An attack in Iraq, a changed life

An attack in Iraq, a changed life
A roadside bomb just missed killing a Buffalo Grove native serving as an Army lawyer
Originally published Monday, Jan. 1, 2007

By Nadia Malik
Daily Herald Staff Writer

Quiet had settled over the town Patrick Gilman just left, but in Iraq, quiet means anything but calm.
He and the four others in the Humvee traveling back to a base 20 kilometers north of Baghdad knew the eerie silence wasn't a good omen.
"Everybody in my truck that day had a weird feeling," Gilman, an Army lawyer and captain, said. "Everybody was driving with a bated breath."
That one day in Iraq changed the 29-year-old from Buffalo Grove, but months later, as he's telling the story in his mother's suburban home, he's still not sure how. The scars on his shin and arm will be with him, but only time can show him the other effects.
"Those few hours, the feelings that I had, I try not to forget because I don't want to forget that terror, that horror," Gilman said.
"It certainly had a profound effect."

An odd combination
That September morning, Gilman left his base in Taji for a routine meeting with a tribal leader in a nearby town.
One of his responsibilities during his seven months in the country was brokering settlements with local Iraqis. When the Army raided a house and left damages, the affected Iraqis filed a complaint with him.
On that Saturday, Gilman had handed the town's leader 45 of about 60 recently filed complaints because they needed more information.
The Iraqi leader had aired his own concerns with the civil affairs team, which is responsible for funding the rebuilding of schools and other infrastructure.
Looking back, Gilman said the odd combination of a lawyer traveling with the civil affairs officer - both responsible for handing out money - might have made them an advantageous target.
"There's certainly people who didn't like what we do," Gilman said.
After lunch, about 2:30 p.m., the convoy of four Humvees - with Gilman's truck bringing up the rear - left the last stop of the day and headed back to base.
"The town was usually very busy," Gilman remembers. "It wasn't very late, but the town seemed kind of eerily quiet."
The 130-degree temperature might have kept people indoors, but Gilman, the three soldiers and the translator in his Humvee took it as a portent.
The lack of activity was just the first in a series of odd events.
Also unusual was the absence of cars traveling on the road that runs on the fertile land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
Ask soldiers and they'd rather have cars coming at them than no cars at all, Gilman said. They know that locals are likely warned when an attack is imminent.

A shocking reality
About 10 minutes into the ride back, the engine on Gilman's Humvee died.
The convoy had already been having problems with the radio, and as the truck rolled along in neutral, the distance between it and the other three trucks grew greater.
After some false starts, the driver managed to get the engine back up.
He had just hit the gas to catch up with the others when it happened.
Boom!
To Gilman it sounded like a pop, but it felt as if the Humvee had hit a brick wall at full speed.
Someone waiting on the side of the road had detonated an IED, or improvised explosive device, that had been buried under the concrete of the road.
The pervasive quiet of the day was suddenly filled with noise. The pavement cracked from the explosion, and Gilman heard someone screaming in pain.
All around him, concrete was cascading into the truck through the gunner's hole in the roof.
The gunner himself was dangling from his harness.
Although it happened in a few seconds, Gilman remembers every feeling he had during the blast, including the pure terror.
Knowing that his awareness of the events was a good thing, he kept repeating to himself, You're still OK. You're still OK.
Any time he felt any pain, he thought, You're not dead yet. You're not dead yet.
When the truck landed from the explosion, he immediately checked his arms and legs for any bleeding.
Seeing no immediate problems, Gilman, who was sitting behind the driver, pulled the gunner down into his lap.
Then he didn't know what to do.
"It's funny to think that time doesn't just stop when that happens," he said. "You still have a mission."
A major sitting in the passenger seat, who Gilman said was one of the most fearless soldiers he saw in Iraq, directed him to get the injured driver and gunner out of the car.
"He knew exactly what he was doing," Gilman said.
The passenger's-side door was stuck, and Gilman was the only one able to get out.
Since the explosive had hit just at the front left tire, the driver, the gunner and Gilman felt the brunt of the impact.
"It was actually the best place to hit," Gilman said. "Had we been one foot to the left or one foot forward, we all would have been dead."
Gilman maneuvered out of the truck and put the gunner down under it so he wouldn't be a target if gunfire broke out.
He then ran to the driver's door, which was blocked with a large piece of cement loosened from the road by the impact of the explosives. Gilman moved it and opened the door.
"(The driver) was screaming in pain, and I didn't want to move him," Gilman said.
By that time, the medic traveling with the convoy had reached the scene, and she told Gilman to move the driver. His foot was stuck under the brake, though, and Gilman had to break the pedal to get him out.
A medevac helicopter had been called in, and Gilman and others had to go through the 4-foot-wide and 4-foot-deep hole the explosion created to set up a landing area.
"You couldn't just hop over it; you had to go into it and hop out the other side," he said.
Although his hand was hurt and he could see blood dripping from his face, Gilman refused to get on the helicopter with the driver and gunner.

A lingering remnant
It took nearly five hours to return to base that night.
Although it should have taken 20 minutes, another truck broke down before the convoy could move again.
On the way back, the group ran across Iraqis digging a hole in the road, which led to a round of questioning.
The pain that Gilman had been able to ignore because of the adrenaline boost and constant movement earlier had started to build up.
"I was frustrated by this point," he said.
Gilman finally had his hand and head checked out at the hospital and returned to work late that evening.
It took a night of sleep to let the pain really settle in.
"The next day I couldn't move," he said. "I could barely walk. I felt like a 97-year-old man."
Gilman suffered from constant headaches, he thought because of a concussion. But doctors found a 2-millimeter piece of metal above his left eye weeks later. That remnant of the blast remains.
"They felt it was more high-risk taking it out than leaving it in," Gilman said.
Two long scars also remain on his left hand, and a circle on his left shin marks where shrapnel hit.
Gilman said he's seen other IED explosions - one of the biggest fears for soldiers - but he had never experienced one so close.
"That was the worst IED we had seen; that was the most explosives packed into one IED I had seen," Gilman said.
While always aware that was the reality during his time in Taji, his involvement in an actual incident made the risk that much more real any time he went outside base.
"Nobody really worries about getting shot," he said. "They worry about getting blown up."
The same day, just 3 kilometers from Gilman's convoy, at least five other IEDs went off, hitting five other convoys.
"Generally (people) don't understand. They don't know what the roads are like there," he said. "They don't realize how much activity there is out there."

Fulfilled obligation
About three months after the explosion, Gilman returned home.
Instead of flying into Chicago, however, he stayed in the house he had bought in Texas before his time in Iraq.
"When I got home, I made it clear that I didn't want anybody coming to see me," he said. "I just wanted to go home and be on my own."
Gilman said in a way it was a blessing for him not to have a family that was depending on him to care for them. Not all soldiers have that time to reflect on their tour in Iraq.
"I had a good amount of time to decompress," he said.
The first time he was around a large crowd of people, it took getting used to.
He told his friends about the explosion right away but waited until he was in Kuwait - on his way back home - to tell his mom, Cheryl.
She wasn't sleeping while Gilman was in Iraq as it was, and the knowledge that her son was almost blown up wasn't something he was ready to deliver.
"I see her face when I tell the story; it kind of makes it a lot more difficult," he said.
He hasn't gone into great detail with anyone, mostly because it's hard to comprehend what happened if you haven't been there.
Although the experience was harrowing, Gilman said he still doesn't regret volunteering for the Army stint. He still has two more years in his contract as a lawyer and will be stationed in Texas after his vacation ends.
He hopes to be at Fort Hood for the remainder of his time. Gilman said he feels he's fulfilled an obligation he had weighing on him.
"I was a selfish, spoiled kid from the suburbs," he said. "I felt a need to do something kind of selfless."