Our Heroes

[Shortdawg]

Maurice Craft

Staff Sgt. Maurice Craft, an Avenger crew member with B Battery, 3/4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, was riding on Highway 5 in Baghdad Nov. 24 when an improvised explosive device hit the vehicle he was riding in. He remembers telling the driver to pull him out, and the searing pain cursing through his legs. Closing his eyes seemed to make the pain go away, but he worried that he wouldn?t wake up again.

?I forced myself to keep my eyes open,?? recalled Craft. ?I knew I had to if I wanted to make it home to my kids and family.?

Craft?s left leg was amputated at the knee and a titanium rod is keeping his right leg connected to his hip, which was shattered in the attack.

Jewell, Lories Spc. "Injured Soldiers get morale boost." Army News Service, 17 Dec 2003. Link. Posted 18 Dec 2003.


Eric Lanstrum

Landstrum was on a nightly presence patrol in Iraq in early October when a rocket-propelled grenade, IED and machine gun fire ambush claimed his left eye.

"I lost my eye; shrapnel wounds throughout my body, lost a piece of my skull and got messed up pretty good," Lanstrum recalled.

"At first, I was so messed up I didn't think about my eye, I was happy to be alive, and, even to this day, it doesn't bother me that I lost my eye." Lanstrum said. "I see guys around here missing a lot more than an eye. I'm going to take care of the one eye I have left and just carry on."

Lanstrum said he couldn?t feel sorry for himself when three of the five guys in his vehicle died. ?Me and another guy, who lost his eye also, were the only ones to walk out of my truck so I feel pretty fortunate.?

McMillan, Brett. "Prosthetic eyes improve patients' outlook." Army News Service, 12 Dec 2003. Link. Posted 18 Dec 2003.


Thomas C. Koch, Jr.

Koch, a member of a military police company mobilized out of Fort Leonard Wood near Rolla, Mo., was driving a truck along a stretch of Baghdad highway nicknamed Ambush Alley in July when an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade hit the truck's side mirror and bent it toward the cab.

Moments later, a bullet hit the mirror, showering Koch's face with glass; one piece lodged in his left cheekbone. A second bullet struck the left corner of his mouth, ripped open his cheek and shattered teeth.

Koch's assistant driver grabbed the wheel until Koch came to a few seconds later.

"I spit out the bullet and pulled the glass out of my cheek," said Koch, 33. "He stared at me for a second or two like I had come back from the dead. I don't imagine I looked too good."

As a combat lifesaver, the other driver was equipped with a bag of medical supplies including field dressings - large gauze bandages Koch used to stanch his bleeding.

"Even though it was chaos, it was very efficient," Koch said. "He was on the radio with one hand and handing me bandages with the other. And I was driving with one hand and stuffing bandages in my mouth with the other."

Koch is back at Fort Leonard Wood for plastic surgery, root canals on damaged teeth and bone grafts for his jaw. He wants to return to Iraq.


Bavley, Alan. "New technology and medical practices save lives in Iraq." Knight Ridder Newspapers, 17 Dec 2003. Link. Posted 18 Dec 2003.