Post by wildman on Jun 8, 2013 2:12:54 GMT -7
Well I have read thru all the stories on here about how others have lost their limb. So I thought I would start telling my story since I have not yet had my leg amputated.
I was in the Army from 1978 til 1992. After I got out of the Army I found out I really missed it and even though I said I would never ever join the National Guard I ended up joining in 1994. I had been in the Inactive Ready Reserves during the time I had left the Army until I joined the Guard. I was first a member of the Oregon Guard in a tank unit. After 3 years I transferred to the Washington Guard and 2 years after moving to the Washington Guard I got a job working for the Washington Guard driving the supply truck. During this time I met a woman who became my second wife. My first wife had divorced me while I was in Korea in 1990 which was part of the reason why I got out of the Army in 1992.
So I got married again in 2001 and had a little girl born in May of 2002. Then in Oct of 2003 I was activated to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. My unit was a maintenance unit which should mean I was going to be working on broke equipment but as always the Army likes to throw us a curve ball. Our Battalion was tasked with providing a 110 person Security Unit to provide security at the gates of the base we were at. Because I had been active duty before and had some combat arms experience I was chosen to be the 1st Sergeant for it. I would be doing the job of an E-8 but still only get paid as a E-7. But the plus to this was that by holding this position and getting experience I would be a shoe-in for a promotion as soon as one opened up. So I took the job and did a very good one at it if I do say so. We had been in country about 6 months when I got a letter from my wife who hadn't been all that supportive since I had left telling me she was moving and that I couldn't have the new address. Now she was also a little mad because I had stopped my pay for going into our bank account and had it going into one my mom had opened for me. I did this because during the prior 5 months she had spent over $50,000 and had not been paying the bills. So because of all this my command sent me home on leave to try and find out what was going on. Not having my head in my job could get someone killed or injured. At the front gate where I worked we used loaded weapons everyday. All weapons were loaded with a round in the chamber and weapon on safe. We processed about 1,500 Iraqi workers thru the gate each day to come on base and work for the day and then go home at night. Each person was searched 3 times going in and out. We also cleared about 100 vehicles each day that were bringing on items needed. So any time on any day we could be hit by a suicide bomber. On top of that we got at least 1 rocket or mortar attack everyday and normally had +6. Our base was nicknamed mortaritaville because we were attacked so much. So you can see why I needed my head in the game and not thinking about my wife and daughter.
So I went home and was there 20 days. During that time I got to see my daughter twice. But I did find out what was going on. My wife was living with another man and my daughter was calling him daddy. She had moved all of my stuff into a storage unit and wasn't nice about how she had stacked stuff in there. On top of this she had been letting the new boy friend drive my Jeep. Now for those that don't understand it is like someone touching a cowboys hat or a bikers motorcycle. It just added insult to injury. So I went back to Iraq with things taken care of and at least now I knew what was happening. Well when I get back I find that I had been replaced at my job on the main gate. I was now going to be in charge of the east gate. It would mean I only had about 20 people to worry about instead of the 110 I had had. So I had only been back in country 11 days when I was shot. I don't have any cool story to tell about fighting off the enemy at the gate or anything like that. This was one of those STUPID mistakes. On 19 Oct 2004 we were getting ready to go out and sweep the road coming into the east gate. Normally we would use a armored personal carrier that our soldiers would walk behind but on this morning it wouldn't start. So some of the troops were over working on it while others were going to do the sweep. So a new soldier that had just started working at the gate had been told to go up on top of the building where we had a lookout positioned at. On top of that we also had a machine gun mounted up there to provide cover fire if we were ever attacked. The usual people who would man the machine gun were working on the personal carrier. So this new soldier was up there and saw the machine gun unloaded and unmanned. Now she wasn't trained on this weapon which means she should not have touched it. But because she had been trained on a different machine gun that LOOKED LIKE it she thought she could load it. Well 7 rounds later I had a bullet rip thru my leg and luckily no one else was injuried. I was standing about 30-35 feet from where this machine gun was mounted. So the bullet had it full force behind it when it hit my femur. The bullet came in the back of my leg and exited thru the front with a lot of bone with it. My femur looked like a chicken bone that had just been snapped. I remember the whole thing and was awake until I got to the hospital and was on a exame table.When I got hit I fell to the ground but really didn't realize what had happened to me yet. Once the weapon stopped firing I yelled for a medic. I laid there and watched this female medic working on me. All I could really see was all the blood on her. I of course was yelling and people wanting them to report to me about what had just happened. That was my job if we were attacked which at that point I thought we had. The hospital was only 5 minutes away if that far from where I was at. But the ambulance haddn't shown up yet. So they decided to load me onto a stretcher and place that on the hood of a hummvee and drive it with people walking next to it holding the stretcher in place. Up til they rolled me on my side I really hadn't felt any pain. But that hurt and hurt a lot. So just as they got me onto the hood of the hummvee the ambulance shows up. Now everytime they move me around it hurts so I am telling them to take it easy. Once they get me to the hospital and onto an exame table they start to cut my clothes off. Well I have on my armor vest and they want to cut it off me. I stop them and sit up and tell them to take it off me because we had a shortage of vests in country at the time. And it was a good thing I did because one of my soldiers lost their vest and ended up with mine. That is the last thing I remember until I woke up about 6 hours later and my commander is talking to me with a sat phone asking me who I wanted to call. So since I didn't have a wife anymore I had them call my parents. It was only about 5AM in Calif. and my mom says she will never forget that phone call. I was lucky that day or so they told me at the time, there was a vascular surgen there that week and he was able to do a saphenous vein graft from my left leg to repair the severed femural artery in my right leg. So the next time I woke up they were putting me on a plane to be flown to Germany. I had an external fixator on my right leg and I was leaving Iraq naked.
Once I got to Germany they would take me into surgery every other day and do a debridement surgery. I was in Germany for 3 days until they got me stablized enough to fly me to Walter Reed in MD. Then I was at Walter Reed for 6 days before they flew me to Washington so I could be closer to home and family. When I got to Washington I had found out that Morphine did not work on me for pain. They had pumped tons of Morphine into me try to help with the pain I was having and it did no good. It wasn't until someone tried dilaudid did I get some relief. I was still having a debridement surgery every other day to try and get all the dirt and stuff out of the wound. Watching them pull packing gauze out of the hole in my leg never felt good and I can still see it today as if it was just happening. On 3 Nov they scheduled me for surgery to fix my leg. It was also this day that they figured out I had some type of nerve damage because I couldn't move my foot or any of my toes. Because it had been so long there really wasn't much they could do to try and fix it now. So that is why I have foot drop and all the nerve pain.
Tonight was one of my nights where if I could I would be in the hospital tomorrow and having them amputate my leg. My foot was feeling like it was swollen 3 times it's size and I just HURT. I know this was a long post and I am sorry for that. But I had a lot to tell.
I was in the Army from 1978 til 1992. After I got out of the Army I found out I really missed it and even though I said I would never ever join the National Guard I ended up joining in 1994. I had been in the Inactive Ready Reserves during the time I had left the Army until I joined the Guard. I was first a member of the Oregon Guard in a tank unit. After 3 years I transferred to the Washington Guard and 2 years after moving to the Washington Guard I got a job working for the Washington Guard driving the supply truck. During this time I met a woman who became my second wife. My first wife had divorced me while I was in Korea in 1990 which was part of the reason why I got out of the Army in 1992.
So I got married again in 2001 and had a little girl born in May of 2002. Then in Oct of 2003 I was activated to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. My unit was a maintenance unit which should mean I was going to be working on broke equipment but as always the Army likes to throw us a curve ball. Our Battalion was tasked with providing a 110 person Security Unit to provide security at the gates of the base we were at. Because I had been active duty before and had some combat arms experience I was chosen to be the 1st Sergeant for it. I would be doing the job of an E-8 but still only get paid as a E-7. But the plus to this was that by holding this position and getting experience I would be a shoe-in for a promotion as soon as one opened up. So I took the job and did a very good one at it if I do say so. We had been in country about 6 months when I got a letter from my wife who hadn't been all that supportive since I had left telling me she was moving and that I couldn't have the new address. Now she was also a little mad because I had stopped my pay for going into our bank account and had it going into one my mom had opened for me. I did this because during the prior 5 months she had spent over $50,000 and had not been paying the bills. So because of all this my command sent me home on leave to try and find out what was going on. Not having my head in my job could get someone killed or injured. At the front gate where I worked we used loaded weapons everyday. All weapons were loaded with a round in the chamber and weapon on safe. We processed about 1,500 Iraqi workers thru the gate each day to come on base and work for the day and then go home at night. Each person was searched 3 times going in and out. We also cleared about 100 vehicles each day that were bringing on items needed. So any time on any day we could be hit by a suicide bomber. On top of that we got at least 1 rocket or mortar attack everyday and normally had +6. Our base was nicknamed mortaritaville because we were attacked so much. So you can see why I needed my head in the game and not thinking about my wife and daughter.
So I went home and was there 20 days. During that time I got to see my daughter twice. But I did find out what was going on. My wife was living with another man and my daughter was calling him daddy. She had moved all of my stuff into a storage unit and wasn't nice about how she had stacked stuff in there. On top of this she had been letting the new boy friend drive my Jeep. Now for those that don't understand it is like someone touching a cowboys hat or a bikers motorcycle. It just added insult to injury. So I went back to Iraq with things taken care of and at least now I knew what was happening. Well when I get back I find that I had been replaced at my job on the main gate. I was now going to be in charge of the east gate. It would mean I only had about 20 people to worry about instead of the 110 I had had. So I had only been back in country 11 days when I was shot. I don't have any cool story to tell about fighting off the enemy at the gate or anything like that. This was one of those STUPID mistakes. On 19 Oct 2004 we were getting ready to go out and sweep the road coming into the east gate. Normally we would use a armored personal carrier that our soldiers would walk behind but on this morning it wouldn't start. So some of the troops were over working on it while others were going to do the sweep. So a new soldier that had just started working at the gate had been told to go up on top of the building where we had a lookout positioned at. On top of that we also had a machine gun mounted up there to provide cover fire if we were ever attacked. The usual people who would man the machine gun were working on the personal carrier. So this new soldier was up there and saw the machine gun unloaded and unmanned. Now she wasn't trained on this weapon which means she should not have touched it. But because she had been trained on a different machine gun that LOOKED LIKE it she thought she could load it. Well 7 rounds later I had a bullet rip thru my leg and luckily no one else was injuried. I was standing about 30-35 feet from where this machine gun was mounted. So the bullet had it full force behind it when it hit my femur. The bullet came in the back of my leg and exited thru the front with a lot of bone with it. My femur looked like a chicken bone that had just been snapped. I remember the whole thing and was awake until I got to the hospital and was on a exame table.When I got hit I fell to the ground but really didn't realize what had happened to me yet. Once the weapon stopped firing I yelled for a medic. I laid there and watched this female medic working on me. All I could really see was all the blood on her. I of course was yelling and people wanting them to report to me about what had just happened. That was my job if we were attacked which at that point I thought we had. The hospital was only 5 minutes away if that far from where I was at. But the ambulance haddn't shown up yet. So they decided to load me onto a stretcher and place that on the hood of a hummvee and drive it with people walking next to it holding the stretcher in place. Up til they rolled me on my side I really hadn't felt any pain. But that hurt and hurt a lot. So just as they got me onto the hood of the hummvee the ambulance shows up. Now everytime they move me around it hurts so I am telling them to take it easy. Once they get me to the hospital and onto an exame table they start to cut my clothes off. Well I have on my armor vest and they want to cut it off me. I stop them and sit up and tell them to take it off me because we had a shortage of vests in country at the time. And it was a good thing I did because one of my soldiers lost their vest and ended up with mine. That is the last thing I remember until I woke up about 6 hours later and my commander is talking to me with a sat phone asking me who I wanted to call. So since I didn't have a wife anymore I had them call my parents. It was only about 5AM in Calif. and my mom says she will never forget that phone call. I was lucky that day or so they told me at the time, there was a vascular surgen there that week and he was able to do a saphenous vein graft from my left leg to repair the severed femural artery in my right leg. So the next time I woke up they were putting me on a plane to be flown to Germany. I had an external fixator on my right leg and I was leaving Iraq naked.
Once I got to Germany they would take me into surgery every other day and do a debridement surgery. I was in Germany for 3 days until they got me stablized enough to fly me to Walter Reed in MD. Then I was at Walter Reed for 6 days before they flew me to Washington so I could be closer to home and family. When I got to Washington I had found out that Morphine did not work on me for pain. They had pumped tons of Morphine into me try to help with the pain I was having and it did no good. It wasn't until someone tried dilaudid did I get some relief. I was still having a debridement surgery every other day to try and get all the dirt and stuff out of the wound. Watching them pull packing gauze out of the hole in my leg never felt good and I can still see it today as if it was just happening. On 3 Nov they scheduled me for surgery to fix my leg. It was also this day that they figured out I had some type of nerve damage because I couldn't move my foot or any of my toes. Because it had been so long there really wasn't much they could do to try and fix it now. So that is why I have foot drop and all the nerve pain.
Tonight was one of my nights where if I could I would be in the hospital tomorrow and having them amputate my leg. My foot was feeling like it was swollen 3 times it's size and I just HURT. I know this was a long post and I am sorry for that. But I had a lot to tell.
