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Posted on 02/01/2007 5:59:37 PM PST by Kathy in Alaska
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AWESOME!!! Read below pic before making judgment on "The Finger" gesture and you'll understand...
Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze S tar for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and = standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater. The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7in knife t o probe the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs," he says. "That's when I knew I was screwed."
Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's feet. "A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me.' I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down."
His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. "My dad's a Vietnam vet who's paralyzed from the waist down," says Sgt Burghardt. "I was lying there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' "As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. "I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher." He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown h im up a one-fingered salute. "I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back n ext week'."
Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit. Sgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi t o engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.
Let's try that again but this time with some recipients, dumbox!
Ping to 381.
And a good weekend for you too. Enjoy!
Outstanding!!
God Bless "Iron Mike"!
*sniff*
Ms.B
Hey, troublemaker. What are you stirring up tonight?
*adjusting halo*
Who?
Me?
Um, er, ah...
Why nothing!
Hey!
I have missed you!
*HUG*
All is well?
How is your lovely wife?
Ms.B
Everything is fine here except the unusual weather. It's not real bad weather, just unusual for Houston for it to hang on so long. The wife is still her same ol' lovely self.
Yeah, thanks Monk! :)
Thanks Kathy! boy do I feel dumb!
I checked my email one more time before going to sleep and that story was one of the emails so I just HAD to post it but now I'm really going to sleep.
Nite, All! :-)
What kind of weather?
Been mighty cold up here lately..
4 to 6 inches of snow coming in tomorrow..
*Yawn*
I hafta get ta bed Curmudgeon..
I'm happy to have seen you tonite!
You take good care, okay?
*HUG*
Good nite Ma!
Good nite Canteeners and Troops!
God Bless and keep you always..
Ms.B
It's been hovering around 40 for almost two weeks and drizzling rain for that same amount of time with little sun breaks. The sun broke out this afternoon but then it got overcast again.
You're used to the cold. We're not down here. :-)
Those dolphins have traveled. Let me see if I remember.
NC, VA, NY, CN, Bahamas, PR, DR, Gitmo, GB, Spain, Italy, the North Atlantic and that ocean up there above the Atlantic. Shhhhh :-)
40!!
Tee shirt weather!
LOL
It was -20 with the wind cill factor last week..
Now THAT is cold!
What you are getting is what we call "raw" weather..
Damp and chilly..
Yargh!
I don't like dat either!
LOL
Ms.B
OOps! Forgot LA and SC. I think that's it.
We get cold spells down here but it's a thing where you bundle up in the morning because it is freezing or near freezing to go to work then go home in t-shirt. That hasn't happened this year.
That's TOO cold.
Mornin' Onyx. How are you this morning?
I'm sittin' on the puter deleting old files and such.
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