WAR STORIES OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS

If you didn't catch the press conference with the three soldiers on the tube yesterday, read about it here. It was riveting to actually listen to the guys tell their stories too, so keep an eye out for a rerun. The tone of the event wasn't depressing at all.

As the convoy of five vehicles crept across the bridge, Villafane peered through his windshield at several men standing in a trench off to the side. He worried that some were hiding guns under their robes. The last thing he recalls was a frantic cry from Horgan, "RPG!" as the sergeant spotted what he believed to be a rocket-propelled grenade bearing down on their Humvee.

The impact blew Villafane out of the truck, leaving him on the ground, dazed and bloodied. Horgan was catapulted out of his gun turret onto the roof of the Humvee, his foot nearly blown off. The truck had been hit by a wire-guided missile fired by a man on the far side of the bridge. Villafane said he regained consciousness in time to see another missile streaking toward him. He threw himself out of its path, hearing it whistle, as it plowed into a second Humvee. By then, the air was thick with smoke from the burning trucks, and gunfire from across and beneath the bridge. As he collected himself, Villafane's first thought was that his men were surrounded.

To be continued....