Reprinted from October 13 2007

KIA Oct. 5, 2007 in Bayji, Iraq

DoD

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Rachael L. Hugo, 24, of Madison, Wis., died Oct. 5 in Bayji, Iraq, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked her unit using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. She was assigned to the 303rd Military Police Company, 97th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade, U.S. Army Reserve, Jackson, Mich.

The medic reached into her pocket and removed an Army honors coin she received for saving a sergeant’s life in Iraq in February. She told her dad, Kermit Hugo, she had carried it with her ever since then to make sure she didn’t misplace it before she had a chance to give it to him.

“She said, ‘Dad, I got something for you,’ and she pulled that coin out of her pocket,” Kermit Hugo said Monday.

On Friday, Rachael Hugo found herself in a similar situation to the one in February, but with much different results.

Hugo, 24, of Madison, was killed when she went to help injured colleagues after they were hit by an improvised explosive device and came under small-arms fire in Bayji, north of Baghdad. She was deployed just over a year ago and was expected to return home in November.

Hugo’s family members gathered at the Army Reserve Center to speak publicly Monday about her life for the first time since she died.

“She saw death, destruction, despair – and a lot of good things, too,” said Kermit Hugo. “Despite it all, she always kept her head held high.”

He said she was a dedicated soldier who made it clear to her family that she loved what she did. Early in her deployment, she sent an e-mail that said, “This is what I choose to do, and being a medic is what I live to do.”

Her mother, Ruth, said: “She felt that was her niche in life, helping people. She wanted to serve her country.”

Her father, Kermit Hugo, told the story of how his daughter saved the life of a comrade during an engagement earlier this year.

A sergeant was wounded during the engagement and Rachael Hugo volunteered to go to his aid.

“She told the guys to cover her, ” Kermit Hugo said. “From the sounds of it, there were rounds going off from the Humvee. She stayed with him. She kept treating him. She just did her job. ”

Hugo, 24, was a specialist in the Army Reserve with the 303rd Military Police Company based in Jackson, Mich., part of the 89th Military Police Brigade. She was deployed to Iraq in September 2006 and was scheduled to return to the U.S. next month.

Channel 3000

Hugo’s mother said that her daughter shared her excitement about coming home through daily e-mails.

“She did a lot of online clothes shopping. And I kind of chewed her out for it. But she said, ‘Mom, I’m going to be so ecstatic to be home as it is.’”

Her family said that they consider her a hero.

“A hero is the way I will always see you, a legend in our community,” said her brother Scott Hugo.

“She was just a wonderful, outstanding daughter. You just couldn’t ask for anything better,” Kermit Hugo said.

Hugo was assigned to the 303rd Military Police Company, U.S. Army Reserve, in Jackson, Mich. Her family said that Hugo was studying to be a nurse and had been accepted at Viterbo College in La Crosse.

Channel 3000

The funeral of a Madison woman killed in Iraq earlier this month will be held next week.

The U.S. Army said the remains of 24-year-old Spc. Rachael Hugo will arrive Saturday at the Wisconsin General Aviation Services building in Madison.

Military officials have said the combat medic died Oct. 5 when her U.S. Army Reserve unit was attacked by insurgents with a roadside bomb and small arms fire in Bayji, Iraq.

The wake will be held Tuesday [10/16/2007] in Madison and the funeral on Wednesday [10/17/2007] in Monona.

The former high school cheerleader served with the 303rd Military Police Company based in Jackson, Mich.

Reprinted from November 4, 2005

DefendAmerica

It was June 23, 2005, when 20 Marines boarded a seven-ton truck and began their treacherous journey back to Camp Fallujah, Iraq. What happened a short distance down the road is something that has, and will, continue to change their lives forever.

Sitting in the second to last seat in the back, on the right side of the truck, was Lance Cpl. Erin Liberty of Niceville, Fla., an ammunition technician with Ammunition Company, 2nd Supply Battalion, 2nd Force Service Support Group. She remembers talking with the female Seabee next to her, when a series of combined explosions violently lifted the truck from both sides.

“When it blew up, we all flew back and then forward again in our seats,” said Liberty. “I looked at the girl next to me and saw her bounce up and down in the flames. I just closed my eyes and waited for it to end. I felt myself being thrown in the air, but my eyes remained shut. When I impacted the ground, I realized nothing hurt. I felt everything that was happening, but it was like there was a bubble around me, because when I hit the ground and woke up, I felt no pain. I looked at my hands and saw the skin hanging off my left pinky finger, but it still didn’t hurt. Not then. ”

On the ground and covered in dust, she knew it was an improvised explosive device. Later, Liberty said she learned it was constructed of five, 155-millimeter incendiary rounds and a few propane tanks. They had gone off about six feet from each side of the truck.

Trying to recover from the concussion and the ringing in her ears, she looked over and saw the Seabee she had spoken too just seconds before the blast.

“She was lying next to me, unconscious,” Liberty added. “I tried to pull her away from ground zero, but there was a firefight happening at the same time, so a few guys pulled me off and threw me against the wall. I wanted to go back for her, but the way the truck was positioned, it rolled over on top of her before I could.”

After the firefight died down and the injured Marines and sailors were recovered, they loaded onto another vehicle and headed straight for the Battalion Aid Station at Camp Fallujah, said Liberty.

“We then just jumped on another seven-ton and drove away,” Liberty said. “We all just sat there in silence, except for the sounds of discomfort and pain. I can still see the people with their skin hanging off of them. I remember seeing this girl with blood all over her flak jacket and the skin on her fingers falling off. Then, suddenly the silence broke, when a girl in the back of the truck started singing, Amazing Grace. I remember praying to God, and thanking Him that I was alive.”

When they returned to the camp, they were rushed into the surgical unit, but all the serious and critical injuries were rushed in first. Liberty said she walked in after everyone else.

They fixed both of her badly burned hands before she went back to her room. When she got there, she saw she had received packages from home that day.

“One was from my mom. She got me the most gorgeous rosary,” said Liberty. “That night, I just remember lying in bed, praying to let me forget about it. I tried to sleep that night, but obviously I couldn’t sleep much. All I wanted was to just wake up in the morning and feel like it didn’t just happen. The whole thing just kept playing in my mind.”

The next morning, she remembers waking up and thanking God. But with the morning sun came a new pain. Her neck began to hurt, so she went back to the aid station.

The doctors told Liberty she had broken a cervical vertebrae in her neck and she was going to have to return to the United States.

She returned to Camp Lejeune shortly after the incident and has been on convalescent leave since July 3. Not long after she went on leave, she received her Purple Heart Medal.

“It was extremely hard to accept, knowing all the people that had died,” said Liberty. “It’s nothing you can train or practice for, and you always receive it under the worst circumstances.”

Now, she wears a neck brace to assist in stabilizing the break and help with the pain. She is currently recuperating from first-, second- and third-degree burns on her hands and two black eyes in addition to her neck injury.

Liberty will undergo surgery in Florida next month, where they will put a metal plate between her C4 and C5 vertebraes in an attempt to stabilize the break.

In light of the life-altering events she’s been through, she’s still moving forward in her life. Liberty married on Sept. 19, after getting engaged right before she left for Iraq in February.

“It’s been a rough engagement,” Liberty said, with a light, but respectful chuckle.

Liberty said, that even though it has been almost four months since the incident, she still has thoughts of that day.

“I wonder what would have happened if those guys wouldn’t have pulled me away from the truck,” she added. “I imagine what would have happened if I had the strength to pull her away. I’m sure that will always stay with me. Honestly, my mind and my heart hurt way more than my body ever will.”

Insurgents used two Afghan children as shields while they attempted to emplace IEDs in a road in Farah province Oct. 18.

U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment were conducting counter IED operations along a route in Golestan to ensure the safe passage of civilian traffic and ground convoys when they observed four insurgents attempting to emplace an IED in the road.

Initially the Marines observed four adults and two children in a truck laden with burlap sacks and shovels. The adults began digging holes. Once the burlap sacks were removed from the truck and opened, the Marines were able to see IED materiel in the sacks and that the holes being dug in the road were for IEDs.

Marine snipers shot two of the positively identified insurgents as they emplaced an IED. After the initial shots were fired, the other two insurgents grabbed the two children they had brought with them and held them in front of them to use them as shields.

The Marines waited until the children were let go and ran away before snipers shot the remaining two insurgents. The children fled in the direction of a mosque and were unharmed.

“We know that the insurgents often display a blatant disregard for civilian life. They frequently attempt to exploit our adherence to the rule of law. Unfortunately for them, our Marines are well trained in positively identifying targets before engaging them,” said Colonel Peter Petronzio, commanding officer for the Interim Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Afghanistan.

ISAF

Nestled along busy routes filled with innocent, unsuspecting Iraqi citizens and caring little who unfortunately cross their path, explosively formed penetrators wield mammoth destructive power and the potential to violently kill or maim with a single ignition.

“Once a device detonates, it doesn’t know or care what it hits,” said Staff Sgt. Eric Loar, Multi-National Division – Center Explosive Ordnance Disposal integrator. “Fragmentation is indiscriminate.”

First developed during the World War II, EFPs are a type of shaped charge created with a specific goal in mind – destruction.

Since June, there have been 16 EFP strikes in the MND-C area of operations in Iraq, each posing a risk of destroying lives and property.

“EFPs are devices that use explosives to focus a weighed piece of metal, designed solely to defeat armor,” said Loar. “Typically what we see [in Iraq] is a copper or steel plate or bowl, backed with several pounds of explosives. They have a cylindrical shape to them.”

While the risks associated with improvised explosive devices are extremely high, the centralized blast of an EFP can create more directly controlled blasts, with greater results.

“A non-EFP IED will typically send its fragmentation and explosive energy in 360 degrees,” added Loar, a native of Cumberland, Md. “EFPs tend to focus their energy in one-spot. Fragmentation can still travel in a 360, but the focus of power is on a single point.”

Due to the unique design and engineering required to construct an EFP, specific tools need to be used to create them.

“Some of the tell-tale signs of an EFP-maker in the neighborhood are the presence of the special machinery and parts necessary to create them,” explained Loar. “You have to have metal working skills as well as the tools needed to make them – band saws, lathes and hydraulic presses [a minimum of a 10-ton press is required].”

The weapons are generally cylindrical in shape, with the forward end enclosed by a concave metal disk (liner) made from copper, steel, tantalum or depleted uranium.

When the explosive is initiated, the metal liner collapses, forming the disk into a high-velocity slug that penetrates metal with relative ease.

EFPs consist of the liner, which acts as the projectile, the cylindrical body and a base plate made of some combination of metal, wood, plastic and tape.

The liners are typically copper plates, approximately 1/4” inches thick. They are produced in sheets and sized by hydraulic shears (cutters). The sheets are then trimmed down using band saws into the circular shape preferred by terrorists. A die is used to form the shape of the EFP.

Steel cones can also be used, shaped by lathes and pressed into the casing by arbor press, a tool used to press two or more items together.

The housing is formed with round pipes, similar to the type found for irrigation. Band saws are used to cut the pipe to the desired length.

EFPs generally have a distinct cylindrical shape, making it easier for Iraqi security forces and coalition forces to find and disarm the devices. But insurgents have resorted to creative measures to try to camouflage their creations.

“Size wise, they can disguise them with expanded foam or piles of trash on the side of the road. The foam can break up the outline,” added Loar.

EFPs can travel great distances – sometimes their blasts have gone a few miles.

“Their effective range depends on a lot – how well they were constructed, the overall diameter, the weight – these all factor into that,” he said. “Something that weighs several pounds and can travel 5,000 meters a second can travel quite a distance. It’s a big hunk of metal, and it is moving along very quickly.”

While the destructive power of EFPs is unquestionable, ISF and CF have methods and tools at their disposal to counteract their widespread use. Specially armored vehicles and countermeasures designed to defeat EFPs have saved countless ISF and CF lives, but the innocent Iraqi population who travel the roads are not as fortunate.

On Sept. 23, 2008, an IED blast near al-Iskandariyah claimed the life of a man as well as injuring his wife and son. According to Babil police, the family was travelling in their vehicle when the locally-made IED detonated, killing the father.

“It’s a multi-front attack,” added Loar. “We are basically using a network to attack their network. We are attacking their logistics and supply lines.”

If an Iraqi citizen has information about any IEDs or EFPs, Loar recommends contacting their local government officials or the ISF.

“The Iraqi police and Iraqi army have bomb squads, which have been trained [in defeating the devices],” he said. “And they’re very competent.”

As the ISF becomes better prepared to handle and defeat EFPs, they continue to injure and main innocent people, while decimating personal property and buildings that Iraqi citizens live and work in.

“EFPs are designed for one purpose – to destroy people and property,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Drew, IED-Defeat officer-in-charge. “While we can defeat the ones we find, the ones we do not find are killing innocent Iraqis. If the resources used to make EFPs were instead used to build materials that Iraq needs, the Iraqi people would all be better off.”

DVIDS
By Spc. Josh LeCappelain
Multi-National Division-Center Public Affairs Office

Great story about a Fox News cameraman named Chris Jackson. His Marine unit was hit by and IED. He was injured but went back into the burning Humvee to help rescue a Marine. Video at the link, too.

A FOX News cameraman helped save the life of an injured Marine in Afghanistan — and was injured himself — when the armored Humvee convoy he was traveling in was struck by a roadside bomb Sunday night in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

Two U.S. Marines were badly injured when the improvised explosive device detonated near their convoy. Though FOX News cameraman Chris Jackson was injured in the blast, he went back to the burning vehicle to rescue one of the Marines.

“The cabin was on fire and I jumped out,” said Jackson in a report filed immediately following the attack. “I went, grabbed the sergeant out of the shotgun seat, pulled him out.”

via Grim at Blackfive