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Just
after 11 a.m., a tank hit by a rocket-propelled grenade some
500 yards into the city hobbled back to the train trestle that
Marines have used as a fallback position since they arrived
here Monday morning.
Climbing out of
the tank turret to extinguish packs that were still on fire
from the blast, Cpl. Ryan Chambers, 26, of San Luis Obispo,
yelled for a medic.
"Corpsman!
Corpsman!" he shouted as other Marines climbed atop
the tank to help.
Together they pulled
a Marine off the tank and placed him on the back of a humvee.
He was wounded with
shrapnel to the head and eye, and another Marine from the tank
was badly wounded in the hand.
After seeing his
wounded tank crew off, Chambers realized he was wounded, too
---- hit in the upper left arm with shrapnel.
"I saw
a couple of guys run, so we went after them," he said
as the medic cut off his sleeve. "Then POW! The first
one missed us, but the second one got us. They're just going
to patch me up and I'm going back in."
The fighting continued
---- with long, nerve-racking lulls ---- all day, with the Marines
fighting to maintain their grip on several city blocks.
Comment
found on the Free Republic discussion board:
Reading
the article I had the mental impression that this Cpl. Chambers
was a young skinny little buck with a lot of guts. Now, thanks
to your pic, I see Chambers is quite the opposite. The man's
a stud, it's no wonder how he was able to take control of
the situation.
Here's
to you, Cpl. Chambers, give that man a star!
Back to my Gunny Popaditch
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