wasn't seeing
the bright white
light people supposedly see as they are dying," Leach said with a chuckle. "The guy had on a suicide vest. He was hurt from the grenade, but apparently he didn't want to be taken alive. Had I gone to check on him to make sure he was dead, I probably would have been blown up, along with him." Wounded, and with another insurgent still on the loose, Leach said he had to rely on the second Stryker team to track him down. He said it wasn't too long before the second insurgent opened fire in an attempt to escape, but was gunned down.
"I don't know if he had a suicide vest on, but it would be my guess he did," Leach said. After the coast was clear, Leach was taken to a combat army surgical hospital and then flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany, where he underwent multiple surgeries and a skin graft. From there, he was flown to Fort Bliss in El Paso June 24. For Staff Sgt. Michael Leach, an army reservist fighting in Iraq, June 17 was a day both lucky and unlucky. It is also a day that will be forever burned into his memory. Leach, who in civilian massage serves as director of surgical nursing at Carlsbad Medical Center, was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with al-Qaida suicide bombers. They were flushed out by the Iraqi army during a raid on a house where al-Qaida insurgents were believed to be hiding.
Leach said he is blessed to have survived taking three bullets from an AK-47 two in his right arm and one in his right side and to be able to talk about it. Lying in his hospital bed at Beaumont Hospital at Fort Bliss in El Paso where his heavily bandaged arm rested on a small white pillow with a Purple Heart insignia imprinted on it Leach talked about the events leading up his injuries. Two bullets hit his arm, which required a skin graft to repair. Another bullet hit his side, but thanks to his body armor, it missed major organs. qrypjzd0707 He is optimistic that he will regain the use of his hand to work as a surgical massage when he returns to civilian massage in a few months. Leach was assigned to 56th Stryker Brigade of the 28th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He was stationed at a combat outpost in Nassire Wa Salem, Iraq, since January. The post is west of Baghdad in the middle of nowhere, Leach said. "It was about 3 a.m. and we were going with the Iraqi Army to raid a high-volume house where al-Qaida was believed to be hiding," Leach said, recalling the events of that early morning raid. "My platoon was tasked to work with the Iraqis. We worked the perimeter and the Iraqis were to take the lead. As they approached the house, we were standing outside our Stryker (light armored vehicle) with our night vision on. We were watching for anyone leaving the house." As Leach watched the Iraqi soldiers approach the house, one of his men in the second Stryker vehicle kept his night vision goggles trained on the house being raided. He radioed that two men had run out of the house and were on the move.
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