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'Just another day at the office'

Jan-28-2008 » Filed Under: 2/25 SBCT

Here's another article regrading an incident that occurred last week.

By KEITH ROGERS, REVIEW-JOURNAL

A little more than a week ago, Rob Congdon was ducking bullets fired by a sniper while he and other medics tried to rescue five soldiers wounded in a roadside bomb attack on a Stryker armored vehicle.

"It was just a single shooter," Congdon, a Bonanza High School graduate, former local lifeguard and paramedic, said about the Jan. 18 encounter about 20 miles north of Baghdad, near the Tigris River.

"He fired three rounds and we went inside the Stryker," he said Thursday by telephone from Camp Taji, Iraq. "We raised the ramp so he wouldn't have any clear angle.

"When we lowered it to get out, he started shooting again. The first one we heard hit the Stryker went past my partner's head. Two other ones hit about three feet to my right on the dirt," Congdon, 34, said about the bullets whizzing through the air.

The staff sergeant was a key player in one of two medical evacuation teams that responded in Black Hawk helicopters from Company C, 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Aviation Regiment.

The rescue began when the Black Hawks landed in a depression surrounded by tall grass less than 100 yards from the bombed out Stryker.

It was close enough for Congdon and Staff Sgt. Aughe McQuown to sprint for their wounded comrades, but far enough away to avoid detonating any other improvised explosive devices that might be near the road.

What followed was 35 minutes of close calls and hard work by the team that would save the lives of all five of the wounded soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division.

[...]


Comments For "'Just another day at the office'":

Hooya to Staff Sgts Congdon and McQuown for showing exemplary conduct under fire while assisting to treat rescue and save wounded comrades.

Posted by: jrljr54 [TypeKey Profile Page] | January 29, 2008 10:04 AM

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