Four days before our scheduled transport, Sunni insurgents staged three uprisings, undoing months of work spent training Iraqi forces, and sending the region right back into chaos and instability.
The men in the coalition platoon Edge and I were placed in were from the US as well as the UK. Our unit made up what was known as a Quick Reaction Force—or QRF. We stood ready to respond at a moment’s notice in the event another unit was attacked or needed help.
It was a little before midnight when we got the call ordering us on a mission to clear insurgents out of Sadr City, a dense Shiite area in eastern Baghdad. Edge and I also received intel that a top lieutenant in the Mahdi Army had been seen in the area in the last twenty-four hours.
We split into teams and piled into the armored personnel carriers known as BFVs—Bradley Fighting Vehicles—and moved out. It wasn’t long after we pushed into the streets of the city that we went under fire from rocket-grenades and AK-47s. There were nine of us in the vehicle: the commander, the gunner, and me, tonight’s designated driver. The six other men were crammed into a small hold in the rear of the tank. The hammer of rifle fire against metal and the explosive charges of the rocket-propelled grenades was ear-shattering.
I was attempting to maneuver into a position where our hatch could be lowered and the soldiers in the tank could dismount, when the BFV hit an improvised explosive device. The last thing I remembered was being blown out of the hatch and landing on the ground, my body engulfed in a ball of flames.
I lost consciousness but came to, every so often, for a few seconds at a time, certain I was dead, since I couldn’t feel any pain. I could hear Edge’s voice, but before I could decipher his words, everything would fade back to black.
I vaguely remember the helicopter transport, mainly because it was the first time I felt any real pain. The jostling is what made me come to; the subsequent pain sent me back under.
“Captain Stone,” I heard a woman’s voice repeating. I opened my eyes. “Ah, there he is. Do you know where you are, Captain Stone?”
Based on her accent, I would guess Germany, and by the medical equipment surrounding me, a hospital. “Not really,” I answered.
“You’re in the Burn Intensive Care Unit of the GER Armed Forces Central Military Hospital in Koblenz, Germany.”
“Right,” I said, closing my eyes.
“What number would you give your pain presently?”
“On a scale of?”
“One to ten.”
“Zero.”
“Captain Stone, are you still with me?”
“Yes.” I opened my eyes, wishing she’d just go away and leave me the hell alone.
“The doctor has been waiting to talk to you.”
She walked out, and I let my eyes drift closed again.
“Captain Stone?” This time it was a man’s voice.
I opened my eyes.
“I’m Dr. Schweitzer. How are you doing?” he asked with the same strong German accent.
“You tell me, doc.”
He pulled a chair over and sat in it. “Do you remember what happened to you?”
I shook my head. I was groggy, but something inside warned me I wouldn’t want to pull whatever we were about to discuss to the forefront of my consciousness.
“You suffered third-degree burns on approximately thirty percent of your body—your lower left torso and your left leg primarily.”
“You must be giving me some bloody good pain meds, doc.”
He slowly closed his eyes and reopened them. “With a burn such as yours, which we classify as full-thickness, the dermis is completely destroyed. You may feel sensations of pressure, but no nerve endings remain to transport the feeling of pain to your brain.”
“How long have I been here?”
“About sixteen days.”