Read an Excerpt
Steel Will
My Journey Through Hell to Become the Man I Was Meant To Be
By Shilo Harris, Robin Overby Cox Baker Books
Copyright © 2014 Shilo Harris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8010-1655-4
CHAPTER 1
METALLICA
It was just a normal day. The calendar by my bunk was turned to February 2007, and I scratched a big black square across the 18th. I finished fastening the canvas straps on my ammo pouch and peered out the small window near the foot of the bed. The sun rose red above the Iraqi sand; one day closer to finishing the mission we were sent to complete. I was nearly at the halfway point in this deployment and plans were falling into place for R&R with my wife and kids. I lifted their photo from the shelf and hid the memory of brown eyes by my heart; I could not look at it for long. The weathered paper rested in my pocket against my armored vest. Time to lock and load.
"First in, last out" was our motto. I was a Cavalry Scout in B Troop, 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York. We were stationed south of Baghdad, near a farming community called Yusifiyah. Our mission was to run reconnaissance to gain information on the enemy and to ensure roads were safe for travel by military and civilians. We gathered intelligence from human sources and communications traffic in the region. We were a frontline squad; utilized day and night to collect data to support coalition forces and either arrest or destroy the enemy. I had to observe and call up everything I saw, not only to those fighting on the ground but also to those back in the command center. We were trained to gain and maintain contact with the enemy.
But as the hours ticked by on the 19th, I noticed a few things that weren't typical, that make you uncomfortable when you're out in sector. A new lieutenant was in charge of our mission, our radios weren't working right, and a civilian had called in an IED (improvised explosive device) for investigation.
The road our convoy had to travel looked like a minefield. Huge craters the size of VWs interrupted the asphalt every twenty to fifty meters. Nicknamed "Metallica," this gravelly trail was so dangerous that walking on it was safer than driving on it. The road cut through the Triangle of Death, a trio of small Iraqi cities south of Baghdad that had become a hotbed for the insurgency. It was treacherous terrain despite the palm trees, the wheat grass, the sight of the emerald Euphrates River in the distance. The heat left a haze that hovered over the scene; sweat dripped off my forehead and slicked the headset attached to my helmet. I took a swig from my water bottle, my lips already salty and dry from the dirt.
We usually did a foot patrol, but this particular day we didn't have that luxury. There wasn't time. Our orders were to locate the IED and secure it for the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team. Our Humvee was the third in a convoy of four. There were five of us: my driver, gunner, two dismount soldiers including the medic, and myself. We were a team but we hadn't been together for long. I was called up to lead this squad after tragedy took the life of a young soldier early in their deployment. The team took the loss hard; the trauma resulted in the loss of two more soldiers to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The remaining crew was brave, highly skilled, and ready to perform any mission handed to them. At the same time, they were kids. It wasn't hard to imagine them on the gridiron or at their high school prom just a few months earlier. Like me, they were volunteers. We all knew we had a job to do, and we were committed to it. It had not taken me long to figure out that I would never serve with better men. In a very short time period, we'd become brothers. Sharing the same living quarters, meals, stories, and combat scenarios created a strong bond between us. Warriors, we would literally kill for each other.
* * *
On patrol, we moved at a slow pace, keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front of us and scanning the roads for bombs, traps, anything out of the ordinary. An IED is generally not a complex device—it's a homemade bomb. It needs a switch, a fuse, and a charge for deep penetration of armor, and can cause death and destruction through its detonation, concussive blast, shrapnel, and fire. IEDs were usually made using artillery or mortar shells, with varying amounts of explosive materials added. Sometimes we found IEDs embedded in walls behind propaganda posters; the deception was made obvious by the trailing trigger wires. Sometimes they'd be concealed in the cement of a concrete curb. It wasn't unusual to find an IED buried in an animal carcass along the roadside. Sometimes they were hidden under rotting garbage or beneath abandoned cars. Traveling under bridges or overpasses, we watched overhead for grenades or explosives, which were commonly dropped on our convoys. The enemy could watch from a distance, then detonate the trap as we drove by By simply burying the explosives in the dirt, the enemy could implant a bigger bomb that was not readily detected without intelligence. Underground, these explosives were easily daisy-chained together so one initiator could destroy an entire line of vehicles or interrupt and destroy a convoy Wherever it was hidden, an IED could be ignited with something as innocuous as a cell phone.
In this particular instance, our intelligence sources were skimpy on details and our commander shared what he could. We were all quiet as we surveyed the area, armed and ready. My driver slowed to idle speed as our vehicles rumbled past open countryside; it was deserted. On one side ran an irrigation ditch; thick, murky green water pooled and snaked through marsh grasses. On the other side was open farmland sprinkled with bombed out buildings, some remains still intact. We kept watch, following the lead vehicles. The thick tires of our truck kicked up a cloud of dust even though our speed was minimal. Our gunner stood in the back of the Humvee, weapon trained and watchful of anything unusual. We were on high alert, quiet, listening to static from the lead vehicle.
The holes in the road from previous IEDs were so huge that we had to drive on the edge of the roadway to make our way around them. My driver moved carefully around a wide crater in the dirt, our tire tracks matching the ones that had gone before us.
Then all hell broke loose.
* * *
We hit an IED buried in the road right behind the driver's seat. An inferno exploded in the sky and blew thousands of pieces of shrapnel through the air. Everything in the truck erupted. Later reports indicated you could see the black mushroom cloud for miles. Multiple explosions set off in the vehicle, blowing a debris field across several acres.
My Kevlar helmet was torn from my head in the initial blast, and my ears were ripped from their sockets. I collapsed in the vehicle, unconscious and on fire.
Engulfed in flames, the vehicle was destroyed. When I came to, I saw some of the squad trying to reach me. I began to thrash around in the front seat, struggling to escape. We carried an AT-4 missile launcher loaded with 84mm high explosive antitank warheads in the back of the Humvee, and it exploded in the heat, creating a tornado of fire around me. I had to get my body armor off because it was on fire and melting into my legs. The ammunition in the storage pouch around my waist continued to explode, but I thought it was enemy fire and I struggled to locate my weapon to return fire. The blast had crushed bones, torn off limbs, burned flesh, incinerated clothing, and reduced everything to chaos.
As I was looking around trying to take in the carnage, I quickly realized I was in trouble. My men were gone. As I called for a radio report I looked at the cable and it had melted off the hand mike. I was disoriented, and seconds seemed to stretch out for days. I strained to make sense of what was happening around me. Everything was burning. I continued to hear what I thought was gunfire but was really all the ammo we carried in the back of the Humvee that continued to ignite and cook off around me. It rung my bell pretty good—and I felt unbearably hot. My movements were erratic and I couldn't think clearly I couldn't locate my men, but I knew I had to get out of the truck.
The door on a Humvee weighs about three hundred pounds, and I fought to get it open. I tried kicking myself out of the vehicle, but the pressure of the blast had caused the ground beneath us to implode. I had to get out of that death trap ... I had to reach the rest of my squad to tell them to be alert. Adrenaline pumping, I shoved the door of the Humvee against the gravel and finally got the door open. One of the crewmembers from the truck in front of us came to rescue me. Completely exposed and disoriented, I tried to direct security and recovery procedures. I was trying to tell him, "Pull over, get our men out!" He pushed me away from the fire, trying to get me to come with him so he could start combat lifesaving procedures. He shielded me with his body, bullets zinging by as ammo continued to explode in its casing, cooking off in the Humvee beside us.
My men supported me between them, pulling me further away from the carnage. My collarbone had snapped in half. Blood dripped down the sides of my face, oozing out of my mouth, nose, eyes, and openings where my ears had been. I looked down and saw that the sleeve on my right arm had melted into my skin like plastic. My body was smoking. I'd seen soldiers on fire before. I knew it was bad.
But I had to figure out where my soldiers were. I heard radio traffic. "We have contact IED and small-arms fire. Need medevac and air support."
I looked over at my mangled left hand, thinking, Man, I better get a day off for this.
My body continued to burn but I had one focus ... my soldiers. The acting platoon sergeant came and stood over me, straddling me as I lay on the ground. He looked me over and our eyes met. In my mind, I couldn't imagine how injured I was. We were friends; I was counting on him to take care of my men. But I saw in his eyes something I didn't understand until it registered—fear. I had no idea that what he was looking at was a soldier who had been burnt and damaged beyond recognition.
* * *
Lying on the ground, I could hear the helicopter coming in. I could feel the rotor wash of the chopper as it prepared to land; the dust blew through our site. The crew chief got out of the chopper and the medics helped load me in. The crew chief told me, "Hang on, we're going to get you out of here. You're going to be okay." I looked down at my left hand, the skin hanging off the bone with pieces of my fire retardant gloves dangling from the bloody tissue. I fought to stay conscious.
I told the crew chief, "I know. I'm fine. But where are my soldiers?" I had no idea I had severed both ears and most of my nose; the skin on my face was charred off; I'd lost some fingers, broken my back, and fractured my collar bone. I was still burning, and over one-third of my skin was gone. The medevac took off for the 28th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) in the Green Zone in Baghdad, trying to stabilize me in flight as the burning continued. The rotor blades of the Blackhawk screamed overhead as I watched the smoking remains of our convoy disappear from view.
I came in and out of consciousness during the flight, aware of my surroundings but afraid we would not make it. As soon as we landed in the Green Zone, the nurses and staff at the CSH went to work cutting my clothes off and working on my injuries. I was frantic, yelling at them, "I'm going to ask you one more time, do you know where my soldiers are?"
As the trauma team prepared to insert an IV into a remnant of my arm to induce coma, one blood-soaked doctor told me: "You'll find out in a couple months."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Steel Will by Shilo Harris, Robin Overby Cox. Copyright © 2014 Shilo Harris. Excerpted by permission of Baker Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
