'He said I had a good Humvee-side manner'

Charity Trueblood still has nightmares about the ambush, and all of the blood as she tried to close up the contractor’s wound.

She said that’s a curse and an inspiration.

“It’s a bad thing because I haven’t learned to deal with it fully yet,” said Trueblood, who has left the Air Force and is now living in Wyoming. “But it’s a good thing because I know what I can do now.

“I know what I can accomplish, I know what I want to do in life … I know it made me a stronger person.”

Trueblood, 22, earned a Bronze Star with “V” for her actions during that attack during a convoy mission outside Balad, Iraq, 18 months ago.

The airman first class was driving an up-armored Humvee near the middle of the 30-vehicle convoy when the lead vehicle spotted what looked like a roadside bomb.

Her unit had encountered snipers and bombs in the area in the past and anticipated a possible ambush. When shots rang out from the darkness as they slowed to examine the bomb, they reacted instantly.

“You just go,” she said. “As soon as the attack starts, you return fire and get out of their range. I moved the [Humvee] towards the side of fire to block the unarmored ones, but we all started moving.”

Two of the contractors’ trucks she was trying to shield were riddled with bullets as they sped away. Trueblood said the first had a tire blown out, sending sparks across the asphalt as the vehicle bounced down the highway on a rim.

The second truck caught on fire after being hit, and the troops forced it to a stop as soon as they got out of the shooters’ range. When they opened the truck door they found that the shooters had also hit the driver, contractor Robert Martin.

Her crew pulled him from the burning car, threw him on the hood of the tightly packed Humvee, and crept away from the growing fireball.

“We wanted to get out of there so no one would get hurt in the fire, but you can’t drive too fast or stop too fast when someone is holding onto the hood,” she said. “You have to be pretty careful.”

Once out of the flames’ reach, Trueblood jumped out of the car with the first aid kit to treat the contractor. The wound was worse than they had thought.

“He had a through-and-through gunshot wound: It entered in his right arm, completely missed bone and came out between his shoulder blade and his spine,” she said.

“When we got back, the guys asked what I did to the Humvee, because there was blood all over it.”

Trueblood, a combat lifesaver, frantically packed his arm and back with gauze as others radioed back for a helicopter. She said she barely remembers what she was doing as she tried to stop the bleeding.

“You react,” she said. “When something happens, at least in my case, you react, and you deal with it later.”

A few minutes later, the contractor was in the air and headed back to base. Trueblood was left to her normal duties, shaking and wondering if he’d live.

She got her answer a few days later. After recovering from his wounds, Martin found Trueblood’s commander and asked if he could thank her in person.

“He said I had a good Humvee-side manner,” said Trueblood, who was promoted to senior airman after her efforts that day.

The two still e-mail occasionally; he is still working in Iraq, while a recurring back injury cut short Trueblood’s Air Force career.

Now she wants go into medicine, and plans on heading back to school next fall for a nursing degree.

“I actually had started an EMT class before I deployed,” she said. “But I didn’t think I’d be good at it. Now …

“I’ve always wanted to help people. I just didn’t know how.”