People You Should Know: Stanford et. al.

Well, someone has to tell the stories....

"It was supposed to be a routine security patrol in Mosul, Iraq, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 2005. Army Pfc. Stephen Sanford and his fellow soldiers of the Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, planned to arrest suspected insurgents, take them back to the detention center and "relax, stretch out a bit." Instead, squad members would find themselves in an intense firefight.

"There was just this massive explosion," Sanford said. "You could see flashes and automatic weapons fire. It was sensory overload. It was incredibly loud. You could smell the gunpowder and the blood and the dust and dirt. My weapon started getting warm because I was firing so much. I mean, I still didn’t know what was going on." Meanwhile, nine members of a lead team that had gone inside a home ahead of Sanford were pinned down by enemy fire and trapped inside the kitchen. Sanford’s team evacuated the first unit, but the last soldier out of the house had been shot and lay helpless on the exposed street.

“I tried to stop his bleeding,” Sanford said. “I didn’t notice at the time I had run into a perfect line of sight for one of their snipers, and I was taking hits, and there were rounds bouncing off the pavement. I got hit, and I started bleeding out pretty bad.”

Nonetheless, Sanford continued trying to revive his fellow soldier, returned fire, shooting and killing an enemy, and continued CPR until he passed out from his own blood loss."

Just one story of several. Including... yep, someone shot in the butt-tocks.