bobdina
08-31-2010, 12:38 PM
Chief Petty Officer Jeremy K. Torrisi | Farah Region, Afghanistan | June 2008
By Kevin Baron
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 14, 2010
Silver Star
Navy Hospitalman Jeremy Torrisi had trained and trained for 14 years to use his full skills.
When most kids in 1993 were watching the peak years of “Saved by the Bell,” Torrisi was in high school ROTC on the edge of Syracuse, N.Y.
But a year later, when Zack and Kelly headed to college, Torrisi went to boot camp to become a sailor, beginning more than a decade of schooling required of a hospital corpsman.
While training at Naval Hospital Naples, Italy, to learn advanced medical techniques, a mentor told Torrisi about the Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corps, or SARC. These are the guys in those recruiting videos that blare rock music and make it look cool to paint your face, dress like a bush or rise slowly from the ocean floor through dark, murky water.
“We are the top of the food chain,” a SARC says in a recent recruiting video cut like a Jason Bourne movie.
Torrisi signed up in early 2001. More training.
By the time he finally arrived in Iraq in 2005, Torrisi wasn’t sure what to expect of himself.
“I really didn’t know what to think of it,” he said, after more than 10 years in uniform. “I guess you could say you’re on edge because you’re always worried about how you’re going to react when stuff starts going down. ... Am I going to be there for my guys?”
But for Torrisi’s unit, “looking for bad guys” in Fallujah was more searching than fighting.
“I only got in one firefight the whole time that deployment, and it was our last operation, too,” he said dismissively.
So more training: back to Fort Bragg, N.C., this time to learn advanced disease processes, anesthesia, surgery and even veterinary medicine.
Now he was an Advanced Special Operations Combat Medic, the “sole medical provider” for dozens of men in the field.
“You have to be able to sustain life for 48 to 72 hours,” he said.
In 2008, finally: Afghanistan.
———
On a paved road, they could have made the trip in an hour, Torrisi recalled. But over so many rocky wadis, giant boulders and winding narrow passages, the Special Operations Team and two dozen Afghan soldiers took 10 to 12 hours overnight from a firebase to reach the rally point: a “cave system” somewhere in the Farah region of southwestern Afghanistan.
One week before the Fourth of July, their reconnaissance patrol was searching for a high-value target Torrisi would not name.
At daybreak, with temperatures nearing 100 degrees, the group entered a pass just wide enough for one vehicle. No turning right or left, just straight in, straight out.
A broken-down truck blocked their convoy, so Marines suspected a booby trap. For about 10 minutes, a few enemy “ranging” shots cut the morning quiet.
“That’s when pretty much all hell broke loose,” Torrisi said.
Enemy fire erupted from four or five positions ahead, above and behind, trapping the Americans and Afghans between a sheer cliff face and a 30-foot drop.
This was it — the bloody, deadly battle Torrisi had trained for since 1993.
“I’ve never heard gunfire like that before,” he said.
The group was pinned down by rounds coming in at such a downward angle that they entered through the turret openings atop armored vehicles, striking the men inside. Air support had just been called off after hours of circling, save one drone, Torrisi recalled.
We’re not going anywhere, he thought.
“Everything that could have possibly gone wrong, went wrong,” he said later, in an interview.
As Torrisi’s vehicle sped past six or seven others in the convoy to reach the edge of the “kill zone,” he returned suppressing fire from his M240G machine gun.
Then, hearing that both of the other medics were wounded, with a “Good luck” blessing from his gunner, Torrisi leapt from his vehicle and ran more than 75 meters into the firefight. His buddies later said bullets were trailing his footsteps like in the movies. He jumped into the first vehicle he reached and found a man sitting in the back, shot in the shoulder and hand but already patched up.
So, he jumped back out, shooting upward as he ran 20 meters into the next vehicle to find Sgt. Sam Schoenheit, his helmet off, licking his lips and looking around aimlessly — telltale signs of shock. A bullet was lodged three inches into his head.
As the driver backed out painfully slowly — probably 15 minutes to drive maybe 75 meters — Torrisi stood in the turret and launched “about a dozen and a half” 40 mm grenades up the mountainside.
It was pure muscle memory. Torrisi then carried Schoenheit to his original vehicle, set him down and looked at the wound.
“It’s a head injury where you’re looking at brain matter, so you go, “Holy [expletive]!” and then close it back up real quick,” he said.
Torrisi and his driver went back to the entrance of the draw where others were still trapped.
Along the way, a gunnery sergeant shouted over the radio.
“Nobody come in! You come in here and you’re going to die. We are pinned and we are pinned bad. Do not come in here!”
Instead, Torrisi “ran back through a hail of bullets,” reads the official citation, going even deeper into the kill zone to treat Chief Petty Officer Anthony Shattuck’s gunshot wound to the chest.
What really happened: Torrisi said he found seven guys “extremely huddled” against a vehicle taking enemy fire.
Shattuck was lying under the truck with no shirt on.
A bullet had entered below his armpit and “hit every single organ but the heart along the way — lungs, stomach, colon, liver, gall bladder, spleen, pancreas,” Torrisi said.
Shattuck already had “needle decompressed” himself twice, meaning he stuck a tube into his own chest to alleviate pressure from a collapsed lung.
Torrisi did it six more times while under fire, reinforcing the seal to keep lung tissue from popping out. Shattuck “should get a medal for taking care of himself,” Torrisi said.
As he worked, another wounded medic, Sgt. 1st Class John Clouse, shouted that Torrisi was standing in the spot where Clouse just took a shot to the leg. Torrisi refused to move from the spot, standing firm with the wounded chief.
Then, two and a half hours into the battle, a round and shrapnel struck Torrisi’s leg and buttocks.
Torrisi would not relent. He turned his body so another Marine could treat his wound while Torrisi kept treating Shattuck — a daisy chain of combat medicine.
Though the shooting had subsided, the situation worsened.
“If I don’t get Tony out of here in the next 10 minutes, he’s going to die,” Torrisi said aloud.
Suddenly, everything went quiet.
———
Torrisi and his team stabilized Shattuck and carried him and another casualty, Staff Sgt. Eric Guendner, out of the danger zone just in time.
By now, medevac helicopters were low on fuel and ordered to return to base. Torrisi insisted his patients catch their ride. At the handoff, he told the flight medic he had performed 14 needle decompressions in total to save Shattuck.
Torrisi again refused treatment, instead tending to an Afghan soldier’s leg wound, returning to the draw, finally pulling out with 12 other wounded troops, saving one crashing patient who had loosened his own tourniquet.
Torrisi received a Silver Star for continuing to treat wounded Marines, directing evacuations and returning suppressing fire “while refusing medical treatment for his own injuries.”
“His actions ultimately saved the lives of four of his teammates and his courage and quick thinking prevented further loss of life,” reads the citation.
One week after the battle, President George W. Bush pinned a Purple Heart to Schoenheit’s prone body while he lay in and out of consciousness at National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., feeding from a tube, brain swollen, facing years of mental therapy.
After the firefight, Torrisi’s wife received a phone call from the military, telling her that her husband had been shot, was being treated and would be on his way home soon. But Torrisi later called and told her he refused to leave.
There was a shortage of SARC hospital corpsmen in Afghanistan.
He stayed another four months.
By Kevin Baron
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 14, 2010
Silver Star
Navy Hospitalman Jeremy Torrisi had trained and trained for 14 years to use his full skills.
When most kids in 1993 were watching the peak years of “Saved by the Bell,” Torrisi was in high school ROTC on the edge of Syracuse, N.Y.
But a year later, when Zack and Kelly headed to college, Torrisi went to boot camp to become a sailor, beginning more than a decade of schooling required of a hospital corpsman.
While training at Naval Hospital Naples, Italy, to learn advanced medical techniques, a mentor told Torrisi about the Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corps, or SARC. These are the guys in those recruiting videos that blare rock music and make it look cool to paint your face, dress like a bush or rise slowly from the ocean floor through dark, murky water.
“We are the top of the food chain,” a SARC says in a recent recruiting video cut like a Jason Bourne movie.
Torrisi signed up in early 2001. More training.
By the time he finally arrived in Iraq in 2005, Torrisi wasn’t sure what to expect of himself.
“I really didn’t know what to think of it,” he said, after more than 10 years in uniform. “I guess you could say you’re on edge because you’re always worried about how you’re going to react when stuff starts going down. ... Am I going to be there for my guys?”
But for Torrisi’s unit, “looking for bad guys” in Fallujah was more searching than fighting.
“I only got in one firefight the whole time that deployment, and it was our last operation, too,” he said dismissively.
So more training: back to Fort Bragg, N.C., this time to learn advanced disease processes, anesthesia, surgery and even veterinary medicine.
Now he was an Advanced Special Operations Combat Medic, the “sole medical provider” for dozens of men in the field.
“You have to be able to sustain life for 48 to 72 hours,” he said.
In 2008, finally: Afghanistan.
———
On a paved road, they could have made the trip in an hour, Torrisi recalled. But over so many rocky wadis, giant boulders and winding narrow passages, the Special Operations Team and two dozen Afghan soldiers took 10 to 12 hours overnight from a firebase to reach the rally point: a “cave system” somewhere in the Farah region of southwestern Afghanistan.
One week before the Fourth of July, their reconnaissance patrol was searching for a high-value target Torrisi would not name.
At daybreak, with temperatures nearing 100 degrees, the group entered a pass just wide enough for one vehicle. No turning right or left, just straight in, straight out.
A broken-down truck blocked their convoy, so Marines suspected a booby trap. For about 10 minutes, a few enemy “ranging” shots cut the morning quiet.
“That’s when pretty much all hell broke loose,” Torrisi said.
Enemy fire erupted from four or five positions ahead, above and behind, trapping the Americans and Afghans between a sheer cliff face and a 30-foot drop.
This was it — the bloody, deadly battle Torrisi had trained for since 1993.
“I’ve never heard gunfire like that before,” he said.
The group was pinned down by rounds coming in at such a downward angle that they entered through the turret openings atop armored vehicles, striking the men inside. Air support had just been called off after hours of circling, save one drone, Torrisi recalled.
We’re not going anywhere, he thought.
“Everything that could have possibly gone wrong, went wrong,” he said later, in an interview.
As Torrisi’s vehicle sped past six or seven others in the convoy to reach the edge of the “kill zone,” he returned suppressing fire from his M240G machine gun.
Then, hearing that both of the other medics were wounded, with a “Good luck” blessing from his gunner, Torrisi leapt from his vehicle and ran more than 75 meters into the firefight. His buddies later said bullets were trailing his footsteps like in the movies. He jumped into the first vehicle he reached and found a man sitting in the back, shot in the shoulder and hand but already patched up.
So, he jumped back out, shooting upward as he ran 20 meters into the next vehicle to find Sgt. Sam Schoenheit, his helmet off, licking his lips and looking around aimlessly — telltale signs of shock. A bullet was lodged three inches into his head.
As the driver backed out painfully slowly — probably 15 minutes to drive maybe 75 meters — Torrisi stood in the turret and launched “about a dozen and a half” 40 mm grenades up the mountainside.
It was pure muscle memory. Torrisi then carried Schoenheit to his original vehicle, set him down and looked at the wound.
“It’s a head injury where you’re looking at brain matter, so you go, “Holy [expletive]!” and then close it back up real quick,” he said.
Torrisi and his driver went back to the entrance of the draw where others were still trapped.
Along the way, a gunnery sergeant shouted over the radio.
“Nobody come in! You come in here and you’re going to die. We are pinned and we are pinned bad. Do not come in here!”
Instead, Torrisi “ran back through a hail of bullets,” reads the official citation, going even deeper into the kill zone to treat Chief Petty Officer Anthony Shattuck’s gunshot wound to the chest.
What really happened: Torrisi said he found seven guys “extremely huddled” against a vehicle taking enemy fire.
Shattuck was lying under the truck with no shirt on.
A bullet had entered below his armpit and “hit every single organ but the heart along the way — lungs, stomach, colon, liver, gall bladder, spleen, pancreas,” Torrisi said.
Shattuck already had “needle decompressed” himself twice, meaning he stuck a tube into his own chest to alleviate pressure from a collapsed lung.
Torrisi did it six more times while under fire, reinforcing the seal to keep lung tissue from popping out. Shattuck “should get a medal for taking care of himself,” Torrisi said.
As he worked, another wounded medic, Sgt. 1st Class John Clouse, shouted that Torrisi was standing in the spot where Clouse just took a shot to the leg. Torrisi refused to move from the spot, standing firm with the wounded chief.
Then, two and a half hours into the battle, a round and shrapnel struck Torrisi’s leg and buttocks.
Torrisi would not relent. He turned his body so another Marine could treat his wound while Torrisi kept treating Shattuck — a daisy chain of combat medicine.
Though the shooting had subsided, the situation worsened.
“If I don’t get Tony out of here in the next 10 minutes, he’s going to die,” Torrisi said aloud.
Suddenly, everything went quiet.
———
Torrisi and his team stabilized Shattuck and carried him and another casualty, Staff Sgt. Eric Guendner, out of the danger zone just in time.
By now, medevac helicopters were low on fuel and ordered to return to base. Torrisi insisted his patients catch their ride. At the handoff, he told the flight medic he had performed 14 needle decompressions in total to save Shattuck.
Torrisi again refused treatment, instead tending to an Afghan soldier’s leg wound, returning to the draw, finally pulling out with 12 other wounded troops, saving one crashing patient who had loosened his own tourniquet.
Torrisi received a Silver Star for continuing to treat wounded Marines, directing evacuations and returning suppressing fire “while refusing medical treatment for his own injuries.”
“His actions ultimately saved the lives of four of his teammates and his courage and quick thinking prevented further loss of life,” reads the citation.
One week after the battle, President George W. Bush pinned a Purple Heart to Schoenheit’s prone body while he lay in and out of consciousness at National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., feeding from a tube, brain swollen, facing years of mental therapy.
After the firefight, Torrisi’s wife received a phone call from the military, telling her that her husband had been shot, was being treated and would be on his way home soon. But Torrisi later called and told her he refused to leave.
There was a shortage of SARC hospital corpsmen in Afghanistan.
He stayed another four months.