Posted on 11/06/2005 10:58:08 AM PST by BenLurkin
LANCASTER - By his junior year in high school, Jasen Watts already knew he wanted to become a soldier. He joined the National Guard on early enlistment and went straight to basic training. That was 2001. The Highland High graduate fulfilled his ambition and took one of the toughest soldier paths. The Army military job code is "Eleven Bravo" - an infantry grunt, a foot soldier.
On Sept. 29, 2005, the foot soldier's legs were shattered in Baghdad when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded under the Humvee he was driving on a patrol out of Camp Falcon.
"It was a Soviet anti-tank mine," Watts said in a bedside interview.
His terse description actually says a lot. The mine that shattered his patrol vehicle was built to damage and destroy 50-ton tanks and 30-ton armored personnel carriers. Such mines are commonly used to obliterate the 2½-ton Humvees that are the primary patrol vehicle in Iraq.
Five GIs, including Watts, assigned to the Modesto-based 184th Infantry Battalion of the California National Guard were wounded but survived the blast.
"The front end was blown up, but the main cabin held together," Watts said.
Army Spc. Jasen Watts is one of a number of Antelope Valley soldiers in the unit.
He is home in Lancaster, recovering from wounds sustained in the blast.
"There is nothing like having your son home," said his mother, Kathy Watts.
There's a hospital bed in the living room, along with a wheelchair; a computer; a couple of younger brothers, Jesse, 16, and Jared, 7; and his father, John.
An American flag with Native American decoration on it adorns the wall, along with a U.S. Army blue and white ceremonial flag and different markers that convey a simple mission: "Support Our Troops."
The "Blue Star" banner in the front window of the Watts' ranch-style home declares "Son in Service."
Watts, 23, tall, rangy and shy but thoughtful in his answers, sits up straight in his hospital bed. He wears an Army workout shirt, shorts and a thick array of dressings and bandages.
"I'll be on my feet in about six months," he said.
After he regains ability to walk and run, "I want to pursue the applications I've put in to LAPD and Los Angeles Sheriff's (Department), and I hope and believe I'll be able to do that."
Watts utters no complaints or bitterness about his tour of duty in Iraq. He believes most major media mismanages its coverage of the military and the mission in Iraq.
In taking an enormous shock to his young, athletic frame, of all things, he considers himself fortunate.
"The way he has taken this is amazing," his mother said.
Kathy Watts got the 2 a.m. call about her son's condition, and she thanks God the call came from him on a satellite phone from Iraq.
"I'm OK, Mom," he told her, then cooly described what happened.
The explosion broke both legs. A tibia. A femur. Watts also suffered a puncture cut on the knee and an injury to the elbow.
"It meant so much that he was the one who made the call," Kathy Watts said.
He was out of Iraq pretty quickly, to the military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, and then on to more hospitalization in Texas. He has been at home for about a week.
"My legs are broken," he said. "They will heal."
Kathy Watts' son knows why he survived. The Humvee he drove was the latest issue of armored patrol vehicle, the Model 1114, the factory produced "up-armored" Humvee off an assembly line from Fairfield, Ohio.
The IED threat from Iraqi terrorist-insurgents continues to mutate and evolve, with more powerful combinations of explosives available.
Watts recalls losing a National Guard buddy in an IED ambush where the Humvee was Model 1026 "after market"-installed kit armor. By contrast, the factory-produced "up armor" on the Humvee he drove "worked pretty good."
Photographs of the attack show the IED basically blew the engine block, shearing it from the crew cabin.
Watts and his comrades fared better than others in the battalion. The battalion has seen 11 of its soldiers killed along with more than 100 wounded since it deployed in January.
Camp Falcon, a few miles outside Bagdhad, is often the target of rocket and mortar attacks. It's made for a rough tour.
The most recent deaths included the highest ranking American officer killed in Iraq, Col. William Wood, who died from wounds sustained as he tried to rescue Capt. Michael McKinnon. An IED exploded, inflicting mortal wounds on McKinnon. A second IED exploded as Wood attempted rescue.
In Watts' case, had his vehicle been equipped with GI-improvised "hillbilly armor" welded on in Iraq, or the after-market kit armor, the explosion likely would have yielded a greatly different result in loss of life.
Troops arriving in Iraq in 2003 took the field with the Army and Marine Corps rolling to Baghdad in "thin-skinned" vehicles, along with M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicle heavily armored personnel carriers.
As it became apparent that coalition forces faced a new threat, a guerrilla war against insurgents and terrorists arming themselves in a nation littered with heavy ordnance, it became equally apparent that the Humvees used for patrolling were highly vulnerable.
Factory production of the up-armored late model Humvees didn't reach maximum production rate of 550 a month until March, two years after the invasion, according to a House Armed Services Committee report issued by Rep. Duncan Hunter, the San Diego County Republican and Army combat veteran who chairs the committee.
A copy of the report was provided to the Valley Press by Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, who sits on the Armed Services Committee. McKeon worked with Hunter to speed production of armor for the vehicles used by the troops in Iraq.
It was more than a year after liberation of Baghdad that the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 passed the House, authorizing "Rapid Acquisition Authority" for the Secretary of Defense "to waive any provision of law, policy, directive or regulation" to purchase equipment "urgently needed to eliminate a combat capability deficiency that has resulted in combat fatalities."
In other words, Congress pressed the Pentagon to eliminate supply and production bottlenecks that delayed delivery of the kind of armor protection that would enable a foot soldier like Watts to get home with both feet.
Watts was in basic at Ft. Benning, Ga., "The Home of the Infantry," on Sept. 11 when planes hijacked by terrorists collapsed the World Trade Center towers and smashed into the Pentagon.
"That was pretty strange," he recalled. "Most of the guys I trained with have already gone to Iraq."
Watts' service qualifies him for the Combat Infantryman Badge. He said he stays in touch with his buddies online on nearly a daily basis.
"They keep me up to date with what's going on."
"BATTLE INJURIES - Army Spc. Jasen Watts of Lancaster had both of his legs broken Sept. 29 when an IED blew the engine block off the Humvee he was driving, far right. He survived because of the late-model armor protecting the vehicle." KELLY LACEFIELD/Valley Press
"Eleven Bravo"
Thats no IED.... get well soon son!
Get well soon son
Our prayers are with you
bttt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.