Home » Archives » "Soldiers dodge car bomb to deliver dinner"

Soldiers dodge car bomb to deliver dinner

Nov-25-2004 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

Link to Full Article
By C. Mark Brinkley, Army Times

MOSUL, Iraq — Forget about rain and sleet and snow: Army Sgt. Edmund Savedra had to brave a car bomb to make his Thanksgiving afternoon delivery.

Savedra, a truck driver with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, was less than 10 minutes away from a remote post outside of Mosul, where he was set to deliver hot turkey dinners to dozens of soldiers with no access to the government-contracted chow halls.

Without warning, an explosion shattered the windshield of his rig and showered the three soldiers inside with glass.

"I guess they wanted the turkey," Savedra, 33, of Honolulu said with a grin minutes after he pulled into the post.

"I didn't want to stop," he said.

Instead, he floored it, tearing across the rural highways at 50 mph without looking back to see who was shooting at him.

"Everyone here was waiting on their turkey dinner," Savedra said. "Well, I got it here."

An inspection of the blast area showed a crater 2 feet deep and a burning hull that used to be a Toyota. Army investigators theorized that insurgents buried artillery shells under the truck, then detonated them as the lightly armored dinner wagon rolled by.

Savedra was thankful that no one was injured in the blast. "It could have been a lot worse," he said.

The food came as a morale boost for the troops from Rock Company, who have lived on the outskirts of Mosul for two weeks, taking turns at the small shower facilities and longing for the somewhat easier life of their comrades at the larger posts, who have hot meals three times a day and hot water morning and night.

"I turned 25 yesterday," said Spc. Jason Martin, a rifleman from Fort Myers, Fla., who is still waiting on his first birthday card or gift from home. "Mail's been kind of slow out here. Then it's mostly bills. It's never the good stuff."

But Martin said he was thankful, despite the daily combat patrols, chilly temperatures and time apart from his wife, Patricia, who he married in April.

"I'm thankful that my life turned out so well," Martin said. "I'm not on a street corner somewhere, like a lot of people are. And I'm thankful for my wife. Really, she's the highlight of my life."


Advertisements