thedrifter
05-01-06, 12:53 PM
On fire in Iraq
Murchison Marine Donnie Goines barley escapes from burning vehicle
By Art Lawler
As of April 18, 2,378 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq, and another 9,491 had been wounded, many of them severely scarred and immobilized.
Donnie Goines of Murchison is one of the wounded. In some tortured way, it could be said the 22-year-old Marine was lucky. This much is certain, he’d gladly fight alongside his buddies in uniform again, if he could.
To know his story is enough to make outsiders wonder why, but for this fourth-generation Marine, it’s in his genes.
The bright sun and 115-degree day seemed almost beautiful to Donnie Goines as he steered the seven-ton truck, filled with 16 Iraqi soldiers — “the good kind” — along a highway in Iraq, a highway the soldiers call Chicago Road.
It was a 20-mile drive from Camp Fallujah over to O.P. (Observation Point) 4 where the Iraqis were to be deposited.
Donnie had been in Iraq for a month by that Aug. 23, 2005, day. He was starting to settle into a routine, even becoming accustomed to the desert terrain just outside Fallujah — not to be confused with East Texas — as the four-vehicle convoy approached one of those lollipop intersections in the village of Karma.
A second later Donnie Goines was on fire.
The ringing in his ears, the result of an exploded IED (Improvised Explosive Device) felt as if someone had hit him in the back of the head with a two-by-four, diverting, temporarily, his attention from his badly burned hands.
An undetermined number of Iraqis in the back of the truck were already dead, or dying. One Marine, riding next to Donnie, was screaming and rocking his head back and forth from the pain of his own badly burned hands.
And then this:
“I was engulfed in flames, but I drove another 75 to 100 meters in the fire,” Donnie said. “Any good Marine would do it. I was trying to pull it (the truck) out of the kill zone.”
Truth is, the U.S. troops had encountered problems at this intersection in the past. IEDs had been planted and had blown up before, and insurgents were known for waiting on the troops as they came out of burning trucks, picking them off with their artillery in the process.
Donnie discovered the door was crushed on his side of the truck as he reached for his weapon. But the weapon had melted.
Reality got worse by the second.
“I looked at my passenger, and he was not getting out,” Donnie said. “He was just rocking back and forth, yelling that his hands were burned. He was scared to death. My passenger was shell-shocked. No one knows how they’ll react.”
With flames lapping at the skin of both Marines, all that was left for Donnie to do was push his passenger aside, then open his door and push him out.
The young Marine hit the ground running.
Donnie followed — head first — from 4.5 feet up. Still, he didn’t lost consciousness.
He got to his feet and moved a few feet away, looking back, perhaps foolishly, at the truck, thinking at the same time he needed to get away from it before it exploded.
Then, in his shaken condition, he realized the truck had already exploded. When he looked, there was no truck left to explode, anyway.
Donnie took two more steps and collapsed.
Two nearby soldiers carried him to safety and put him in the back of another truck. Only Donnie wasn’t safe. In fact he had no idea how badly he had been injured in the ambush seconds earlier.
“They threw water on me, because I was still on fire,” Donnie remembers. “Aw, that hurt.”
The Medics and Corpsmen from the Marines, went to work on him while he was lying there, first getting an IV into him.
Donnie’s hands, his face and his legs — over 30 percent of his body — was in extreme pain from second and third-degree burns.
“They did field surgery on the spot because he was bleeding out, bleeding internally,” his mother, Denise Goines said.
The main artery to one of Donnie’s kidneys had been severed. His bladder had been lacerated. Donnie needed surgery, and fast, but all they could do was await the arrival of a helicopter to transport him.
An Army captain kept putting his hand on Donnie’s shoulder and telling him to stay awake.
When Donnie started to lose consciousness, the man would open one eye and ask him where he was from, who his mom was, anything to keep him alert.
The captain even told him his mom wouldn’t be happy with him if he had to go home “in a wooden box.”
That seemed to keep him awake. Donnie doesn’t remember much here. It was all he could do to remain conscious, but he does remember this:
“I needed to pee,” he said.
He was still covered in blood but the doctor let him stand up to answer the call of nature.
Only Donnie couldn’t urinate, and when the medics heard this they realized instantly he was suffering from internal injuries.
“I was about scared to death then,” he admits.
The helicopter finally arrived and took him back to Camp Fallujah.
Papers were literally scooped off of a desk in one office, and Donnie was placed on top of it, where the surgery took place.
Donnie survived those critical moments and he was transferred to a hospital in Baghdad for two days, where he was placed on a ventilator, then to Landstul, Germany, the U.S. Military hospital for further recovery.
The surgery was a success, but Donnie was still in critical condition, and a long way from home.
He was alive. For how long was anybody’s guess.
Ellie
Murchison Marine Donnie Goines barley escapes from burning vehicle
By Art Lawler
As of April 18, 2,378 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq, and another 9,491 had been wounded, many of them severely scarred and immobilized.
Donnie Goines of Murchison is one of the wounded. In some tortured way, it could be said the 22-year-old Marine was lucky. This much is certain, he’d gladly fight alongside his buddies in uniform again, if he could.
To know his story is enough to make outsiders wonder why, but for this fourth-generation Marine, it’s in his genes.
The bright sun and 115-degree day seemed almost beautiful to Donnie Goines as he steered the seven-ton truck, filled with 16 Iraqi soldiers — “the good kind” — along a highway in Iraq, a highway the soldiers call Chicago Road.
It was a 20-mile drive from Camp Fallujah over to O.P. (Observation Point) 4 where the Iraqis were to be deposited.
Donnie had been in Iraq for a month by that Aug. 23, 2005, day. He was starting to settle into a routine, even becoming accustomed to the desert terrain just outside Fallujah — not to be confused with East Texas — as the four-vehicle convoy approached one of those lollipop intersections in the village of Karma.
A second later Donnie Goines was on fire.
The ringing in his ears, the result of an exploded IED (Improvised Explosive Device) felt as if someone had hit him in the back of the head with a two-by-four, diverting, temporarily, his attention from his badly burned hands.
An undetermined number of Iraqis in the back of the truck were already dead, or dying. One Marine, riding next to Donnie, was screaming and rocking his head back and forth from the pain of his own badly burned hands.
And then this:
“I was engulfed in flames, but I drove another 75 to 100 meters in the fire,” Donnie said. “Any good Marine would do it. I was trying to pull it (the truck) out of the kill zone.”
Truth is, the U.S. troops had encountered problems at this intersection in the past. IEDs had been planted and had blown up before, and insurgents were known for waiting on the troops as they came out of burning trucks, picking them off with their artillery in the process.
Donnie discovered the door was crushed on his side of the truck as he reached for his weapon. But the weapon had melted.
Reality got worse by the second.
“I looked at my passenger, and he was not getting out,” Donnie said. “He was just rocking back and forth, yelling that his hands were burned. He was scared to death. My passenger was shell-shocked. No one knows how they’ll react.”
With flames lapping at the skin of both Marines, all that was left for Donnie to do was push his passenger aside, then open his door and push him out.
The young Marine hit the ground running.
Donnie followed — head first — from 4.5 feet up. Still, he didn’t lost consciousness.
He got to his feet and moved a few feet away, looking back, perhaps foolishly, at the truck, thinking at the same time he needed to get away from it before it exploded.
Then, in his shaken condition, he realized the truck had already exploded. When he looked, there was no truck left to explode, anyway.
Donnie took two more steps and collapsed.
Two nearby soldiers carried him to safety and put him in the back of another truck. Only Donnie wasn’t safe. In fact he had no idea how badly he had been injured in the ambush seconds earlier.
“They threw water on me, because I was still on fire,” Donnie remembers. “Aw, that hurt.”
The Medics and Corpsmen from the Marines, went to work on him while he was lying there, first getting an IV into him.
Donnie’s hands, his face and his legs — over 30 percent of his body — was in extreme pain from second and third-degree burns.
“They did field surgery on the spot because he was bleeding out, bleeding internally,” his mother, Denise Goines said.
The main artery to one of Donnie’s kidneys had been severed. His bladder had been lacerated. Donnie needed surgery, and fast, but all they could do was await the arrival of a helicopter to transport him.
An Army captain kept putting his hand on Donnie’s shoulder and telling him to stay awake.
When Donnie started to lose consciousness, the man would open one eye and ask him where he was from, who his mom was, anything to keep him alert.
The captain even told him his mom wouldn’t be happy with him if he had to go home “in a wooden box.”
That seemed to keep him awake. Donnie doesn’t remember much here. It was all he could do to remain conscious, but he does remember this:
“I needed to pee,” he said.
He was still covered in blood but the doctor let him stand up to answer the call of nature.
Only Donnie couldn’t urinate, and when the medics heard this they realized instantly he was suffering from internal injuries.
“I was about scared to death then,” he admits.
The helicopter finally arrived and took him back to Camp Fallujah.
Papers were literally scooped off of a desk in one office, and Donnie was placed on top of it, where the surgery took place.
Donnie survived those critical moments and he was transferred to a hospital in Baghdad for two days, where he was placed on a ventilator, then to Landstul, Germany, the U.S. Military hospital for further recovery.
The surgery was a success, but Donnie was still in critical condition, and a long way from home.
He was alive. For how long was anybody’s guess.
Ellie