For 2 soldiers, families, lives changed

Part IV: For 2 soldiers, families, lives changed

By Sharon Cohen - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 7, 2008 16:43:38 EDT

In that dreadful December, every day brought bloodshed, every week hundreds of attacks on Americans and Iraqis.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Roadside bomb blasts change everything for two soldiers and their families back home. Fourth of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
Car bombings. Drive-by shootings. Kidnappings. Torture. Bullet-riddled bodies. Sectarian fighting. It was a horrible end to a horrible year in the Iraq war.

And for two young soldiers, December 2006 was the month that changed everything, forever.

The sky was clear on Dec. 2 when Sgt. John Kriesel’s armored Humvee rolled out to check a report of suspicious activity: people digging on a dirt road near Fallujah.

His Humvee was turning a corner when the left front tire ran over something. Riding shotgun in the vehicle, Kriesel heard a metallic plink — like a rock striking a 55-gallon drum.

Then: BOOM!

The Humvee flew into the air, its doors blowing open, the gunner shooting out of the turret like a Roman candle before the vehicle crashed down on its side.

Kriesel’s helmet and glasses flew off as he was thrown to the ground. Rocks rained down in a concrete storm, and Kriesel heard the screeching of twisted metal, then moans, groans, screams.

Strangely, he was calm. He saw the underside of the Humvee; the axle was blown off.

Then he looked down.

His left leg was nearly severed, still tucked in his pants leg, hanging by a piece of skin. His left thigh was split open, with a bone jutting out and blood oozing.

His right leg, from about six inches below the knee, was badly mangled.

“I’m going to die,” he told himself. “This is how it ends.”

Sgt. Kriesel, the eternal optimist, had lost faith.

He tried to get up, but it was useless. The bones of his lower left arm were broken; the arm flapped like a door off its hinge. Kriesel, who had trained to be a paramedic, was clear-minded enough to brace his arm to his chest, hoping to avoid nerve damage.

His right biceps had burst; they were peppered with shrapnel. A bracelet in honor of a fallen soldier sliced his right wrist down to the bone.

Kriesel closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see more.
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Related Reading:
Part I — Unit prepares to deploy
Part II — Guardsmen arrive in Iraq
Part III —A funeral and a birth