THE WOUNDED COME HOME

摘要

Or several seconds after the rocket- propelled grenade (RPG) drilled through the back of their armored M113 "battle taxi," the soldiers inside, mainlining adrenaline, continued firing. Then they started screaming. "It blew my leg clean off," says Private First Class Tristan Wyatt, who was standing at the rear of the armored personnel carrier (APC), unloading an M-240 machine gun at a dozen or more Iraqis who had ambushed them minutes before. He was the first to be hit. The RPG then passed through Sergeant Erick Castro's hip, spinning him violently to the floor. His left leg was still attached-but barely. "I picked up my leg and put it on the bench," he says, "and lay down next to it." Finally, the RPG shredded Sergeant Mike Meinen's right leg. "It was pretty much torn off," he says. "There was just some meat and tendons holding it on."