IED doesn't stop 1-8 Cav
Army News Service
Release Date: 4/14/2004
By Cpl. Bill Putnam
CAMP FERRIN-HUGGINS, Baghdad (Army News Service, April 14, 2004) -- April 2 will probably be a day Spc. Timothy Briggs never forgets.
During a late-morning patrol that day, Briggs and his squad mates from Company A, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, were heading east of their base camp when their up-armored Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive devise.
Riding in the gun turret, Briggs took two pieces of shrapnel in his right arm. His hearing, like everyone else's in the vehicle, was jarred as well.
Briggs, a Little Rock, Ark.-native and an Abrams tank crewman, is happy to be alive. Manning the Humvee's turret, Briggs' vehicle crossed a bridge and moved about 500 meters when it was hit.
The next thing he knew, he heard a big explosion, was surrounded by dust and his ears were ringing.
"I couldn't see anything after that, so I dropped back down into the vehicle," Briggs said. Even then he didn't know he was hit, and the crew didn't know how badly the vehicle was damaged.
They drove another 200 meters and stopped to assess the situation. It was there while pulling security that Briggs realized he was hit.
"I felt something running down my arm and saw that it was blood," he said.
After towing the vehicle to a more secure location, Briggs was evacuated to a combat support hospital, treated and returned to duty the next day. He said the shrapnel is still in his arm and his ears still ring.
But the vehicle took the worst of it. The bomb caused extensive damage to the Humvee. The radiator was shredded, the two front tires were blown up, the side-view mirrors and windshield were shattered and the hood was pockmarked with shrapnel.
Amazingly, despite the damage, the mechanics of 1st of the 8th Cavalry and Company C, 515th Forward Support Battalion, repaired the stricken vehicle in six hours and had it back on the road the next day.
As it was being towed back in to the battalion's motor pool, Sgt. Joshua T. Shaw, a mechanic in Charlie Company, 515th Forward Support Battalion, saw the damage.
He said to himself, "The game is real for us over here."
Everything Shaw had been told to expect about Iraq -- IEDs and wounded Soldiers -- during his train-up time at Fort Hood was proving to be true.
"It brought it a little closer to home that way," Shaw said.
Out of all that damage, Shaw said, the radiator was the most time consuming. It took about two hours to replace it. Several parts surrounding it had to be removed before the radiator could be taken out.
"There are a lot of added parts (than a standard Humvee)," Staff Sgt. David Landry said. Mechanics have to work around, and through more parts in an up-armored Humvee than a regular one, the Beaumont, Texas native explained. Even the front end of an up-armored Humvee is built differently, he added.
Shaw said the repair of Briggs' vehicle is a record . so far.
"I guess we're going to try and set a new one!" Shaw quipped.
After the repairs are done, the mechanics will run the vehicle for an hour to test for leaks and to make sure the new parts work, Landry said. Then it's sent out on a road test.
"We don't want these guys going out in something we fixed and find out it wasn't fixed," Landry said. The Soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad appreciate their mechanics' attention to detail. Briggs said he was impressed when he found out the vehicle was back on the road.
"Because if you would've seen it, it was really messed up," Briggs said. "You've got to love those up-armoreds."
Two days after the IED wounded him and totaled his vehicle, Briggs maintained a sense of humor about it.
"I'm gonna take a little bit of Iraq home with me," he said. "My wife's gonna love that."
(Editor's note: Cpl. Bill Putnam is assigned to the 122nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.)
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