Photo By 1st Lt. Douglas Magill | Army Spc. Jason Spano receives the Combat Action Badge from Brig. Gen. Tom Cosentino...... read more read more
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CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - Michael Cross holds an empty pill container up to the light.
In the container, lies a small piece of metal - of indiscernible origin - no bigger than a fingernail.
"This is what all the fuss is about," he said. "Just a piece of metal. Fancy, huh?"
Cross, a 24-year-old U.S. Army sergeant and squad leader from Philippi, Va., was in a motor pool on Camp Leatherneck with six of his fellow soldiers when a mortar round impacted in the southwest corner of the lot, May 19.
"I couldn't hear the whistle," he said. "We were so close."
The blast knocked out portions of the motor pool's fence. Cross, with his back to the blast, felt the debris against his back.
"It was like someone took rocks and just threw them at my back as hard as they could," he said.
That piece of metal became embedded into Cross's back, just below his left shoulder. He and his six comrades, Cpl. Michael Tong, Spcs. Adam Levine, Jason Spano, Charles McCoy and Daniel Grande and Pfc. Jonathan Byington all received the Combat Action Badge.
Cross was also awarded the Purple Heart. Tong was subsequently promoted to sergeant two days later. He is now a squad leader in the platoon.
Brig. Gen. Tom Cosentino, deputy commander-Regional Support, NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan/Combined Security Transisition Command - Afghanistan, made all presentations May 30 and promoted Tong.
"That was a very big day," Tong said. "When Brigadier General Cosentino gave us our CABs. It was an honor."
The attack occurred at 7:10 a.m. when members of the 2-44th's Security Forces Platoon were conducting vehicle maintenance. Cross had climbed out of an M-ATV (MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected) All-Terrain Vehicle) and was picking up bottles of water around the area when the round landed.
"I looked back and saw the smoke, and then it dawned on me what happened," he said. "I started yelling for everyone to get back in the trucks."
But the doors to Cross's M-ATV were already locked, so he ran four trucks down where he saw Lavine and jumped in. Lavine then looked at Cross's back but did not see any blood. Later, when the piece was being removed, the Navy corpsmen told him that the piece of shrapnel was hot enough that it cauterized the wound, stopping the bleeding.
It was not until after the second siren sounded and Cross's adrenaline had settled that he realized something was embedded underneath his left shoulder. Before that however, Cross and Tong had already gotten accountability of their soldiers and Tong tried to contact Explosive Ordnance Disposal to notify them of the impact location and his platoon sergeant to report the accountability and well-being of his soldiers.
"We were both instinctively able to do the right thing," Tong said. "It's a true testament to our training. After all the training, it's gratifying to know that you're going to react the right way in an emergency."
Tong had some scrapes of his own.
When the blast struck, a piece of shrapnel flew by and cut Tong horizontally across the knee. Tong heard the blast and saw the pillar of smoke from the southwest corner. Tong called out the incoming fire and yelled for everyone to get into the trucks. Tong jumped into the back of his MaxxPro mine resistant ambush protected vehicle.
"I got extremely lucky," Tong said."If I would have had my knee another half-inch forward, the shrapnel would have been behind the kneecap."
The blast damaged parts of the fence and MRAP vehicles adjacent to the blast site. Debris and shrapnel broke mirrors and punctured hoses.
"And we had just put that fence up [a couple days] before we got hit too," Cross said. "That fence was brand new."
During the ceremony, Cosentino said that the attack was symbolic of the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan.
"This group went on over 51 combat missions," Cosentino said. "The one place where they took contact was in their own motor pool on Camp Leatherneck. That's the kind of war we're in. It's 365 days a year, 360 degrees."
The attack marked the first time that Camp Leatherneck had been attacked in the last two years. It also served as a reminder of some of their experiences in Iraq in 2008.
"That's what some of us that had been to Iraq were talking about," Cross said. "We were talking about how we had gotten rounds but never had gotten anything that close and when we finally got one here, it was close."
Cross was at Camp Victory, Baghdad, while Tong was in Ballad.
"You could hear the rockets coming in and the dirt falling down from the roof," Tong said. "It was like something out of a World War II movie. But there were plenty of T-Walls, so we got along pretty well."
The group returns to Fort Campbell, Ky., its home station, in the next two weeks. Cross said that he hopes to move into recruiting, while Tong is hoping to continue his career as a warrant officer and wants to fly Apache helicopters.
The platoon was assembled out of multiple batteries of an Air Defense Artillery battalion. Cross said that the members of the platoon were familiar with each other around the battalion, but many of them had little experience working with each other until this deployment.
| Date Taken: | 06.03.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 06.05.2011 05:26 |
| Story ID: | 71614 |
| Location: | CAMP LEATHERNECK, AF |
| Web Views: | 151 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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