Airmen awarded Purple Hearts for injuries in Iraq

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Mike Meares
  • 96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Two Eglin Airmen received their baptism by fire after driving down a crowded Iraqi street in January.

Airmen 1st Class Andrew Vu and Janette Gonzalez, 96th Security Forces Squadron, earned Purple Hearts for their injuries when they were hit by the blast effects from a thrown explosive device during a Jan. 20, attack on their convoy. An American civilian police liaison was also injured during the incident.

The security forces team, part of the 732nd Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron's Det. 6, were in a four-vehicle convoy moving to Army Forward Operating Base Danger when the attack took place.

In the moments before the explosion, Airmen Gonzalez was driving the last vehicle in a four-vehicle convoy, while Airman Vu was scanning behind the convoy for suspicious activity. They were traveling though a busy market district in Tikrit where people lined the streets watching the convoy "like a parade."

Despite being alert to the potential danger, they never saw the device that came from somewhere in the crowd and detonated on the passenger side of the vehicle.

"I'm glad to be alive; I'm glad to be here," said Airman Gonzalez, the 21 year old from Monterrey Bay, Calif., who was 20 at the time of attack. "I never expected that to happen to me, to us. Thank god we were well trained."

The explosion's force ripped through the vehicle's armor on the passenger's side and shredded both tires and the spare, sending chunks of metal into the cab and filling it with black smoke. Some of the shrapnel from the anti-tank grenade's detonation was from the vehicle as well.

"I was scanning...all of a sudden I saw an instant flash and the truck started shaking," said Airman Vu, an Orange County, Calif., native. "Then I hear a boom...I looked around and the truck was filled with black smoke. I remember saying 'we're hit.'"

The explosion temporarily disabled their communications with each other and the rest of the convoy.

"It hit us; it like pauses, you don't know what happened," she said. "The truck stopped. I know I took my foot off the gas."

Unable to do a battle damage assessment and lacking any communications capabilities, all Airman Gonzalez was concerned with was trying to get the vehicle turned in the right direction and off the busy streets.

"We were trying to get out," she said. "We really didn't know we were injured. Vu's up there scanning and I'm trying to drive. I'm stepping on the gas and the truck's not going."

Once the truck started moving in the right direction, Airman Gonzalez had a hard time driving without the power steering. Airman Vu, resuming his vantage point from the 50-caliber turret gunner's position, looked at the crowd watching the commotion.

"When I looked around, all I saw was a huge crowd," the 22-year old said. "Everyone looked suspicious to me. I knew I couldn't shoot because I would have hit innocent Iraqi civilians."

The normally 10-minute drive to the base took more than 30 minutes in duration. With all the damage sustained to the vehicle, Airman Gonzalez had a hard time driving through the barriers at FOB Danger's entrance.

"I was on top of the steering wheel with all my body trying to (turn the wheel) because there was no power steering," she said.

Airman Gonzalez sustained a shrapnel wound to her lower right abdominal area. She had no idea she was hit until she started checking herself in the safe zone. Airman Vu took five pieces of shrapnel from the blast into his legs, three of which he still carries. The three pieces of shrapnel are in his ankle, knee and foot.

"When I looked down I saw the blood, that's when I freaked out," she said.

The security forces team at FOB Danger performed combat life saver emergency medical response to their wounds immediately and they were airlifted to a hospital for care. Both airmen spent two days in the hospital, but Airman Vu took a month before returning back to duty. Airman Gonzalez returned as a turret gunner after a week of recuperation.

For the security forces team efforts during this deployment, all 15 members received U.S Army Commendation Medals.

The Airmen were part of a team due to fill a more traditional billet at a forward-operating base in Mosul, Iraq, but were redirected to Contingency Operating Base Speicher instead, taking on the in-lieu-of mission -- ordinarily tasked to the Army -- of training Iraqi police.

"There is nothing in lieu of anything," said Lt. Col. Timothy Meserve, 96th Security Forces Squadron commander. "These individuals did the mission."

They're one of just two Air Force teams training Iraqi policemen in the province of Salah ad Din to run a police station as a professional, task-oriented organization and provide good law and order, the colonel said.