the ambush
Fellow NYDN reporter Nancy Dillon is in Iraq for a month, embedded with New York’s Fighting 69th National Guard unit. She filed this report for today’s paper about an Aug. 7 ambush that killed two of their men:
The soldiers were in the same meat market a week earlier, buying watermelon from a local vendor. But now it was 10:45 p.m., and the darkness was compounded by the start of a sandstorm that would later shut down Baghdad.
Nobody saw the powerful platter charge hidden in a bag and tucked beside a vending stall.
In a horrifying flash, the exploded just 16 feet from the convoy’s lead Humvee. Molten chunks of steel and copper ripped through the vehicle’s turret and right rear passenger door.
The driver, Spec. Brian Lopez of Queens, took a hail of shrapnel in his neck and arm and struggled to control the burning vehicle as it tore through several meat stands and slammed into a building at 30 mph.
I gave Nancy a password in case she wanted to guest-blog about her experiences in Iraq, so it’s conceivable she might be posting here as well.
August 26th, 2005 at 16:11:14 +0000
Nothing as cute as a good-lookin’ woman in a flak jacket. And she wrote a great story, to boot!
August 27th, 2005 at 20:23:11 +0000
Read this article already; really well done. And quite disturbing, in its way.