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Woodbridge man injured in Iraq

May- 4-2005 » Filed Under: TF Freedom

SPC Nick Beintema was wounded in the attack that killed four soldiers in Tal Afar.

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By Ross Farrow, News-Sentinel

Shortly before leaving for his second tour in Iraq, Army Specialist Nick Beintema told his parents, "I have a real bad feeling this time."

His worst fears, and those of his parents, were prophetic.

Beintema, 22, was almost killed and faces up to four months in the hospital after being wounded last Tuesday in a reconnaissance mission in northern Iraq, less than a month before he was due to be discharged.

"It brings the war home; it brings it into our own house," said his father, Woodbridge resident Randy Beintema.

Nick Beintema is a 2000 graduate of Lodi High School. He didn't star on the Flames football team, nor was he a high-profile student. His father described him as "a typical kid."

Beintema is now a man. He was being flown Thursday night from an Army hospital in Germany to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

According to his father, doctors in Germany reported that Beintema suffered a concussion, a broken jaw in two places, a severely injured right leg apparently broken in two places, a damaged kneecap, minor shrapnel wounds to his face and bruising to his chest.

Beintema is unable to talk because of his broken jaw. He is also heavily sedated because he remains on a ventilator, said Randy Beintema, a lieutenant for the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department. The good news is that he has been upgraded from critical to stable condition.

Four soldiers were killed in the incident, including two from Beintema's Army unit stationed in Ft. Carson, Colo.

Beintema, serving a combat mission in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment in Talfar, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, was injured as his group went through change of command with a unit out of Ft. Lewis, Wash. Two members of the Ft. Lewis unit were also killed.

Randy Beintema said he was told that the two units were on a reconnaissance mission when an explosive device planted by Iraqi insurgents exploded.


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