Bad news travels at the speed of light. I realize some of the people reading this have already heard what has happened; only the details remain foggy. Allow me to start at the beginning and put everyone on the same page.

Wednesday was the first day of our MOUT (Military Operations on Urban Terrain) training. Patrolling a city block is fundamentally different than patrolling open terrain or wooded areas, and since nearly all major engagements in Iraq happen in a populated area, all personnel training to go outside the wire go through the MOUT course.

Near the FOB is set up a mock city of Balad. It consists of a few actual buildings, plus dozens of conex containers with holes cut in the sides for windows and doors. The city is maybe half a mile on a side, with a few main thoroughfares and numerous side streets. It is strewn with debris: burned out cars, piles of scrap industrial parts, and tangles of junk. Islamic graffiti covers the walls, and what isn’t written in Farsi are anti-American slogans in broken English. To complete the scene, the city is populated with actors known as COBs (Civilians On the Battlefield), who speak Farsi and interact with the trainees and each other. The trainees are then given various missions to complete, and let loose. It’s really cool to see it all together, and probably about as realistic as you can get short of actually going overseas.

Our team was given the following mission: search two houses, and walk the main streets in what they call a “presence” patrol: a parade of force to show the insurgents that we’re still keeping an eye on the village. The searches went off very well and we found all the stuff we were supposed to. As we were walking down the last leg of the patrol, a COB insurgent jumped out from behind a conex box and lit us up with an AK-47 (It was a real AK firing blanks.)

The first thing through my mind was “Wow, looks just like a video game”. And it did: the guy was wearing generic yet easily identifiable middle eastern clothes, his gun went off with its distinctive crack, and the muzzle flashed a brilliant star pattern. My battle buddy quickly took cover between two containers, and I hurried up to join him.

During a patrol, everyone has a battle buddy. The saying goes, “two is one and one is none,” meaning the worst position you can be in is trapped behind some cover by yourself. You want to be with at least one other person. Seeing that my partner found cover first (and that he was in front of me), I went to him and stepped in behind him.

It only took a split second. My boot hit the ground in exactly the wrong way, slid over the rocks on the ground and folded underneath me. The eighty pounds of extra gear I was carrying (body armor, kevlar helmet, combat load of magazines and ammo, knee and elbow pads, plus miscellaneous extras) made things that much worse. Pain exploded so fierce that I went blind for a moment–seeing only bright white sparkles like the sun’s reflection off an undulating body of water–and although I knew I was screaming like crazy, I couldn’t stop.

During a training scenario like this, the instructors will occasionally pull someone aside and tell them ahead of time that they are going to be a casualty. This allows the team to practice CLS (Combat Lifesaver Skills) and dealing with a wounded soldier. My battle buddy thought this was the case, and he later told me that the first thing he thought of when I went down was, “wow, he’s a pretty good actor.” Another guy in my team said I was screaming so badly, he thought the actor accidentally loaded live ammo in the AK instead of blanks, and that I had actually been shot. There was a solid ten seconds of confusion until I managed to get out that it was a real injury in my leg. The ambulance came and took me to the ER, and even though I got X-rays within an hour, I wouldn’t know the full extent of the injury until the next day when I met with the orthopedic doctor.

The damage: I broke both my leg (fibula) and ankle. The fracture in my leg went the entire way through, running about four inches long. There is only a hairline fracture in my ankle, but it complicates things. Additionally, my entire foot was shifted out of alignment from the bones in my leg. Not dislocated, as a ball joint comes out of a socket, just not in the proper place. Because of this, the doctors also suspect there is major tendon damage, the extent of which will remain unknown until they open me up.

I will need at least one surgery, with a minimum of three pins and a plate. Depending on how badly the tendons were damaged, I may also need a screw to hold my tibia and fibula together while they heal. If that’s the case, I’ll need a second surgery to have that removed before I can walk. The recovery time is extensive. About ten weeks before I can put any weight on the leg at all (much less walk), and sixteen weeks of physical therapy after that. I’ll be stuck in a military hospital for the next six months or so.

My war is over before it began. Not only will I not be going to Iraq, it’s unlikely I’ll even be able to stay in the military. So it goes.

So how do I feel about all this? It’s hard to pin down, exactly. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that I feel relieved. But I also feel guilty about feeling relieved, as if I should be a literal embodiment of the army’s ultimate weapon (a statue of which depicts a vaguely World War II-esque soldier in mid step, charging forever forward toward some undefined foe): concerned only with completing the mission, and not about the possible personal ramifications when something goes wrong. But there is no ultimate weapon or soldier ideal which any human can achieve, and I know many in my situation would also feel relief at having the unknowns of combat wiped from their future.

On the other hand, I was really excited about doing this mission. The mission itself directly saves American lives, and most of the guys I was working with were awesome. Although we had some problems, particularly with the leadership (I never went into it because it would have become largely moot after we got to our next station and were broken into different teams), the guys on my level were all squared away. I was looking forward to serving with them, through good times and bad. After all that hard work (and the false starts and delays), suddenly I’m out of the game entirely. So many hours, so much sweat to get myself ready, and I’ve got nothing to show for it, cast notwithstanding.

I don’t feel like a failure, exactly. As I think back over the event, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I followed procedure to the letter, and I wasn’t even moving that fast. It was just one incredibly unfortunate step. It’s more a feeling of profound disappointment. And yet, almost everyone I’ve talked to mentioned how they think it might have been for the better. If I’m completely honest with you and with myself, I would have to agree.

From here, I’m waiting for my original orders cancellation and modification for travel to the hospital. I need to hear back from medical headquarters, to get their assessment of my treatment plan, and then it’s just a matter of seeing that through to the end. As I mentioned, it looks like it’ll be about six months of recovery, but even that’s tentative at this point. I’m currently wearing a temporary splint, and use crutches to get around. I’m not autonomous, needing a partner to help me do anything more complicated than using the head, and I’m not supposed to get out of bed any more than absolutely necessary. These things should improve slightly by next week, after I go through surgery and get settled into the hospital.

I plan to continue writing weekly updates until I’m actually back in my house, living my regular, civilian life. (Here’s to hoping I have internet access in the hospital.) I’m not sure how interesting I can make the story of a leg healing opposed to a military deployment, but at the least it’ll let you know that I’m still around and on my way to recovery.

Until next week,

-Ted