IED Attack on Route Willow

This was an attack by AIF on one of our convoy's(30th  BCT, 1st ID) in 2004. The AIF daisy chained eight 122mm tank rounds and hit the HMMV running front security and the second truck. One soldier in the truck was WIA (extensive wounds to right arm-split his arm) and the driver was hit by shards of glass. The driver was an ex-82nd soldier who said "**** it, he wanted to drive his truck " and continue mission!The TC (passenger) was medevaced to Landstuhl and never returned to theater. The lead HMMV suffered damage. The gunner in the back was a SSG and he bent down to get something when the blast occurred. The good Lord was looking out for him that day! Some of the guys in the HMMV suffered minor wounds!I was on patrol with the Scouts that day (I was a SSG-96B with the S-2).

Thanks for sharing this; looks like those guys got hit pretty hard looking at the damage. I can only imagine all the glass shards going everywhere. Are these pictures you took yourself of the scene? Thanks for sharing. C lete

Some things you can fake. Some things you can't...

I especially like the cargo strap band-aid.

Every item in our collections tells the story of women and men with incredible experiences. Last night, I watched a show set in 1922 about WWI veterans who returned home to England from France. One vet makes a comment about how naive a 19 year old seems. Another vet responds, "They're different than us. They didn't fight. They stayed kids."

No one in that picture is a kid anymore.

Thank you for posting!

Mark

Thanks guys! Yes I took the pictures myself after the IED attack!

Some buddies of mine were about 100-200m behind the truck when they saw a flash and heard the blast. They saw something fly from the passengers head (they thought his head was blown off), but luckily it turned out to have been his Kevlar, which he didn't have his chinstrap fastened!

Amazing photos with amazing young Americans in them.

Thank you.



S