March 28, 2003

R-P-G!!!

LANDSTUHL, Germany � There was no time. The Humvee's gunner, Army Sgt. Charles Horgan, barely yelled, "R-P-G!!!" before the front of the vehicle erupted in a blast.

Horgan, 21, and the two other soldiers in the Humvee, driver Pvt. Alonzo Lopez and Staff Sgt. Jamie Villafane, 31, could do nothing but sit and take the punishment of the explosion. It blew Villafane out of the right side passenger door of the vehicle and Horgan, who was already standing chest high through the center of the Humvee manning a .50-calliber machine gun, clearly out before he landed on top of the vehicle.

Thursday Horgan and Villafane sat in hospital garb, next to boyish, wounded Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Menard, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center telling a gathering of international journalists what they�d gone through during an ambush in the southern Iraqi desert.

The soldiers were sent to investigate civilians dressed in Bedouin robes on a bridge about 30 kilometers south of An Nasiriyah, Iraq, and they got a wire-guided missile fired into their Humvee for their trouble.

They lead a scout team comprised of two Humvees, a Bradley fighting vehicle, an Abrams tank and one other Humvee following the small column. They were first, and being first usually means taking the first strike of an ambush.

Horgan said he thought three things during the miniscule time between when he first saw the missile and its impact just off center on the truck on the passenger side of the front end.

"Wow, we're in a real war. I'm going to die. Oh no, I'm just going to lose my legs," the Helena, Mont., native listed on Thursday.

Horgan scampered off of the top of the Humvee onto the ground and took quick inventory of his body. All looked proper with the exception of his right foot. He could see into the heel of his charred boot, but didn�t dare take off the boot, he said, for fear it was holding his foot together. The blast hadn�t broken any bones, but had ripped away a good chunk of flesh on the underside of his right heel.

The blow sent Villafane, a husband and father of three, tumbling onto the end of the bridge they�d just crossed. The first thing he remembers after shaking the cobwebs off is searching franticly for his M-4 assault rifle, the shorter cousin of the classic M-16. No sooner than he retrieved it did he see another wire-guided missile in time to watch it pass within feet of his face.

�I saw the wire,� Villafane said about the weapon�s guidance wire as it passed by him and hit the second Humvee. The next thing he remembers is crawling down the bank of the bridge looking for cover from the rifle fire that erupted just after the second missile hit the other Humvee.

Villafane, originally from Brentwood, N.Y., happened upon what looked to him as a civilian carrying an AK-47 rifle. He trained his rifle on the man who surrendered and removed the robe he was wearing to reveal an Iraqi uniform. Moments later, three more �civilians� appeared from the underside of the bridge also carrying AK-47s. They surrendered as well, and removed their Bedouin garb uncovering more Iraqi military uniforms.

�These were Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes,� he clarified for the journalists.

All that happened while his left arm bled steadily from shrapnel lodged in his hand and forearm. The shards of metal severed nerves and broke his ring finger.

�It was four guys against me,� Villafane recalled of the capture.

While Villafane secured his prisoners, Horgan corralled Lopez, a young soldier fresh from the clutches of high school, and took cover on the side of the bridge discovering that the youngster had escaped the attack unscathed.

Through all that, Lopez, soldiers from the second Humvee and the Bradley had returned fire suppressing the enemy to prepare for their withdrawal.

�Don�t worry about that,� Horgan said he�d thought to himself while lying on the bridge. �Worry about getting out of here.�

He and Sgt. Nicholas Swartz had been together through most of Horgan�s short three-year career. Their first deployment saw them in Kosovo together from October 2001 to May 2002. They yelled across the bridge checking each other�s well being.

Menard, 21, is part of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was shot in the left hand the following day while he and several other Marines guarded a bridge spanning the Euphrates River south of An Nasiriyah.

The cocksure Menard, who wore a Marine battle dress uniform, sat beside the Fort Benning-based soldiers and reported a similar method used by Iraqi forces when he saw men in civilian clothing with AK-47s open fire on his position.

The three were part of the first four evacuation flights which ferried 24 combat wounded to Germany from the outset of hostilities to Tuesday night to Ramstein Air Base. A fifth flight was expected Thursday.

The trio all agreed that they were glad to be out of the danger area.

�Nobody can be shot at and say, �Wow, I really want to go back there, that was great�� Horgan said.

�Getting shot at really wasn�t that bad,� Villafane summed up. �It�s the getting shot part that sucked.�

- Rich