The Alamo

The Gap

Hooters

Matt giving Willy an IV to help him hydrate his hangover

Standing in the awesome homecoming ceremony formation. Notice Ray looking back at me.

It was a packed house at the ceremony

Mike and his son. I have to admit that I really envy this guy. Incredible career and family.

Our final formation of the deployment. From the right: John, Willy, and Ray.

A combat Christmas tree– complete with an AT4, belts of 7.62mm and .50-cal, smoke grenades, and high explosive 40mm grenades.

The bunker we stayed in just before leaving Iraq. The First Infantry division’s motto is “Duty First”.

Matt, on the right, works on the wounded Iraqi

Karl, in his Bradley

The IED trigger materials we found in the backyard of a building near the attack site

An incredibly large family, anxiously waiting while we search their home

The irony here is that the guy on the passenger side (or TC for “truck commander”) was probably saved because his window was down, rather than up. Notice how the shrapnel punched through door, but was stopped by the lowered window.

The windows and windshield of these Humvees are made of some really interesting material. On the outside you have hardened glass, but on the inside it’s a soft, transparent material. If you press your fingernail into it, it’s slightly soft and leaves an indent, then slowly regains its shape once you release pressure. In these two photos you can very clearly see how this flexible quality basically “caught” the shrapnel, sorta like Kevlar.

The guy who sustained probably the most serious injury was hit with shrapnel that punched this hole. The small piece of metal just barely missed the armor plate, penetrating the skin of the vehicle. (This Humvee is different from the photos above. This vehicle has add-on armor as the vehicle above is an up-armored Humvee.) Below is the view from the inside. The shrapnel entered his arm lengthwise then stuck in the bone like a dart of push-pin. The wound was painful and there was a good deal of blood, but he was medevac’d from the scene without incident.

Two of our battalion’s mechanics, working on one of the Humvees damaged by the IED.

The details of this story are fuzzy. Some of our guys were visiting a man and his family to reward him with some new shoes for being so helpful with intelligence. The mans’s brother allegedly threw a hand grenade from within the house. The grenade never made it out of the house and exploded inside the house, wounding one or both of the men. It is unclear who the grenade was intended for. It is assumed that the grenade thrower was unhappy with his brother’s giving information to the Americans. Despite whatever nuances there might have been with the story, a soldier with a reputation for acting decisively entered the building and shot and killed both men.

The only fact that I am certain of is that two men were killed. I also trust that there was an explosion or grenade. I was a part of the force that responded to the event. The rest is hearsay and conjecture.

Then rolled in Hunter Six– the battalion commander.

Hearing that there was bloodshed, our BC came to the scene with his coterie to skulk around. While the family of these two men were in the backyard and out of sight, grieving in what I can only describe as the most memorable display of human anguish I’ve seen in my life, this man poses over one of the dead bodies and has his photograph taken. I do not know who took these photos. (JCH 2012)

The house belonging to the family

Lt. Col. Mark R. Warnecke, New York Army National Guard, commander of the 2/108th Infantry, FOB O’Ryan, Ad Dujayl, Iraq.