Staff Sgt. Damian Remijio shows the entry and exit wounds he sustained during a firefight with insurgents April 12, 2012. He was saved from further injury by the chest plate of his body armor, which stopped two bullets from an AK-47. Photo: Joshua L. Demotts / Stars & Stripes.
Remijio didn’t see the grenade. His reaction relied on instinct and experience.
He dropped down to wrap his body around the injured Fitch to protect him from shrapnel. The grenade landed amid a mound of rocks a few feet in front of them and tumbled in their direction.
Ting … ting … ting …
“Tell Ashley I love her. Tell Leiah I love her. Tell them I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?” Fitch asked.
He had heard the clinking of the grenade, but he was disoriented after being shot.
He struggled to pull free. Remijio hugged him tight. Their faces were almost touching.
A gripping account superbly told by Martin Kuz of Stars & Stripes. Must-read.
Retired Army veteran Melissa Stockwell and Royal Marine Capt. Simon Maxwell from Croydon, England, carry the torch after lighting the cauldron to kick off the 2012 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo., April 30, 2012. U.S. Department of Defense photo.
Wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans from the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Special Operations Command, will compete for the gold in track and field, shooting, swimming, cycling, archery, wheelchair basketball and sitting volleyball during the 2012 Warrior Games. Follow the action at the Department of Defense website.
U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Derick Clark, a kennel supervisor with Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, comforts Yeager, an improvised explosive device detection dog, as they wait for the beginning of a memorial service in honor of Lance Cpl. Abraham Tarwoe, Yeager's handler, on Combat Outpost Duluth, Afghanistan, April 22, 2012. Tarwoe, who was assigned to Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, was killed in action during a dismounted patrol in support of combat operations. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez.
At Corporal Garrett Carnes' homecoming celebration last weekend, the "highlight of the day" was a hug from a total stranger - a young Marine wearing his Dress Blues.
"He tried to let go of the hug and I grabbed him and pulled him back in, because I didn't want to let go," said Carnes.
The mystery Marine left before Carnes could learn his name.
"I wanted to find him and just tell him, 'Thank you, brother.' That meant the world for him to come out there and do that," he said.
On Saturday, Carnes was searching for the mystery Marine. Less than 24-hours later he found him. Carnes and his wife connected with him through Facebook.
He is Lance Corporal Aaron Means, a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune.
On the phone he said he had heard about Carnes. He heard how Carnes proudly served his country and lost both of his legs, but hadn't lost his sense of humor.
"That struck me as being motivating in that no matter what the enemy threw at him, it's not going to stop him from being who he is," said Means.
Means said he requested a day off from work and drove more than four hours to salute the man he calls a brother.
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Anthony McDaniel races around the track during practice for the 2012 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo., April 23, 2012. McDaniel suffered a bilateral leg and partial hand amputations from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan 2010. He is competing in track and wheelchair basketball. Photo: U.S. Department of Defense.
“There is no amount of training that could have prepared me for those three days of medevac.”
- Flight Medic Sgt. Julia Bringloe
DUSTOFF 73, serving with C Company, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, and who flew 11 hoist missions during 60 hours last June has been honored at the 2012 Army Aviation Association of America’s annual forum.
The Goodrich Corp., an AAAA sponsor, held the reception in Nashville, Tenn., to recognize the four-soldier Black Hawk crew of Dust Off 73 — pilot Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kenneth Brodhead, pilot Chief Warrant Officer 2 Erik Sabiston, flight medic Sgt. Julia Bringloe and crew chief Spc. David Capps — who spent nearly 12 hours in the air, extracting 14 wounded and one soldier killed in action and flying three critical resupply missions during a three-day operation.
Earlier this year, the crew received the AAAA/Goodrich Corp. 2011 Air and Sea Rescue of the Year award at Fort Rucker, Ala. Each soldier has been nominated for a Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest aviation award for valor.
...
Low clouds three times denied DO-73 entry into the valley leading to the troops. Finally, the crew found a way in and dropped off medical gear, water and food before lowering Bringloe, who prepared a patient for liftoff.
“As she was doing that, the clouds were rolling in even more, and my co-pilot [Brodhead] was looking out and he couldn’t see hardly anything,” Sabiston said.
With Bringloe and a casualty dangling by cable 50 feet below, the pilots began a cautious climb out of the valley on their way to Bagram Airfield.
But within moments, everything went white, as if a sheet had covered the chopper, Sabiston said. Bringloe and the casualty disappeared in the atmosphere below, and the chopper kept rising.
The risks of the maneuver were massive. One tilt too far one way and the chopper could have slammed into a mountainside and crashed, as two Chinooks from the task force had about a month earlier, he said.
Without sight, Brodhead and Sabiston guided the chopper by compass and intuition.
At about 11,000 feet, Bringloe and the casualty were pulled into the aircraft.
...
In addition to the weather, the crew members faced enemy rocket-propelled-grenade teams and small-arms fire, hovered in a hot pickup zone for 15 minutes, escorted a bullet-riddled chopper to safety, stopped an empty body bag from blowing in tail rotors and causing catastrophic damage, spun violently on a hoist cable and smashed into trees and rocks during extraction ops, piloted while wearing night-vision goggles, and flew the chopper’s tail and rotors inches from trees.
Almost 2 years and over 100 surgeries later, Sgt. Adam Keys returned home to Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania yesterday. He lost three limbs when his vehicle was struck by an IED in southern Afghanistan in July of 2010.
Four other soldiers in his vehicle, including Spc. Jesse Reed, also from Whitehall, were killed in the explosion. Reed was practically a brother to Keys. They had been buddies since their days at Whitehall High School, where they graduated in 2002 and dreamed about joining the Army.
In Bethlehem, Keys shook hands and exchanged greetings with just about everyone there. Most were complete strangers. Some were veterans themselves. They bent over, hugged him and thanked him for his service.
"Thank everybody for coming to welcome me back," Keys told the crowd, who responded with a mix of applause, cheers and tears.
The soldier fought back tears of his own as he talked about the long road back to Whitehall. With his mother, Julie Keys, plus Reed's mother and two young sons nearby, Adam Keys said, "The support I've gotten from the Lehigh Valley, it has helped tremendously."
Keys, who nearly died and has undergone countless surgeries, said daily phone calls and greeting cards he received from well wishers motivated him to keep moving forward.
"I'm not going to let anybody down," he promised the crowd.
Quoting the Soldier's Creed, Keys said, "I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade."
Keys no longer has a home in the Lehigh Valley. His mother has rented out their old house in Whitehall while staying with him Bethesda to aid in his recovery.
The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation and the Gary Sinise Foundation are prepared to build Keys a home whenever and wherever he chooses.
U.S. Army soldiers from Alpha troop, 4-73 Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division carry an injured comrade to a helicopter during a firefight with Taliban during a mission in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. Reuters photo / April 10, 2012.
...this spotter was odd in that she was female, and that she was approximately 6 years old. She pointed at the Marines and talked into a hand-held radio, and every time she talked, the rounds got closer.
Hearing this play out, I heard myself say out loud, "Someone needs to smoke that little girl."
Then I paused, stood, and left the tent to consider the idea that I was, in that instant, advocating the killing of a child. Not some abstract child in an ethics discussion question; no, I meant that particular little girl, the one who had come menacingly alive for me over the crackling of the radio. I wanted a 5.56mm round from my friend's rifle to split her throat so that our Marines might live.
