|
Wounded in Battle
"I had a hole in my left leg about a foot long and bout five inches wide on both sides of my calf."
Listen to this Commentary!
By Carl Covington
CARL
We hit a T- intersection and there was a 155-millimeter artillery shell. It blew up, and the ground was shaking. My friend told me, he said, “Man your legs are messed-up pretty bad. Are you hurt, are you hurt?”
He said, “You’re bleeding pretty bad from your legs.”
I said, “I don’t know, I don’t feel anything.”
I had a hole in my left leg about a foot long and bout five inches wide on both sides of my calf, and my knee-cap was blown off on my right leg, and I two holes about the size of silver dollar underneath my knee. I was happy it was over.
I was like, “If I make it home, that’s cool. If I don’t make it home, that’s cool, too. I’m done. I’m tired. I tired of this life-style. I’m done.”
CARL’s MOM (on tape)
When Carl describes what happened to him and how he feels about it I think it’s that everybody hears the story, that it becomes a little more clear to them through his eyes exactly what our military is seeing and what they have to go though, and how much they really miss their families. And basically how much they don’t understand why they’re over there.
I would say getting the call from the military that said my son had been seriously injured was the worst day of my life, but then knowing he was going to live had made it the best day of my life, because he had told me, mom, if the military ever calls you, it’s not a good thing.
CARL
Three years of going to war, and there’s not a day that goes by that you’re happy to be there. And my first sergeant told us, “I don’t care what you do. If you see an Iraqi outside past nine o’clock, I want you to shoot ‘em. Shoot ‘em dead because they’re out there planting IED’s out in the roads.”
He said his job was to make sure we came home, and all this other stuff didn’t matter.
|
|
