Getting shot and almost getting shot

In July of 2004 Fallujah was on fire, sometimes literally, but always figuratively. Echo Company and Fox Company were manning outposts all along the edges of the city protecting MSR Mobile (Main Supply Route) from the huge population of insurgents that had moved in. Route Mobile was the main road and only remaining usable road connecting Baghdad to the Al Anbar province capital of Ramadi. MSR Michigan was the other major road running from Baghdad to Ramadi, but ran through the middle of Fallujah and was therefore unusable by coalition forces.

CAAT, Echo Company and others engaged in a long series of very heavy firefights along the stretch of MSR Mobile that ran directly by the edge of Fallujah’s Iskari neighborhood. Here is a sampling of one of the many fights that went on as insurgents tried to disable passing supply convoys and the Marines tried to kill those insurgents….

Convoys getting hit along MSR Mobile

I took the above video from the South East corner of TCP-1 the day before my driver Danny C got shot in the arm and two days before Joe C and Patrick L took some bullet frag in the arm and shoulder. Jim W took a machine gun round in the helmet and suffered a skull fracture a few days later. All in the same part of town. A couple of other guys from Weapons Co were similarly hit by small arms fire as well as a handful from E Co. Most of this fighting took place from either TCP-1 (Tactical Control Point 1) which controlled the intersection of MSR Mobile and MSR Michigan or from MSR Mobile directly to the East of Fallujah.

The day Danny C got hit in the arm we had the entire CAAT platoon (11 Humvees with .50 caliber Machine Guns, MK-19 automatic grenade launchers, M240 medium Machine Guns, and TOW missiles) lined up on MSR Mobile from the railroad overpass to about 800 yards North. My vehicle was the furthest South vehicle, and therefor closest to the city. We were doing a blocking position, I believe some dignitary was going to be moving through the area, but don’t recall exactly now. but we essentially sat up on the raised highway and exchanged heavy fire with insurgents in the northern Iskari neighborhood for about 30 minutes. Shane D was manning the .50 cal with David T helping load, Nathan H was behind the humvee with an M249 SAW, I was up behind the engine block on comms, and Danny C (the driver) was pulling rear security for us.

The truck had already taken multiple hits in the armor, Shane had put hundreds of round through the .50 hitting likely enemy positions, and Nathan had sprayed down near targets with the SAW blowing through nearly 1000 rounds. Danny jogged up to me and said “Hey Sgt T, I got shot in the arm”. It was like he was telling me that “Hey Sgt T, we have a flat tire”. Calm. He had a through and through wound, the round had struck him in the forearm, passed between the bones in his forearm, and exited cleanly. As we knelt behind the engine block of the humvee while I wrapped up his arm I heard a loud ‘crack’ and felt something flick my trousers in a ummm… sensitive area. I flinched a bit and checked quickly for a wound – nothing. no harm, no foul. Danny manned the comms and we moved off the road a few minutes later. Danny went back to Camp Baharia, our Battalion base, where the docs looked over his arm. Several hours later the rest of us headed back to the base and found Danny in the hooch waiting for us:

Danny in the hooch.

Turns out when the bullet passed through it fractured one or both of the bones in his forearm. Danny was sent over to Camp Fallujah, I assume to Bravo Surgical, where he was treated and had his arm put in a cast. Later that day I took my vehicle crew and our Company 1st Sgt, Richard M, over to Camp Fallujah to visit Danny before he was sent home.