Page 498 - Total War on PTSD

was going on. Our patrol’s first reaction was to push forward, so they had left us. As we tried to call on the radio, the rest of our group was already too far away to return to our aid. We had driven into a trap, and I realized we were all alone.
Staff SGT Pennington (our platoon sergeant) and our medic were the first to respond, leaving me to set up security and call in our medevac. As we got closer to the IED site, I saw one of my best friends, Walley, crawl out of a hole with his leg beside him. At this point, I told the rest of the people in my vehicle to dismount and go care for the wounded. I watched them drag my best friend to the back of my truck. He had an injury that most people die from. As we provided care, my driver from my first deployment, Woodard, crawled out of the hole on fire. The first thing he asked was, “Is everybody out of the truck?” He had no regard for his own injury. Once I called in our medevac, I came to realize that we were missing one — our LT.
One of the most painful things that I’ve ever experienced was to call in that one of my family was KIA (Killed in Action).
After we medevaced our wounded, it still wasn’t over. Because we were the only element on the ground that could retrieve the destroyed vehicle and its sensitive equipment, we had to sit there for 30 more hours waiting for the vehicle to cool down so that we could search for what was left of our LT. The only thing we could find was a piece of upper thigh and a necklace, which we placed in a bag and put into the back of my truck.
We would go on to clear 83 pieces of explosive ordinance in order for us to carry our LT home.
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