around realizing what had happened.…"We just hit a IED" was my first thought, my next one was "find a gun, find a gun." I realized no one was shooting yet, and as the smoke and dust begin to settle I took a quick few seconds to check myself for injuries. Although I didn't feel any large amounts of pain anywhere in my body I had enough training and experience to realize that adrenaline and shock could have set in at this point. I begin to conduct an assessment of myself to see if I had taken any shrapnel from the explosive as it tore through the truck. I reached up to readjust my kevlar helmet because it had been knocked sideways and was nearly blown off my head, no blood. I realized my safety glasses had blown off my face, they were never found. I didn't feel a large amount of pain as I felt for my face, arms, nor did I feel any blood as I moved down to my legs. Thank God, theres no blood, no severe pain, just some pain in my shoulder, hip, as well as a loud ringing in both ears and pain in my head. I also noticed my body was continually shaking, as I reached for my rifle I noticed my hands trembling.
Having been hit by an IED before on a foot patrol almost 2 years prior I had experienced all of this before, only by the grace of God did I not have any major injuries. I briefly noticed my M-16 magazines had been blown off my chest rig, and the pistol had been blown out of my pistol holster and off of my right leg. It was a miracle and after this brief assessment. I started looking around again for my rifle or another weapon that I could begin to engage the enemy with. I quickly realized no one was shooting and I didn't see an enemy anywhere, there were muffled sounds coming from the truck below me, someone was groaning, someone else was cussing. My ears were ringing so loud its nearly all I could hear…..what just happened?
As I thinking these thoughts I heard Dondo yell "Get out of the truck and get ready for an ambush!! Hurry up guys, get out!" Ambush? What? Where? From what side? Get out of the truck Andy, just get out of the truck I thought. I realized in that moment I needed to get out of the truck before it caught fire. As I squatted down and begin to climb out of the drivers side I realize the entire steering column and foot pedals were now sitting on the drivers seat in a twisted mangle of steel, I couldn't get out that way. I decided to get out through the passenger door behind the driver, and as I got out I fell to my face. Standing up I looked over at Dylan who was hanging outside of the drivers door by his gear which had caught on the steering wheel, his legs were mangled his right one was bent in half at the shin, he wasn't moving and I couldn't see or hear him breathing. My first thought was he's dead…..
"Dylan!!!!" Tony Screamed from the passenger side as he ran over to Dylan. "Lets go guys lets get him away from the truck!" We all gathered around him and grabbed any part of his body and gear that we could. Dylan begin mumbling as we drug his limp body away from the truck, his mangled legs following behind him. "Corpsman!!!" Someone yelled. We repeated, "Corpsman up!!" I had a quick thought that came out in words as I was thinking it "Hey guys I'm a combat lifesaver, lets get his gear off and check him!" The Corpsman was in the 6th vehicle which was a few hundred meters back and it'd take him a few minutes before he got to us. As we checked for his wounds Tony kept Dylan calm and attentive. Dan and I applied tourniquets to his legs as Dondo recovered the IV bag from his pack which was still in the truck. I firmly attached one tourniquet to his left leg as Dan finished up on the right. Dondo continued checking for torso and upper body wounds as I begin to give him an IV. Thinking methodically I attached the rubber band around the upper portion of his arm, finding a vein and trying to stop my shaking hand I tried my best to insert the needle into the vein in the crease of his forearm and bicep. There was no blood that shot back into the IV and I knew that I'd missed….
I tried again, shaking tremendously while still trying to focus, missed again…. "Come on!!" I yelled. 3rd times a charm I thought and thankfully it was. I was able to float the IV needle into the vein and the IV begin to slowly drip into his blood stream. I learned later that due to catastrophic loss of limbs veins constrict and it can be nearly impossible to get an IV started, a fact I can attest too. It was about this time that the corpsman finally arrived. He and two others Marines had patrolled slowly from the 6th vehicle all the way to us insuring there were no secondary or tertiary IED's emplaced waiting to inflict more casualties on our dismounted Marines. This was a highly effective TTP(Tactic Technique and Procedure) used by the terrorists to inflict more casualties on Marines running to the rescue of their Marine buddies wounded by the initial IED strike. Doc arrived and reassessed Dylan continuing to keep him calm and attentive as we wrapped his legs together in gauze so they would be stabilized for the chopper ride to Al Asad. Doc didn't administer any morphine from what I remember, and later the rest of us had complained a great deal about that. CAAT was on their game as usual and training, experience and IA(Immediate Action) drills they had rehearsed were put into action as a medieval chopper had arrived somewhere around 12 minutes from the time we got hit. I'm still astonished to this day at how fast Dustoff(Medevac choppers call sign) got to our POS(position) considering we were over 50 clicks(kilometers) away, which is roughly 30 miles away.
(View of the aftermath. The bomb crater is in the middle of the picture, and I am the Marine walking towards it without a helmet. The truck traveled nearly 100 yards and drug our driver Dylan that distance after he was blown out of the truck and his gear caught on the steering wheel.)
We put Dylan on a pole litter and waited for dust off to land the bird about 100 meters to our east. The bird came in view and CAAT actual popped a red smoke to mark the LZ(Landing Zone). I didn't carry Dylan to the bird because the fresh CAAT Marines thankfully helped carry him. Tony flew out with Dylan to Al Asad to keep tabs on him and make sure he was okay. I couldn't help but pray for Dylan as the chopper flew off in the distance, "God spare his life, please." As we waited there for EOD(Early Ordinance Disposal) to arrive and conduct a post blast assessment I couldn't help but realize how incredibly blessed we were that day. Dylan would eventually lose both of his legs at a hospital in Germany, and wake up 2 days later without any recollection of what happened. As for the rest of the snipers in the truck(Dondo, Dan, and I), within a few hours we'd load back up in the trucks and head back west 35 clicks to COP North. As crazy as it seems to head back down the same road for 4 hours back to the base, I didn't feel a whole lot of anxiety on the way home. I figured if it was my time to go it would have happened that morning, however, it was extremely eerie waiting in anticipation for another violent explosion and tremor to flow through my body.
(Dondo, Dan, and I after the IED ripped through our truck. The truck is seen behind Dondo)
As we returned to COP North I would be treated for a grade 3 concussion as well as other superficial wounds at the BAS(Battalion Aid Station). I spent the night in the little hospital tent and have no recollection of the rest of the events of that night. Waking up the following morning I had a package from my then girlfriend that was postmarked for the first week of December. It was my delayed Christmas packaged and it had arrived on the 17th of February. After opening it I was surpassed to find a fifth of Jack Daniels whiskey in it. "Hey Doc I feel great can I go back to my hooch now?" I finished the bottle in 2 sittings during the course of the next 16 hours and within 48 hours of the blast I was back up in the turret, back in the saddle, waiting for the next IED to strike. Our battalion had taken a lot of damage that year, and hours after I woke up at BAS we learned a CAAT truck had hit a pressure plate IED in the same vacinity that we'd hit ours. Unfortunately, the IED blew up right under LCpl. Escalante, and after traumatic limb and blood loss he succumb to his injuries on the chopper ride back to Al Asad.
(Truck on the left was the truck in which LCpl Escalante was killed less than 24 hours after we were hit. Our truck is on the right.)
We'd lost a good number of Marines on this deployment already and Escalante would be a loss felt by all the Marines of Weapons Company. I'd experience my own loss through the death of a Marine buddy I went to bootcamp and School of Infantry(SOI) with when an IED tore through his truck and killed him 2 weeks later on March 3rd. LCpl Bravo was a young Marine who was loved by many and his family was generous enough to help us get home to see our families for Christmas when we first arrived to our unit at Twentynine Palms California. They helped over 12 of us get to Vegas to catch our planes to get home for Christmas in 2004 2 weeks before we deployed to Iraq. I am always grateful to his family for what they did for us that year, and the loss of Bravo is always felt by many of us each and ever year. Our brothers will always be missed.
The enemy hit us hard that year, and we had hit back harder, it wasn't the end of the fight, and we'd dish out our revenge in the short weeks to come. Anger and hatred had always filled our hearts and spilled over many times. We were Marines and there'd be hell to pay ten fold with every bit of pain the enemy dished out on us. Young men don't win in war, we simply inflict more damage on the enemy then they do to us and Marines are notorious for inflicting the most damage and killing at least 10 times the number of enemy that manage to kill one of us. I'm proud to say that although we are ruthless killers, we're still Marines, and our motto of "No better friend, no worst enemy" was always on the forefront of our minds. We were young gung ho Marines but in war morals can still be kept, we sought out to befriend everyone, yet at the same time we had a plan to kill everyone we met. The Marine Corps is notorious for helping people as many Americans know, but with the same hands we use to help, we'll kill anyone that sets out to harm us and those that seek to harm our countrymen especially our brothers. It's a brotherhood that nothing can match. And as I've attended a few scout sniper reunions and a few other reunions from units passed, my brothers and I always pick up where we left off. I'm proud to say I served with some of the most amazing and savage men I've ever known, and I am thankfully that God blessed and graced us with "A day of mercy."
(The majority of our sniper platoon Bounty Hunter at a recent reunion. Tony is on the far left, Dondo is next to him in red, Wayman, then Gray, Miller is kneeling, Dan is in black, myself in brown with arm around Dan, Greco is next to me, and Navalle is next to Greco.)
Throughout my time as a deployed combat Marine, there would be many more close calls, IED wires running under our truck, IEDs that didn't explode after being driven over, and some we stepped over or discovered right before we drove over them. Although these were close calls, the enemy would never again have my number again nor those of the Marines around me. Some call it luck, I know it as the grace of God. After 1 more deployment to Iraq in the year following, I exited the active duty Marine life and found myself in Iraq yet again but this time as a Private Security Contractor(PSC) for the Department of State(DoS). Since then my life has headed down various roads as I now find myself less than an hour away from Cape Town, South Africa serving those the Lord has placed in my path. I would never trade anything that I have experienced in life, and would relive most of it again if I was ever given the option. I'm grateful for a God who saves and spares our lives and gives us another day to live. Looking at these pictures and reliving these events leaves me completely humbled. If I was not going to 11 countries in 11 months right now I don't know what I'd be doing. But through all my experiences in life, nothing can compare to serving a loving God and serving people through love across the globe. I'm amazed and humbled to know that God spared my life for a purpose and reason and that reason is why I live everyday as a reflection of his love. Today I helped a new christian and former drug addict surf his first wave in South Africa he couldn't believe God sent me from America to help him with that. Only God knows what tomorrow will hold…
