The Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant in the picture is Michael Burghard,
part of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team that is supporting 2nd
Brigade 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania Army National Guard). I heard
the below story first hand last Saturday during a video teleconference
between his Brigade Commander and the 28th Infantry Division Commander.
I thought that others should hear it as well, as I think it demonstrates the
true spirit of most of our troops on the ground.
Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron
Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had
become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for
disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second
tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at
a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not
to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper
fire and you get tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a
helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers
term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide
crater.
The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire
leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7 inch knife to probe
the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs," he
says. "That's when I knew I was screwed."
Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at
everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching
through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the
secondary device below the sergeant's feet. "A chill went up the back
of my neck and then the bomb exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the
air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me.' I was
just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road,
not able to feel anything from the waist down."
His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt.
None could believe his legs were still there. "My dad's a Vietnam vet
who's paralyzed from the waist down," says Sgt Burghardt. "I was lying
there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for
him to see me like that. They ! started to cut away my pants and I
felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my
toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' "As a stretcher was brought
over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. "I decided to walk to the
helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried
away on a stretcher." He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown
him up a one-fingered salute. "I flipped them one. It was like,
'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week'."
Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the
Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col
John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as
an exemplar of the warrior spirit. Sgt Burghardt's injuries--burns and
wounds to his legs and buttocks--kept him off duty for nearly a month and
could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father, who was awarded a
Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam,
he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are
forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.
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