Posted on 09/23/2007 7:46:56 AM PDT by paulat
Unexploded Rocket-Propelled Grenade Impales Army Private in Afghanistan By RUTH REISS
[snip]
One RPG skidded past Lt. Mariani's vehicle. All of the vehicles had to quickly get out of the "kill zone." But before they could get to safety, two rockets hit Pvt. Moss' Humvee.
Staff Sgt. Eric Wynn, 33, the soldier in the front passenger seat, felt one slice through his face. Moss remembers the truck practically lift up. He was thrown up against the Humvee and then moved to return fire.
"I smelled something smoking and I looked down ... and I was smoking," he said.
Wynn turned to tell Moss where to fire and saw the tail fins of the RPG sticking out of Moss' side.
Roughly the length of a baseball bat, an RPG travels at the speed of a bullet. At the front end is the warhead -- a large grenade. The detonator and fuel are contained in the shaft. On the back are its fins, pieces of metal that stick out like legs on a camera tripod. The RPG is the weapon of choice for many of the world's guerillas.
Luckily for Moss, the company medic Spc. Jared Angell, 23, who the soldiers call "Doc," was in his Humvee
[snip]
A Human Bomb The RPG that had plowed into Moss' lower abdomen stretched from one hip to the other. If the RPG went off, it would kill everyone within 30 feet of him. Yet Angell stayed close, bandaging his wounds and stabilizing the weapon so that movement wouldn't cause it to explode.
Moss was still fully conscious, so Angell ordered him to not look down at the injury. He didn't want Moss to panic.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Try MJB decaf. It’s really good stuff!
I keep it on hand.
Welp, I’m off to bed, late as it is.
I need to watch the dreams. I might learn something!
See ya tomorrow!
I ready to go meself...
Good Night!
Good night.
My 33-hour day, featuring 25 hours in transit from Germany to Washington, is about over. The trip IS over -- defined as "the suitcase is back where any self-respecting suitcase ought to be: in the closet, once again gathering dust."
It was an "interesting" time and promises to get wilder, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow, probably evening (PDT).
No time fu:r gut geschlafen, it was run run run, coupled with eat eat eat drink drink drink talk talk talk, not necessarily in that order nor to equivalent degrees, and the last full day ended with drive Drive DRIVE Drive [repeat] (on the Autobahn). The local beer in Dortmund was powerful stuff, that or I'm losing my edge through lack of practice.
You'd have loved Monday afternoon's meeting. Our meeting was visited by representatives from another (government-related) organization. Some of them did not speak English so our group's tradition of using English when a non-German-speaker (such as yours truly) is present went out the window. I remained for this meeting, however, because there was much political significance to my being there.
We'd prepared for a colleague to translate the essentials to me, but to my dismay the meeting opened with a round of introductions, and it was clear that more than name & employer was being given.
So when it came to me, I just said (following the pattern and easily understanding this much), "Meine Name ist N___ N___ mit Co___ und ich hab' kein Deutsch." [room breaks up in laughter] "Chair, XYZ committee."
Good enough -- and following the conversations and slides that followed through the afternoon I was surprised at how much of my limited (elementary) but still-forgotten German started flowing back.
I don't think they believed the "kein" (none) part. The first of their speakers wound up with an impassioned plea directed straight at me. Unfortunately I understood little of what he said in that sentence but if it was only summation, I understood completely.
Prayers for your daughter.
Good night, all.
Good morning!
Much nicer morning for a run. I had to use my ear-warmer! I caught some of my neighbors watering their trees and flowers, though. Bad, bad, bad!
(We watered our trees, too :-).
Welcome back!
It’s been pretty quiet here without you!
And thanks for the prayers. She can use all she can get, poor baby.
Good morning! Shannon’s after the lizards!
LOL!
I’m surprised I’m even here. I should know better than to stay up so long after my bedtime.
It usually means I won’t sleep at all, or only about two hours. *sigh* Which is about what I got. :o|
Hungover?
Nah. I’ve only been hungover twice in my life, the first time when I was in Germany.
The second time was here in Vegas, before I started to work full time.
Lucky me!
I have a headache hangover....not to bad, but the fuzziness in my head is lingering.
Drink lots of water.
I can always use more sleep, myself. Shannon gave up on the lizards and wenk to look for excitement out the windows.
I had a couple of hypoglycemic episodes yesterday, then got a migraine. The headache is still working at the back of my neck and my right eye. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. If the lights come, I’m gone!
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