Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

U.S. Marine Walks Away From Shot to Helmet in Afghanistan

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • U.S. Marine Walks Away From Shot to Helmet in Afghanistan

    MARJAH, Afghanistan—It is hard to know whether Monday was a very bad day or a very good day for Lance Cpl. Andrew Koenig.

    On the one hand, he was shot in the head. On the other, the bullet bounced off him.

    In one of those rare battlefield miracles, an insurgent sniper hit Lance Cpl. Koenig dead on in the front of his helmet, and he walked away from it with a smile on his face.

    "I don't think I could be any luckier than this," Lance Cpl. Koenig said two hours after the shooting.

    Lance Cpl. Koenig's brush with death came during a day of intense fighting for the Marines of Company B, 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment.

    The company had landed by helicopter in the predawn dark on Saturday, launching a major coalition offensive to take Marjah from the Taliban.

    The Marines set up an outpost in a former drug lab and roadside-bomb factory and soon found themselves under near-constant attack.

    Lance Cpl. Koenig, a lanky 21-year-old with jug-handle ears and a burr of sandy hair, is a designated marksman. His job is to hit the elusive Taliban fighters hiding in the tightly packed neighborhood near the base.

    The insurgent sniper hit him first. The Casper, Wyo., native was kneeling on the roof of the one-story outpost, looking for targets.

    He was reaching back to his left for his rifle when the sniper's round slammed into his helmet.

    The impact knocked him onto his back.

    "I'm hit," he yelled to his buddy, Lance Cpl. Scott Gabrian, a 21-year-old from St. Louis.

    Lance Cpl. Gabrian belly-crawled along the rooftop to his friend's side. He patted Lance Cpl. Koenig's body, looking for wounds.

    Then he noticed that the plate that usually secures night-vision goggles to the front of Lance Cpl. Koenig's helmet was missing. In its place was a thumb-deep dent in the hard Kevlar shell.

    Lance Cpl. Gabrian slid his hands under his friend's helmet, looking for an entry wound. "You're not bleeding," he assured Lance Cpl. Koenig. "You're going to be OK."


    Lance Cpl. Koenig climbed down the metal ladder and walked to the company aid station to see the Navy corpsman.

    The only injury: A small, numb red welt on his forehead, just above his right eye.

    He had spent 15 minutes with Doc, as the Marines call the medics, when an insurgent's rocket-propelled grenade exploded on the rooftop, next to Lance Cpl. Gabrian.

    The shock wave left him with a concussion and hearing loss.

    He joined Lance Cpl. Koenig at the aid station, where the two friends embraced, their eyes welling.

    The men had served together in Afghanistan in 2008, and Lance Cpl. Koenig had survived two blasts from roadside bombs.

    "We've got each other's backs," Lance Cpl. Gabrian said, the explosion still ringing in his ears.

    Word of Lance Cpl. Koenig's close call spread quickly through the outpost, as he emerged from the shock of the experience and walked through the outpost with a Cheshire cat grin.

    "He's alive for a reason," Tim Coderre, a North Carolina narcotics detective working with the Marines as a consultant, told one of the men. "From a spiritual point of view, that doesn't happen by accident."

    Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Shelton, whose job is to keep the Marines stocked with food, water and gear, teased the lance corporal for failing to take care of his helmet.

    "I need that damaged-gear statement tonight," Gunnery Sgt. Shelton told Lance Cpl. Koenig. It was understood, however, that Lance Cpl. Koenig would be allowed to keep the helmet as a souvenir.

    Gunnery Sgt. Shelton, a 36-year-old veteran from Nashville, said he had never seen a Marine survive a direct shot to the head.

    But next to him was Cpl. Christopher Ahrens, who quietly mentioned that two bullets had grazed his helmet the day the Marines attacked Marjah. The same thing, he said, happened to him three times in firefights in Iraq.

    Cpl. Ahrens, 26, from Havre de Grace, Md., lifted the camouflaged cloth cover on his helmet, exposing the holes where the bullets had entered and exited.

    He turned it over to display the picture card tucked inside, depicting Michael the Archangel stamping on Lucifer's head. "I don't need luck," he said.

    After his moment with Lance Cpl. Gabrian, Lance Cpl. Koenig put his dented helmet back on his head and climbed the metal ladder to resume his rooftop duty within an hour of being hit.

    "I know any one of these guys would do the same," he explained. "If they could keep going, they would."
    U.S. Marine Walks Away From Shot to Helmet in Afghanistan - WSJ.com

  • #2
    A Big Ooh Ra to the devildog for resuming his post within the hour.

    But the survived a shot to the head was first done with a PSGT helmet way back in 1983 during Urgent Fury. In that case the round lodged half way in the helmet. Worth at least 200 cool points
    Last edited by Gun Grape; 16 Feb 10,, 04:14.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
      A Big Ooh Ra to the devildog for resuming his post within the hour.

      But the survived a shot to the head was first done with a PSGT helmet way back in 1983 during Urgent Fury. In that case the round lodged half way in the helmet. Worth at least 200 cool points
      Are you reffering to the same one that is in the 82nd ABN museum at Ft Bragg?

      Comment


      • #4
        That would be the one, I do believe. Right unit,

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
          That would be the one, I do believe. Right unit,
          Yep! Sits in a glass case for all to see. IIRC the story on the placard below it says that it was a fairly close range shot from a 7.62x39. Knocked the soldier out for a moment and broke the chinstrap but the bullet is still lodged in the helmet and the soldier was AOK after his headache went away.

          That and many other very cool things are located in that museum and if anyone ever gets to visit FBNC, I suggest visiting the SF museum as well.

          Comment


          • #6
            Y'all see my post from waaaay back:

            http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sma...html#post60912

            Wow, HERE is a coincidence:

            This topic came up yesterday when my son hooked up with an old buddy of his that just joined the Army as an infantryman. (He's still at Ft. Drum, and has volunteered numerous times for Iraq. So much for Lull's assertion that morale has collapsed. But they won't send him, because as his platoon sergeant told him, "We just got you new guys to the point where you're all only HALF retarded. )

            Pvt. Staciak told my son a story about one of his NCOs coming back from Iraq with a 'non-bleeding' wound, administered by an AK round that hit him in the front of his helmet. They were on a rooftop at the time. His squadmates told him that when he took his hit, his helmet went STRAIGHT UP in the air, spinning around bottom-to-top. He hit the ground, knocked out colder than a mackerel. When he woke up, he couldn't see, and it felt like he was falling down stairs. (He was actually in a blanket, and four of his buddies had a corner each and were running him through a series of rubbled buildings to get him to a Bradley a couple of streets over that was being used for casualty evac. The guys were going fast and trying not to get hit themselves, accounting for his rough ride.) His vision came back an hour later, and after that his platoon leader found him in the hospital, and told him that his helmet had a half-circle scored out of the bottom of the front lip, and it didn't indicate that the round went left or right - it appeared to be a straight path across the lip. Lieutenant said that nobody that saw the helmet could figure out why the bullet didn't deflect right into his face, or at least into his upper torso. It must have gone STRAIGHT DOWN while his helmet went up.

            Staciak said ole Sarge was MIGHTY pissed that nobody was wrting it up as a Purple Heart, and from the 'barrack-room lawyers' reading of the criteria, everybody agrees that he is entitled to it. I'll let y'all know how it comes out when I hear.

            ANYhoo, the helmet saved him from direct fire from military-grade ordnance. So there ya go.

            Comment


            • #7
              apparently the LCpl was the almost-victim of a sniper whom has been going after our guys there; the sniper shot another Marine in an area not covered by the chest ballistic plates.

              not to mention the sniper got the drop on the LCpl, whom was a designated marksman. the taliban have got some pretty tactically proficient people these days, much better than the guys we sliced through in 2001.
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by astralis View Post
                apparently the LCpl was the almost-victim of a sniper whom has been going after our guys there; the sniper shot another Marine in an area not covered by the chest ballistic plates.

                not to mention the sniper got the drop on the LCpl, whom was a designated marksman. the taliban have got some pretty tactically proficient people these days, much better than the guys we sliced through in 2001.
                They've got some guys that I can respect for their abilities, if not for their other qualities. I fired up a pair of rocket specialists about a month ago that were harrassing the hell out of some FOBs. They came from very far away to die under a Hellfire hit on a mountainside, and I giggled like a naughty Katzenjammer Kid when their pals put most of 'em in bags to take them away.

                Screw 'em.

                And if I get a hint of where Mr. Sniperman is...me and the LCpl can buy each other a beer someday and have a couple of laughs, too.

                Comment


                • #9
                  keith,

                  I giggled like a naughty Katzenjammer Kid when their pals put most of 'em in bags to take them away.
                  hope you fired up THOSE guys, too, while they were collecting! from the AARs i see, the insurgents also seem to go back for their dead. i remember the reports from iraq where insurgents would booby-trap dead soldiers/policemen, so we ought to return the favor here.
                  There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by astralis View Post
                    keith,



                    hope you fired up THOSE guys, too, while they were collecting! from the AARs i see, the insurgents also seem to go back for their dead. i remember the reports from iraq where insurgents would booby-trap dead soldiers/policemen, so we ought to return the favor here.
                    I wanted to...but it's against strict RoE.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Bluesman Reply

                      Ms. Taj says

                      HIT THE FUNERAL PARTIES.
                      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                        Ms. Taj says

                        HIT THE FUNERAL PARTIES.
                        I so wish I could. It seems almost insane to let 'em go.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          stupid question
                          Last edited by Mihais; 17 Feb 10,, 13:45.
                          Those who know don't speak
                          He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X