'10 or 15 guys ... with RPGs'

As Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens sprinted through gunfire toward the lost Bradley fighting vehicle, he realized he had forgotten something.

His armor.

And his weapon.

And possibly his senses.

“Everything was in the vehicle,” he said, chuckling at his own story. “We wear crew helmets inside those vehicles, so I took [the rest] off. … I didn’t really think about it at all.

“I just knew if those guys went too far back into the fight, we’d lose them all. So I just thought about getting to that vehicle.”

Stephens’ unprotected run through the streets of Baqouba could have earned him a trip to a field hospital or worse. Instead, it earned him a Silver Star for his quick thinking and decision to risk his own life to save others.

The 39-year-old guardsman is a Persian Gulf War veteran who moved back to North Carolina and signed up for extra service after his active-duty time ended. He laughs and jokes about dumb moves he made and the injuries that resulted, but he becomes quietly serious when he talks about tragedies that happened or might have happened to his men.

His platoon had been called to Baqouba for a major offensive in June 2004. After completing an eight-hour patrol through the city one morning, his men were called back into the town center to help support another platoon repelling enemy fighters.

Within minutes of their arrival, the company commander, Capt. Christopher Cash, was mortally wounded in a second ambush, and Stephens was left pinned down with 25 men piled into three Bradleys.

“I really thought that day we would lose everybody we had,” he said, his voice starting to drop.

“The attack was really sophisticated. They knew exactly where we’d be, what building to get on, what buildings were reinforced concrete so our weapons would have limited effect on them.”

The platoon was ordered to fall back and secure a bridge. Stephens said he thought any sort of retreat was a mistake, but he ordered the soldiers to their next point.

“When we moved out, I looked on top of one of the buildings … there was probably 10 or 15 guys at the top, with RPGs,” he said. “I told [my guys] to keep firing at them; don’t let any of them pop up.

“[Gunner Spc. Daniel Desens] did everything he could, but they got a lucky shot off.”

An RPG round slammed into their vehicle, sending shrapnel and smoke everywhere. When Stephens recovered, he saw that several of his men were wounded, Desens seriously.

Even worse, one of the Bradleys spun around backward and was driving back into the heart of the fighting.

Stephens dashed from the minimal safety of the makeshift casualty collection point to the wayward transport. The other soldiers quickly saw him, covered his sprint and followed him back to the base of the bridge.

The attacks continued as the platoon tried to treat its injured. Soldiers tried to pull Desens out of his gunner seat from inside the vehicle, but couldn’t. Stephens climbed on top of the transport to pull him out, hearing bullets bounce off the steel around him as he moved.

“While I was on top, another (enemy) vehicle with AK-47 came from under the bridge, and they started to engage me,” he said. “But my guys took them out.”

At that point, Stephens ordered a full retreat back to base to get medical treatment for the wounded.

On the way back, another ambush ensued, and fighters lobbed an RPG into Stephens’ Bradley. The shrapnel ripped into his new gunner’s back, while the explosion burned his hands and face, singeing his eyes shut.

When they arrived back at camp, the platoon received word that Desens and Cash were dead. Seven others from the 25-man unit had to be evacuated out of Iraq for medical treatment.

But the others survived. The second gunner was back in the fight after a few months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

And despite some bad burns and hours of dodging bullets, Stephens was treated by field medics and sent on another mission within hours.

He said the rest of his deployment was quiet compared with that day. But from then on, even during routine patrols, he remembered to keep his armor and his weapon close by.

“My guys stayed on me after that,” he said, laughing again. “They always reminded me to keep the stuff on.”