UPDATE: February 7, 2012, Stars & Stripes

A soldier assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson, Colo., serving in the Stuttgart area on a temporary assignment, was killed Sunday in a car accident, the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group reported.

Sgt. 1st Class Matthew A. Harvey, 29, of Houston, was a passenger in the vehicle, according to a local newspaper account of the accident.

From an e-mail:

john aseph () wrote:
back on March 30th, 2009 sgt Rodney Foliente a story on an amazings soldier a friend and a great leader I wanted to thank you for the original story and update you on this one

Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge

Staff Sgt. Matthew Harvey, construction supervisor with Company E, 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, and attached to Special Troops Battalion, stands in front of his vehicle March 20 at Camp Echo. The vehicle was the same one he was next to when he was shot Feb. 10 during a route clearance mission in Najaf. Photo by Sgt. Rodney Foliente

A 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division Soldier, whose life was saved by his Advanced Combat Helmet, received a Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge here March 20.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Harvey, construction supervisor with Company E, 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, and attached to Special Troops Battalion, received the awards after being shot and continuing to return fire during an enemy attack in Najaf, Feb. 10.

The attack came during a route clearance mission when Harvey, who was truck commander of the lead vehicle, dismounted to clear debris that became tangled underneath his vehicle.

“As I was leaning forward, I saw three rounds hit by my feet,” the Houston native said. He added that he quickly turned and identified the enemy shooter partially concealed behind a berm. “I returned fire and yelled back up to my driver and gunner.”

He continued to return fire until he saw the enemy go down. He then stood up and scanned the area.

“I saw something to my five-o’clock and called up to the gunner. As soon as I turned, I got hit. The round went through my Kevlar,” he said, pointing to a point above and behind his right ear.

The Kevlar altered the course of the bullet, channeling the bullet around his head and down the back of his neck.

Harvey said the force of the impact slammed his head into the vehicle, cutting a gash on his cheek. He went down and noticed blood flowing from his left cheek. In his shock, he said he thought the bullet had passed through his face.

“I yelled up that I was hit,” he said.

As Harvey lay on the ground, he said he continued shooting at the enemy, becoming increasingly disoriented.

“I was trying to shoot the guy. [All of a sudden] I thought I was at a pop-up range, because I couldn’t hit the target,” he said.

“I could see my rounds impacting. Pow! Pow! Pow! I remember thinking: Man, this pop-up target won’t go down. I’m going to get a bad score,” he shook his head with a laugh.

“I thought: this is probably it. I kept shooting and shooting and yelled up to my dudes and told them, ‘Sorry’ and told my wife, ‘I’m sorry,’” he reflected with a smile.

His Soldiers continued engaging the enemy and another vehicle in the convoy pulled around to cover him and load him into their truck.

“They pulled off all my gear and the medic came up and checked me out,” he said.

Other than minor shrapnel wounds, cuts and a possible concussion, the medic told him he was fine. The other Soldiers downplayed the incident and told Harvey that he was probably just hit with shrapnel from bullets striking the vehicle and ground.

“I told them, ‘No, I’m pretty sure I got hit,’” Harvey said. “That’s when their squad leader picked up my Kevlar and said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got a bullet hole through your Kevlar!’”

The bullet hole in the Army Combat Helmet of Staff Sgt. Matthew Harvey, construction supervisor, with Company E, 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, and attached to Special Troops Battalion, shows how his helmet saved his life on Feb. 10 when he was shot during a route clearance mission in Najaf.

“I still had my adrenaline going, so I wasn’t really in that much pain,” he continued. “I still wanted to [command] my truck.”

However, his platoon leader made him try to relax and rest. They limped the vehicle back to Forward Operating Base Endeavor on a flat tire.

“I smoked a cigarette and drank a Rippit. By that time, my adrenaline stopped and I started puking and got dizzy,” said Harvey. “I was kind of going in and out of it. The [medical evacuation helicopters] came in and medics checked me out and gave me [intravenous fluids].”

“I came to as I was going into the hospital at Balad. They checked me out and told me I was lucky,” said Harvey. They gave him additional tests and treated him for minor shrapnel wounds, cuts and a bad concussion.

After a few days of tests and evaluations, he was sent back to Camp Echo and saw his Soldiers for a day before going on his pre-planned environmental morale leave.

“I was already scheduled for leave, so I went home and hung out there,” said Harvey. He said his wife Crystal, whom he has been married to for more than a year, was shocked when she found out, but also strong and supportive.

“She’s pretty strong. She got through it and understands … but she told me to stop getting hurt,” he laughed. “I get hurt too much,” he added with a shrug.

About a month after the attack, he said his headaches began to subside and have now almost completely stopped. But the headaches are a small price to pay for his life, thanks to his helmet.

Harvey has been in the Army for more than seven years and has deployed to Iraq four times. He said he has been shot at or hit by roadside bombs during each deployment and has been saved a number of times because of the equipment and armor provided to him by the Army.

This is Harvey’s second Purple Heart. He received his first during a deployment to Iraq in 2003 after a roadside bomb explosion injured him in the head and neck. In that incident, his older-style helmet stopped or hampered the destructive passage of shrapnel. He said he feels his helmet helped save his life then as well.

He said the incidents increased his confidence in the equipment he uses. The members of his command and his fellow Soldiers are also more confident after seeing the deadly effects of a bullet thwarted by the helmet that many of them once complained about having to wear.

“You guys looked at that Kevlar and saw the direction that [round] was going and where it went out. It did exactly what it was designed to do,” said Lt. Col. Leo Caballero, commander, STB, to the company formation during the award ceremony.

Harvey received his awards from Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, deputy commanding general for operations, Multi-National Division – Center.

“[The Purple Heart] is a significant award,” said Buchanan, during the award ceremony. “It’s in recognition of the American people and the sacrifice that you personally made. It’s in recognition of your selfless service.”

For Harvey, his Purple Hearts are reminders of the sacrifices he has made and is willing to make for his country and his people. They are also reminders of how close he came to dying and how precious life is.

“I feel lucky. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been hit, but it kind of opens my eyes a little more,” he said”

He said he appreciates life and what he has more than ever.

“I wasn’t married for my other deployments. We’ve been married a little while and are trying to have kids,” said Harvey. “It kind of made me think more, but I still plan on staying in. This is what I do. They’ll probably have to kick me out after 30 years.”

However, he said he hopes, as does his family, that he receives no more Purple Hearts.

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Rodney Foliente

Soldiers should have full confidence in the quality of a particular series of Army-issued body armor plates that has come under recent scrutiny, Army officials said.

Scores of Army tests and an independent evaluation have determined the effectiveness of three types of ceramic plates manufactured by Armor Works of Chandler, Ariz., said Army Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, one of the officers who oversees equipment as part of the Army’s Program Executive Office Soldier.

“Those plates being worn on the backs and fronts of Soldiers all around the world are quality product,” Fuller said in an interview.

An audit published on Jan. 30 by the Defense Department’s Inspector General concluded the Army did not adhere to contract requirements in the first phase of tests performed on three designs submitted by Armor Works, and recommended the 16,413 sets of these plates in the field be returned.

Army Secretary Pete Geren disputed this finding, but agreed to order the withdrawal of the nearly 33,000 components from the total armor plate supply of about 9 million, as a precautionary measure.

Fuller said reactions to the audit have caused a “perception issue” being fueled by a characterization of the protective components as being unsafe. But a battery of tests performed throughout the life cycle of Army equipment ensures the effectiveness of soldiers’ gear, he added.

“The [news] organizations are saying we are doing a recall because we have defective armor,” he said. “That is not the case.”

While the Army concedes there were “anomalies” in its initial evaluation process, known as first article tests, repeated follow-up analyses by the Army and a separate review by the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation office, validate the equipment’s safety, Fuller said.

The test and evaluation office, the Defense Department’s premier ballistics testing shop, functions independently of the Army.

“That’s why we’re standing behind these three sets of designs of body armor,” Fuller said. “We’ve tested it, we’ve validated it — in this case, we’ve even had someone else validate the same information.”

The Army, meanwhile, has asked the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense to adjudicate its disagreement with the Inspector General – the first time a mediation request of this kind has been invoked, Fuller said.

Asked what message he sends troops in the field wearing Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts, which entails the Armor Works designs, Fuller said, “Wear them –you’ve got the best thing on … It’ll stop that round.”

Army Sgt. Maj. Tom Coleman, who has had four tours of duty and also works in the Program Executive Office Soldier, said he has full confidence in the plates that are being returned, adding that he has seen them withstand a bullet round in combat.

“I’ve seen plates that have been hit, and I’ve seen what happens; it’s primarily bruising,” Coleman said. “I have never seen the skin get broken on a round that hit the armor.

“I have never seen it fail,” he added. “And there are no reports that I’ve seen or that I’m aware of that are out there of any body armor failing to stop the round it was designed to stop.”

DVIDS
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

Purple Heart, CIB

Army Pvt. Joseph Miner graduated Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benning, Ga., shortly before Christmas 2007 and reported to his Guam Army National Guard Unit, Alpha Company, 1-294th Infantry, which was scheduled to deploy here to Afghanistan shortly thereafter.

After pre-deployment training at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, the 22-year-old infantryman deployed February 2008.

Miner, who is stationed at Forward Operating Base Ghazni, was manning an M-240 machine gun in the turret of a security vehicle. He was supporting a six-day combat patrol escorting “Lowboys,” flat trailers often used to move heavy equipment like Humvees and tanks from place to place.

Late on the second day, April 14, Miner’s team was setting up lookout towers and bedding down for the night when they heard a report on the radio of a jingle truck receiving small-arms fire. Jingle trucks are large trucks brightly painted with scenes from the Koran and Afghan or Islamic culture and often decorated with bells.

Miner’s unit rolled out to investigate the incident. Reportedly, several insurgents had attempted to hijack the jingle truck and failed.

According to other reports, about twelve suspected Taliban were involved in the attempted hijacking and subsequent shooting. Two were shot by Coalition Soldiers and Afghan National Police.

The two injured insurgents ran away from the scene, while the remaining attackers hopped onto motorcycles and sped away. Coalition forces and the ANP followed the motorcycle tracks off the hardball road into a small bazaar.

Upon arriving at the bazaar, the Soldiers and ANP began to receive fire from an unidentified location. The ANP quickly spotted the insurgents and fired rocket-propelled grenades at their location.

That’s when Miner felt what he described as a sharp punch in his rib that stung a little but didn’t really hurt all that much.

“I immediately ducked into my turret and told the driver I’d been shot,” Miner said.

The driver, who was a little shaken, immediately contacted their home unit over the radio.

“They all continued to fight back and the squad leader made a decision to get his guys out of the kill zone due to overwhelming fires from the enemy,” said Army Capt. David P. Santos Jr., Alpha Company commander.

“In my vehicle, there was myself, the gunner; the driver, Spc. Gary Santos; the TC; and my NCO, Sgt. Dell Alvarez, who held pressure to the wound to prevent further bleeding,” said Miner, who said he expected to feel certain symptoms he’d learned often occurred to gunshot wound victims. “I wasn’t dozing off, and I wasn’t coughing up blood, so I knew it would be okay.”

According to Santos, the team conducted a short halt to check on Miner.

“At that time, they again began to receive small-arms fire and they fought their way out of it again and continue to the FOB,” Santos said.

While returning to FOB Ghazni, the humvee Miner was riding in became overheated and the team had to switch vehicles, yet Miner didn’t panic.

“Being with my fellow Soldiers, I wasn’t worried; I knew everything was going to be alright,” said Miner.

Santos agreed. “If they didn’t react the way they did, Pvt. Miner’s situation could have been worst then it is today,” he said.

The round had traveled through Miner’s right arm, exited out his tricep, and lodged itself near his ribcage.

“Miner’s equipment, especially the DAPS, was key in slowing the bullet down
[and] from penetrating through Pvt. Miner,” said Santos. “The Army gives us a lot of equipment to protect us from enemy fire, and many times it is uncomfortable but it does its job.”

DAPS or Deltoid and Axillary Protectors, are an added component to the Interceptor Body Armor that provides additional protection from fragments and projectiles to the upper arm and underarm areas.

“All my Soldiers understand the importance of the equipment we have been issued with and we will not trade Soldier comfort for Soldier safety,” said Santos. “My only advice on this is to wear it all because it will save your life.”

Miner will retain the round near his ribs until it works its way closer to the surface. Doctors said it was too risky to attempt to remove it, and this is a common course of action with gunshot wound victims. It is unclear how long it will take for the round to surface, but Miner is not worried. He’s more worried about when he will return to duty.

“Private Miner is a very quiet and hard working Soldier,” said Santos. “He does not complain about anything you ask him to do and is extremely dedicated to his fellow Soldiers and his job.”

Miner received a Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman Badge April 15 for his actions the evening before.

CJTF-82

DVIDS
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

“The commandant wore it during a trip over there for Thanksgiving, and he absolutely did not like it,” Johnson said. “He made the call to not buy more until perhaps they find a way to mitigate the issues the troops are raising. That’s typical of our commandant. He listens to the Marines, and where it makes sense, he executes based on their feedback.”

“The feedback on the vests is that the Marines don’t like the pullover design,” said Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, the commandant’s spokesman. “A lot of the guys get scraped about the ears and face when they put them on.”

(more…)

DVIDS
By Spc. Chris McCann, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Public Affairs

CAMP STRIKER, Iraq — “I’m one of those guys who believe in leading from the front.”

His face is boyish and unassuming, and bears not a trace of the bullet that could’ve cost him his life. Staff Sgt. Kyle Keenan, a native of Newark, Ohio, and a scout section leader with the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) from Fort Drum, N.Y., is a lucky man. An Iraqi terrorist shot him at point-blank range with a pistol, and he shrugged it off and fired back.

Keenan said his platoon, from Troop C, 1-89, responded to a tip from Iraqi citizens in abu Hillan and air assaulted into the sparsely populated area to apprehend two leaders of a local terrorist group. The tip indicated the time and location the leaders would be having tea.

“While we were still in the air, we saw two men running away from the target house in track suits – one green, one grayish. The one in green ran north, the other went south, and my section went after the guy in green, because he was closest to us.”

Keenan was in the front of their wedge-shaped formation, the point man, carrying not only his usual M-4 carbine, but a 12 gauge, pump Shotgun too.

“We went toward where we last saw him, came around the corner of a house, and saw a reed line. We knew we were looking for him in the field there – but when I looked two or three feet away, downward, I saw his face and his eyes, and told him ‘Get up! Americans!’ and right then, I heard a pop and my head snapped back.”

His team leader, just behind him and to the right, saw Keenan’s head jerk back and heard the shot as well.

“As soon as (the terrorist) shot, I saw the flash and saw him – he was pretty close,” said Sgt. Joseph Connolly, a native of Minneapolis, Minn. “For a split second, I thought Keenan was dead, but I didn’t even think about it, I just engaged.”

“I realized I’d been shot,” Keenan said, “but I didn’t know if it was in the head, or in my (helmet).”

After regaining his vision, Keenan shot and killed the suspect.

“The experience was so fast, there wasn’t even time to be surprised,” said Connolly.

“We made the call that he was dead, and we moved out,” Keenan said matter-of-factly. “I took point again. We detained two (men) at the target house and turned them over to our medics and platoon sergeant, then went to the next house, detained two more, and then detained one at the last house, with a locked-and-loaded AK-47. We took them all to the platoon sergeant and started questioning them. They all said that the guy we really wanted had gone into the field, the one in the gray track suit.”

They searched fruitlessly for the one in the gray track suit, Keenan said, in the fields and reed lines, clearing the houses three times before another platoon arrived to secure the area.

“After it was all over and we got back in the choppers, it hit me,” he said. “It was a ‘thank God I’m alive’ feeling.”

The bullet pierced his helmet and exited without touching or leaving a bruise.

The man was found to have two grenades with him – one with the pin pulled out.

Keenan said he was shot on a previous deployment, but the round struck his body armor leaving only a bruise. Improvised explosive devices likewise have detonated nearby, but failed to wound him.

“I’ve never been wounded, no Purple Hearts – scratches, little bruises, that’s all,” he said. “This gear does what it’s supposed to do. It’s not supposed to stop the round, it’s supposed to deflect it, and that’s what it did. … But it was amazing at point-blank range.”

“I’m pretty happy that it all worked out the way it did,” Connolly said.

After that mission, the platoon prepared their trucks and grabbed some food before heading out on another that afternoon, Keenan included. He told his wife about his near-miss when he got back late that night.

“She was worried,” he said, but he reassured her and their 10-year-old daughter that he was fine.

He won’t be changing the way he works, he added.

Something he definitely won’t change is the arrangement of moveable pads in his new helmet. If it weren’t for those pads, Keenan said the insurgent would have killed him.

“I don’t like the padding much,” he said, laughing. “I always wear my (helmet) low, right above my eyes … I’m still mad, too – I really liked that one. “

Keenan has been through a lot, and he hopes that it’s motivation for other Soldiers.

“As long as Soldiers see me do this, and see things like that happen and see me keep going – they’ll keep going through this deployment.”