Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for August 7, 2008 NG - PART V

Part V: Guardsmen's sojourn gets longer

By Sharon Cohen, The Associated Press

Christmas Day arrived - and for two 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers, there was a gift like no other: survival.

Sgt. J.R. Salzman of Menomonie, Wis., had arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center hours earlier, days after being critically injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq.

A few doors down, Sgt. John Kriesel already had settled in. He, too, was maimed by an explosion.

For both, there would be a long hospital stay and an even longer recovery.

Kriesel had to learn to walk again with prosthetic legs.

Salzman would learn to write, feed and dress himself with an artificial arm.

Through their months of rehabilitation, their wives remained at their sides.

Some days were especially memorable.

Just before Christmas, Kriesel had a special visitor - President Bush.

Ever since he had arrived at Walter Reed, when nurses would ask what they could do for him, Kriesel had one reply: "I want to meet my boss. I want to meet the president."

On a visit to the hospital, Bush and his wife, Laura, met with the family.

Leaning over Kriesel, who was still unable to sit up, Bush pinned a Purple Heart on his hospital gown.

As Bush prepared to depart, 4-year-old Broden, turned to his mother and asked, "Is George Washington leaving now?"

A Christmas gift

When Josie Salzman, J.R.'s wife, arrived with her in-laws at Walter Reed on Christmas Day, she didn't know what to expect.

J.R., as it turned out, looked scruffy and exhausted but he seemed OK. After he talked with his parents, Josie stayed behind and gently gave him a sponge bath and brushed his teeth.

As she prepared to pull out a chair in his room to sleep, Josie realized she had barely eaten all day. But it was Christmas night and the cafeteria was closed.

A nurse came to her rescue. He warmed up an untouched meal a patient had passed up. It seemed like a feast.

Josie cried. At first, she wasn't sure why. Then she realized.

"I had my husband alive and in front of me," she wrote in her blog. "I could see his face and touch his skin, he was real. What more could I possibly ask for?"

Dreams pushed back

New Year's Day 2007 meant one thing to the soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team.

They were going home.

They were due back in spring, and couldn't wait. They had crops to plant, colleges to attend, families to see.

Some had special vacations planned. In his office at Tallil Air Base, the unit's commander, Col. David Elicerio, displayed the postcards of Hawaii that his wife had sent, anticipating their trip.

The soldiers had been gone 16 months. Soon, they would leave for home.

Or would they?

Sgt. 1st Class Janelle Johnson was on the Web cam with her husband, Chad, back home when he said, "You got extended, huh?"

"Don't believe any of the rumors," she said, calmly. "They're not true."

"Well, that's kind of funny," he replied, "because the governor's on TV right now."

Janelle ran a mile to the battalion office. As she raced up the stairs, she heard a voice on a speaker phone talking about an extension.

The extension was ordered as part of the surge in troop strength to try to quell violence that had been convulsing Iraq for months. The brigade was extended another 125 days.

But somehow, news of the new orders reached families before the troops - even before the commander.

The worrying continues

Teri Walen hadn't wanted her son, Chad Malmberg, to go to Iraq.

She had worried from the day he left - and now she'd worry for another four months.

Walen became so depressed she couldn't drag herself out of bed.

After talking with the church counselor, she visited a doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. Within weeks, she was better.

On the afternoon of Jan. 26, Teri Walen, mother of a soldier and wife of a Lutheran pastor, spoke to about 100 women at a Christian retreat.

As Walen finished her talk, a new day had dawned in Iraq.

Before that day ended, Chad would lead a convoy into hell.

A familiar sight

Chad Malmberg saw the white-yellow flash and giant plumes of smoke a mile down the road. Even before the ground shook, he knew what it was.

He had traveled this main supply route south of Baghdad dozens of times and seen the craters left by IEDs that killed and maimed.

As the convoy inched forward, Malmberg knew the enemy was near. The soldiers scanned the inky darkness.

The crackle of AK-47s soon filled the night air, along with the whoosh of rocket-propelled grenades.

The American troops responded with machine gun fire.

About 20 enemy muzzle flashes - evenly spaced - lined the route. This was a well-coordinated attack. There was a convoy ahead of them, and others behind.

They were trapped.

Malmberg was the convoy commander, in the lead vehicle among five armored Humvees embedded with 20 civilian flatbed trucks that had just delivered construction materials.

He instructed one truck to call in air support, one to alert other Army units in the area.

At the rear of the convoy, a gunner in Truck 4 blasted away with a .50-caliber machine gun, but the insurgents kept advancing.

"We need to end this," Malmberg told his driver.

"Truck 4," he barked over the radio. "En route to your location with AT-4."

The AT-4 - an anti-tank shoulder-fired rocket - was the biggest weapon in their arsenal. Malmberg's driver made a U-turn.

Malmberg adjusted the sight on the AT-4 for distance and removed the safety pin. He told his gunner and Truck 4 to keep shooting.

When he jumped out of the passenger door, it sounded like a rifle range. Using the hood of the Humvee as a shield, Malmberg aimed and fired. The rocket spiraled through the air, then struck the target - a cluster of muzzle flashes.

Malmberg rocked back from the force. His ears, covered by a headset, rang as he dashed back into the truck.

He plugged in his headset connected to the internal radio network.

"AT-4 out!" he shouted, so the convoy knew he had deployed the rocket.

After he launched the rocket, there was a lull. Malmberg gave himself a mental high five, thinking, 'We've got them.' His truck headed back to the front.

Minutes later, there was more enemy fire.

It was louder. And faster.

The insurgents still were out there. A lot of them. And they were moving closer.

To be continued...