Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--William Brooks was steering his Humvee along a gritty, sand-blown stretch of roadway 15 miles south of Baghdad when the Army vehicle suddenly triggered a hidden explosive device.
In the blink of an eye, the young soldier's life was forever altered. He lost both legs above the knees.
"We veered off the road and hit an IED (improvised explosive device) buried beneath the ground," Brooks explained. "I have no recollection of the impact; I was out of it for a week and a half."
The booby trap that spelled disaster for the 23-year-old Mississippi Army National Guard specialist from Southaven was tripped during a routine convoy escort mission along San Juan Road in war-torn Iraq last March 29--just 20 days after his six-year term of enlistment with the 155th Brigade Combat Team was supposed to have expired.
Another Mississippian, Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Rice of Sumrall, was driving a Humvee during a combat mission in Iraq's Al Anbar Province March 18 when his vehicle struck a land mine. The explosion left a heap of twisted metal and mangled body parts entwined along the desert highway west of the Euphrates River.
"I looked down and my left leg, below my knee, was pointing back up at me," said the 21-year-old reservist with Jackson-based Echo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment. "My boot was lying in my lap."
A 2002 graduate of Oak Grove High School, Rice lost his leg below the knee.
Thomas C. "T.C." Rollins was manning a machine gun from his perch on another Humvee on a convoy security run between the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi Feb. 9 when the speeding vehicle swerved onto a gravel road, fishtailed and flipped one and a half times, sending the Marine reservist and some of his fellow soldiers airborne.
"I was thrown about 15 feet," said the 21-year-old Columbus native, who suffered a leg wound from the body-piercing shell of a companion's bouncing M-16 assault rifle, which discharged upon impact.
The bullet severed an artery as it entered the back of Rollins's left thigh, creating a gaping hole as it exited the front part of his leg and leaving a fragment of shattered bone protruding from the wound. His right lung also collapsed and his pelvis was broken in three places as the vehicle landed upside down.
"I'm pretty lucky to be alive," said the 2002 New Hope High School graduate and member of Bessemer, Ala.-based Lima Company, 4th Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment.
All three soldiers have spent the past several months recuperating from their debilitating injuries, and undergoing inpatient and outpatient rehabilitative treatment--Brooks and Rice at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Rollins at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The three Purple Heart recipients were Mississippi State University students before their studies were interrupted by war. Each expressed plans for returning to the Starkville campus and continuing their education just as soon as possible.
Mississippi State President Charles Lee and Dean of Students Mike White recently flew to Washington to visit Brooks and Rice at Walter Reed. White, a Vietnam veteran who helps coordinate the university's continuing contact with its military personnel, said "approximately 130 students" have been called to active military service since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The entire Bulldog family is proud of our many students, alumni and staff who are serving in the armed forces, and we are grateful for the sacrifices that all of them have made," Lee said following the Walter Reed visit.
"We are particularly moved by the courage and optimism demonstrated by those who have been seriously injured in the line of duty," the president added. "The hopes and prayers of the university community are for their speedy recovery and for the safe return of all the men and women who remain in harm's way."
Brooks joined a New Albany military police detachment of the Tupelo-based 155th at age 17, soon after graduating from Southaven High School. "I have a lot of pride in my country and I just wanted to do something special," he said.
After the amputations and surgeries for a broken pelvis, Brooks has spent months in painful rehabilitation. He has been fitted with a prosthetic for his right leg, but was waiting for his broken pelvis to heal completely before using a prosthetic for his left leg.
"I can walk, but it takes a lot out of me," he said during a recent trip home.
Rice's mobile assault platoon was on its way to link up with another infantry unit when the Marines came under attack and Rice's Humvee hit a land mine.
Stunned by the blast but still conscious, Rice said his left leg was "hanging on by tissue" and his right leg was pinned in the wreckage. Three buddies crawled underneath the Humvee, pulled him out and assisted in his medical evacuation.
After field treatment, Rice was transported to U.S. medical facilities in Germany, where his leg was amputated, and then flown back to the states. He was treated initially at the Bethesda facility and then at Walter Reed, which specializes in prosthetics.
"I was in the intensive care unit for four days after getting back to the U.S.," he said. "I was hallucinating because of the drugs in my system. I thought people in my hospital room were trying to kill me. I thought my bed was a Humvee."
Now on the road to recovery with the aid of a prosthetic, Rice is walking, and is even doing some mountain biking. He and wife Kelly both hope to re-enroll at MSU, where Aaron is a John C. Stennis Scholar in Political Science.
Back in the states at Bethesda, T.C. Rollins estimates he has undergone "more than 20 surgeries" on his bullet-shattered leg, broken pelvis and injured areas of his chest. Pins were inserted into his leg to hold the thigh bone in place, an artery has been reconnected, a screw has been placed in his back to stabilize his pelvis, muscle has been removed for skin grafts, and one knee will not bend because of torn ligaments.
A junior in banking and finance, he plans to return to his studies at MSU. Also, despite his bad luck on the battlefield, Rollins intends to stay in the Marine Corps.
"I wouldn't change anything I've done, except maybe tell the driver of that Humvee to slow down before making the turn," Rollins said. "I'm very supportive of the war. I'd rather go and fight terrorists in Iraq than have my girlfriend and my mom dodging bombs here in the United States."
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dean White at (662) 325-3611 or mike@saffairs.msstate.edu.