- They actually caught the guy
who planted the IED that blew me up.
He was an Iranian weapons expert.
I was in Walter Reed in my room up on Ward 57.
My phone rang and I picked it up and
it was my battalion commander.
And he said, "We got him.
"I said, 'What do you mean we got him?'
He said, "We got him."
He had set off an IED on a convoy
going by within 2 clicks of where I got blown up and
he didn't realize there was a patrol
coming the other direction.
He was under an overpass and they caught him.
They saw him. They caught him.
The interpreter figured out right away he was Iranian.
He had killed --
I don t know the exact number
but I heard anywhere from 10-20 American troops he had killed.
I mean should have, I should have died.
There's so many "what ifs" in my head that I've gone over.
Like if I had been leaning forward a little bit.
If we had been going five miles an hour faster.
I'd be dead.
I wouldn't be sitting here.
But look, tragic things happen every day.
I know why he was there.
He was there for the opposite reason I was there.
I was there to save lives and
bring stability to the country and help the Iraqi people.
He was there to wreak havoc and turmoil and do the opposite.
We both had our mission.
The guy was good at what he did.
Don't get me wrong.
He hit a 12x12 ballistic window at a Humvee
going 35mph down the road.
I'll buy him a beer for hitting that.
He's a warrior just like I am.
I was a warrior.
It's what I did.
You do things that are outside the norm
of what you call civilized society.
That's your job.
Like I said, I'm not going to gloss over that.