bobdina
10-08-2010, 02:22 PM
Spc. David Hutchinson’s war lasted four days or four minutes, depending on how you figure it.
The Army reservist from Texas spent his first two nights in Afghanistan sleeping in a tent in Bagram and a third night at Forward Operating Base Sharana, which was to be his home for the next 12 months. On the fourth day, May 21, 2008, he rode out on the convoy that would change his life.
It wasn’t supposed to be a life-and-death mission. The four-vehicle pack was to drive two hours from Sharana to FOB Orgun-E then come back. It was a test run, an opportunity for the departing soldiers to give Hutchinson and his fellow new arrivals a few tips before they turned over responsibility.
“It was supposed to be a there-and-back kind of deal, just getting acquainted with the local surroundings and what the terrain was like,” Hutchinson said. “We got our intel brief, and everything was supposed to be just gravy.”
***
There are few higher honors in an American soldier’s life than to be invited to the White House as a special guest of the president. For Hutchinson, the trip was surreal.
He flew halfway across the country to celebrate the Fourth of July at a picnic on the White House lawn. He stood on stage with a handful of other servicemembers as President Barack Obama addressed the audience.
“We’re humbled to be joined up here by heroes,” the president said, “men and women who went beyond the call of duty in battle, some selflessly risking their lives again and again so that others might live.”
As night fell, he watched fireworks explode over the National Mall.
But the real highlight of his summer came later, and it had been a long time coming. David Hutchinson and Jenny Becker went to the same high school in Humble, Texas. In 2008, before going off to Afghanistan, Hutchinson had one more thing on his mind.
When he got a four-day break from pre-deployment training in Wisconsin, he came home to Texas. He took Jenny to a park near where both grew up.
He asked her to marry him, and she said yes.
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Then he went to war.
But there they were on July 18, 2009, smiling as they stood in front of more than 250 guests — “a big ol’ shindig,” he called it.
She wore a wedding gown. He wore a tuxedo. His goal was to walk his new bride down the aisle without a limp, which had been with him since that day in Afghanistan when he saved the lives of 16 comrades, earning a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.
***
There were hints as the convoy rolled along that something wasn’t right. About an hour into the trip, Hutchinson, manning the MK-19 grenade launcher in the third Humvee, saw Afghans scurrying on the roadside. Some moved behind rocks as the convoy passed. A local man dialed his cell phone.
The convoy crossed through a wadi and the road began to curve as it climbed uphill into a pass with ridges climbing at 45-degree angles on each side. As soon as all four Humvees had made it into the pass, Hutchinson heard the gunner in the first vehicle open up with his .50 caliber.
“Five or 10 seconds later,” Hutchinson said, “all these insurgents just started popping up from all different varying heights on that ridge from the top to the bottom.”
Rocket-propelled grenades flew at the Humvee, one whizzing across the hood inches from the driver. Behind the turret shield, Hutchinson began firing. He scanned the ridge on the passenger side of the vehicle. Wherever he saw the most muzzle flashes, that’s where he sent his grenades. He destroyed a machine gun nest and silenced other insurgents directing small-arms fire at the convoy.
He had nearly expended his ammo can when two RPGs struck the right rear of his Humvee. Hutchinson collapsed into the vehicle.
Coming to, he counted his limbs and had them all. He tried to return to the turret, but his legs were numb.
First Sgt. David Gussberry, also in the vehicle, was worse off. He’d been sprayed with shrapnel, was bloodied and barely conscious.
“He kind of looked like a horror movie,” Hutchinson said. “He was pretty torn up at that point.”
Hutchinson began first aid as the convoy made its break. A rendezvous was arranged with a medevac team a couple of miles up the road.
“There wasn’t a window that didn’t have a bullet hole in it or a tire that wasn’t flat,” Hutchinson said, but they made it.
The firefight, fierce as it was, lasted only a few minutes.
***
Last September, Hutchinson found himself in Chicago, surrounded again by American heroes. He’d been invited to spend a week at a convention held by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. There were speeches and meet-and-greets and community outreach projects.
“It was amazing being around a bunch of people that you only hear about in movies and stories,” he said. “I spent a lot of time listening.”
Hutchinson learned that the same instincts that led these men to commit their conspicuous acts of valor had guided them throughout their lives. And he learned that while generations separated their sacrifices, the experience of fighting for your country and for your fellow warriors remains the same.
He gravitated toward Gary Wetzel, a Vietnam veteran who lost his left arm in 1968 when two rockets exploded near him while his helicopter was pinned down in a landing zone. He earned the Medal of Honor for continuing to fight, despite losing a limb and passing out multiple times from the blood loss. He took out the enemy weapons emplacement and then helped rescue wounded comrades.
Hutchinson listened to Wetzel give a speech to a group of Chicago police recruits, and he listened even closer when they spoke one-on-one. He was humbled by Wetzel’s attitude toward him.
“I had a Silver Star and he had a Medal of Honor and every time I turned around he was trying to put the two on the same level,” Hutchinson said. “We both did what we had to do at the time, didn’t think twice about it.”
And as Wetzel has, Hutchinson has used his war hero status to give back. In April, he was asked to speak to a group of at-risk youths at an auto racing event in Houston.
“I hope it won’t be the last time they invite me,” he said.
***
At the rendezvous point, medics arrived quickly to treat Gussberry and Hutchinson, who by that time had discovered circular burn marks up and down his right leg. A pair of F-15s provided cover as Hutchinson was loaded onto the litter.
But realizing it was the only litter, he climbed off and told medics to load up Gussberry. He hobbled to the helicopter with the help of another soldier. Within minutes, they were at FOB Orgun-E. Within days, they were at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Later, Hutchinson and Gussberry shared a flight back to the States.
Each had undergone multiple surgeries. Gussberry had shrapnel removed from his brain, but he was his wise-cracking self on the plane, Hutchinson recalled.
The marble-sized shrapnel in Hutchinson’s leg had lodged against his femur, damaging nerves running down his calf. He spent six months at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, gradually reaching the point where he could walk without a cane. Today, he says he can jog short distances — more than doctors predicted he’d ever do. The pain comes and goes. Doctors don’t know if it will ever fully heal.
In awarding Hutchinson the Silver Star, the Army said his actions were the biggest reason that he and 16 other soldiers survived the ambush. At least five insurgents died on those ridges.
He’s alive, and so are his fellow soldiers. And that’s what matters. More than the Silver Star and more than all the opportunities that come with it.
“Seventeen people went into that convoy and all 17 came out alive,” he said. “That’s all I was really worried about. All this afterward, the Silver Star, it’s not what it was about.”
turnerd@stripes.osd.mil
The Army reservist from Texas spent his first two nights in Afghanistan sleeping in a tent in Bagram and a third night at Forward Operating Base Sharana, which was to be his home for the next 12 months. On the fourth day, May 21, 2008, he rode out on the convoy that would change his life.
It wasn’t supposed to be a life-and-death mission. The four-vehicle pack was to drive two hours from Sharana to FOB Orgun-E then come back. It was a test run, an opportunity for the departing soldiers to give Hutchinson and his fellow new arrivals a few tips before they turned over responsibility.
“It was supposed to be a there-and-back kind of deal, just getting acquainted with the local surroundings and what the terrain was like,” Hutchinson said. “We got our intel brief, and everything was supposed to be just gravy.”
***
There are few higher honors in an American soldier’s life than to be invited to the White House as a special guest of the president. For Hutchinson, the trip was surreal.
He flew halfway across the country to celebrate the Fourth of July at a picnic on the White House lawn. He stood on stage with a handful of other servicemembers as President Barack Obama addressed the audience.
“We’re humbled to be joined up here by heroes,” the president said, “men and women who went beyond the call of duty in battle, some selflessly risking their lives again and again so that others might live.”
As night fell, he watched fireworks explode over the National Mall.
But the real highlight of his summer came later, and it had been a long time coming. David Hutchinson and Jenny Becker went to the same high school in Humble, Texas. In 2008, before going off to Afghanistan, Hutchinson had one more thing on his mind.
When he got a four-day break from pre-deployment training in Wisconsin, he came home to Texas. He took Jenny to a park near where both grew up.
He asked her to marry him, and she said yes.
Advertisement
Then he went to war.
But there they were on July 18, 2009, smiling as they stood in front of more than 250 guests — “a big ol’ shindig,” he called it.
She wore a wedding gown. He wore a tuxedo. His goal was to walk his new bride down the aisle without a limp, which had been with him since that day in Afghanistan when he saved the lives of 16 comrades, earning a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.
***
There were hints as the convoy rolled along that something wasn’t right. About an hour into the trip, Hutchinson, manning the MK-19 grenade launcher in the third Humvee, saw Afghans scurrying on the roadside. Some moved behind rocks as the convoy passed. A local man dialed his cell phone.
The convoy crossed through a wadi and the road began to curve as it climbed uphill into a pass with ridges climbing at 45-degree angles on each side. As soon as all four Humvees had made it into the pass, Hutchinson heard the gunner in the first vehicle open up with his .50 caliber.
“Five or 10 seconds later,” Hutchinson said, “all these insurgents just started popping up from all different varying heights on that ridge from the top to the bottom.”
Rocket-propelled grenades flew at the Humvee, one whizzing across the hood inches from the driver. Behind the turret shield, Hutchinson began firing. He scanned the ridge on the passenger side of the vehicle. Wherever he saw the most muzzle flashes, that’s where he sent his grenades. He destroyed a machine gun nest and silenced other insurgents directing small-arms fire at the convoy.
He had nearly expended his ammo can when two RPGs struck the right rear of his Humvee. Hutchinson collapsed into the vehicle.
Coming to, he counted his limbs and had them all. He tried to return to the turret, but his legs were numb.
First Sgt. David Gussberry, also in the vehicle, was worse off. He’d been sprayed with shrapnel, was bloodied and barely conscious.
“He kind of looked like a horror movie,” Hutchinson said. “He was pretty torn up at that point.”
Hutchinson began first aid as the convoy made its break. A rendezvous was arranged with a medevac team a couple of miles up the road.
“There wasn’t a window that didn’t have a bullet hole in it or a tire that wasn’t flat,” Hutchinson said, but they made it.
The firefight, fierce as it was, lasted only a few minutes.
***
Last September, Hutchinson found himself in Chicago, surrounded again by American heroes. He’d been invited to spend a week at a convention held by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. There were speeches and meet-and-greets and community outreach projects.
“It was amazing being around a bunch of people that you only hear about in movies and stories,” he said. “I spent a lot of time listening.”
Hutchinson learned that the same instincts that led these men to commit their conspicuous acts of valor had guided them throughout their lives. And he learned that while generations separated their sacrifices, the experience of fighting for your country and for your fellow warriors remains the same.
He gravitated toward Gary Wetzel, a Vietnam veteran who lost his left arm in 1968 when two rockets exploded near him while his helicopter was pinned down in a landing zone. He earned the Medal of Honor for continuing to fight, despite losing a limb and passing out multiple times from the blood loss. He took out the enemy weapons emplacement and then helped rescue wounded comrades.
Hutchinson listened to Wetzel give a speech to a group of Chicago police recruits, and he listened even closer when they spoke one-on-one. He was humbled by Wetzel’s attitude toward him.
“I had a Silver Star and he had a Medal of Honor and every time I turned around he was trying to put the two on the same level,” Hutchinson said. “We both did what we had to do at the time, didn’t think twice about it.”
And as Wetzel has, Hutchinson has used his war hero status to give back. In April, he was asked to speak to a group of at-risk youths at an auto racing event in Houston.
“I hope it won’t be the last time they invite me,” he said.
***
At the rendezvous point, medics arrived quickly to treat Gussberry and Hutchinson, who by that time had discovered circular burn marks up and down his right leg. A pair of F-15s provided cover as Hutchinson was loaded onto the litter.
But realizing it was the only litter, he climbed off and told medics to load up Gussberry. He hobbled to the helicopter with the help of another soldier. Within minutes, they were at FOB Orgun-E. Within days, they were at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Later, Hutchinson and Gussberry shared a flight back to the States.
Each had undergone multiple surgeries. Gussberry had shrapnel removed from his brain, but he was his wise-cracking self on the plane, Hutchinson recalled.
The marble-sized shrapnel in Hutchinson’s leg had lodged against his femur, damaging nerves running down his calf. He spent six months at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, gradually reaching the point where he could walk without a cane. Today, he says he can jog short distances — more than doctors predicted he’d ever do. The pain comes and goes. Doctors don’t know if it will ever fully heal.
In awarding Hutchinson the Silver Star, the Army said his actions were the biggest reason that he and 16 other soldiers survived the ambush. At least five insurgents died on those ridges.
He’s alive, and so are his fellow soldiers. And that’s what matters. More than the Silver Star and more than all the opportunities that come with it.
“Seventeen people went into that convoy and all 17 came out alive,” he said. “That’s all I was really worried about. All this afterward, the Silver Star, it’s not what it was about.”
turnerd@stripes.osd.mil