I don’t know why I didn’t think to write about this one before. Or maybe I did and totally forgot. Anyway, this one’s kinda short but funny.

So no shit there we were in Iraq. Just settled in after a few months and had started hearing rumors we were getting stop-lossed. Lovely. We were mostly on convoy duty from the main base, but our unit was doing rotations through 2 other bases as well to provide manpower and fire support to whoever needed it. Disclaimer: this wasn’t my patrol, but I knew the dude who got shot.

I’m putzing along in the motor pool one day, don’t remember what I was working on, but we got word to spin up the recovery team and be on standby as we might have to roll out because s o m e t h i n g had happened. Except then we never rolled, just sat there for a while.

Naturally, my curiosity kicked in, so I went over to the medic station to pop in and see what the news was. I was friends with most of our medics due to a combination of a couple of them being really into guns and hunting, and the others being really into Halo (which I’d facilitated by building an entire LAN for our battalion so no matter when you could almost always find a few people for some games).

What I found out from our medics: NCO had been shot by a sniper, but they all made it back to base ok hence no rolling out QRF and Recovery. The NCO had been dropped off at the green zone on their way back to our base as the CSH had better facilities for surgery. He ended up getting airlifted back to the states, and that was all I heard about it…till he showed back up a few months later to finish out the deployment with us. Wut.

This is where it turned into one hell of a story. I went to his room when I heard he was back and got this straight from the horse’s mouth, complete with pictures.

Turns out, he’d gotten shot in the leg right as he was getting into the TC seat of the humvee. Somehow, the bullet entered at just the right trajectory to hit him good but missed any arteries, and at first he’d barely noticed. Once they got back, the medics at the CSH didn’t find an exit wound, so they started looking for the bullet. Apparently, the angle was juuuuuust so that the bullet traveled through his leg and pelvis and came to a stop inside his nutsack. Complete with his own disbelief. Since he was on some good meds the doc guided his hand down and let him pinch and roll and feel the bullet in there a little before they put him under for surgery. So yeah. Only person I’ve ever met who can truly say their balls stopped a bullet.

He flew back to the states for rehab and recovery, and many a free drink was had due to him explaining why he was walking with a cane and didn’t appear a day over 35 or so. His favorite method was to simply drop trou in the car to show the bandages and whatnot till the bartender saw it happen a couple times and said drinks were on the house till he recovered but please stop dropping your pants in the bar.

So once he could walk ok again and everything (and had gotten back to where he could get some female TLC around the area, if you know what I mean) he redeployed and came back. If I remember correctly it was about another 4 months left on our tour. I’m sure he’s still got the pics, but sadly I don’t.

And that’s the story of some true balls of steel that stopped a bullet.