Happy Veteran's Day!

Entry Added: Nov-11-2012 By: Enoibt

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

To all my brothers, past and present. Thank you and Happy Veteran's Day!

Feb 5th 2011

Entry Added: Nov-6-2012 By: Enoibt

Ok so a lot of you have been asking about my recovery and what all had occurred the night I hit an IED. This blog will hopefully answer all your questions.

It was a few weeks before we were supposed to be going back home and we wanted one big last mission so we could go out with a 'bang' (no pun intended). The town we went to was Nowabad, one of our fellow brothers, Sgt Kirspel was killed there on Oct 27 2010. So it was kind of a revenge mission as well. We had three patrol sets with us (Roughly 60 people, 12 trucks) Of our guys. Then we had an EOD crew and some route clearance guys with us because we know that when we drive to Nowabad, they're going to attack us. It was a given.

It took us about 6-7 hours just to get there due to all the IEDs on the road that we had to clear. That entire time we were taking some pop shots, returning fire to the best of our ability without compromising any of the civilians that were around. We stopped across from the village and our dismounts began walking into the village. They were on ground there for a few hours or so, talking to the locals and doing a basic assessment. While the sun was going down we were spotting bodies moving around on the top of the ridge line behind the village, we called our dismounts back ASAP so they wouldn't get pinned down there. As they were running back we received fire from multiple areas, the top of the hill, down the road past the village, in the village and various other areas.

We return fire while trying to turn all the trucks around and pick up all of our dismounts. We finally got every in a truck and turned around when the video started. We drove MAYBE half a mile down the road trying to break contact. In the video there is a left bend a few moments before I hit the IED, thats all I remember. I blacked out on and off for about half an hour while they tried to get to us and pry the doors open (they were warped shut from the blast). They pulled me out first as I was unresponsive for quiet some time. I was put on a stretcher and laid down behind the truck so our medics could look me over. Everyone in the truck had broken heels and ankles form the blast, no one was killed thank god.

It was snowing by this point and our air was red, so of course we couldn't get a bird into to pick us up. EOD ended up making room for us in their truck and drove us back with another patrol set, while our patrol set tried to recover the vehicle. Due to opsec I can't show you pictures of the truck but I'll tell you that the hull was bowed and the center of the tuck had radio mounts that were lifted about a foot towards the roof.

It took us about 2 hours to get back to FOB Donut (Named after Sgt Kirspel) Where we had a Special Forces medic that was able to give us some pain killers and help patch us up more. This entire time a patrol set of Norwegians were driving 4 hours out to FOB Donut to come pick us up as the air was still red. They took us back to their base and gave us the medical attention we needed. I found out that my left heel was shattered and my right ankle was broken. They were worried my left leg might need to come off, thank god that didn't happen.

We went from FOB Donut to the PRT at FOB Griffen (Before I left I got to watch the Steelers Packers Superbowl). From there we went to Meymaneh which is a mainly German base. From there we went to Bagram for a few days before they sent us to Landstuhl Germany then finally to Walter Reed Army Hospital in D.C. It took us about a week and a few days to get back.


I spent 33 days in Ward 57 which is a ward for soldiers that have been wounded in combat. After those 33 days I spent about 5 months living next to Walter Reed so I could be watched over until I was able to walk again. I was in a wheelchair for 4 months crutches for a few weeks and finally a cane. I was sent back to my unit where I was medically discharged June 27th 2012.


I can no longer run and have my cane with me where ever I go. I wear a ankle brace at times I knwo I'll be doing a lot of walking. Other then that I've made a pretty good recovery. Thank you again for all your support folks, it means more then you know. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!


Climb to Glory