Saturday, January 29, 2005

After This, A Bases Loaded Double Play is Nothing

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A Marine in Iraq who is a former SS in the Twins system has survived 9 bomb blasts:

His streak started Aug. 8.
His unit was going to check on a mortar attack when it rolled next to the one bomb and on top of the second.
Marines tended the wounded in what they later realized was a field of undetonated bombs. "We were pretty much walking on top of them," Stevens says.
Bomb No. 2 was on the same run. That bomb was a freezer filled with five 155 mm shells and set off by a detonating cord left on the road. It cost a fellow Marine some fingers.
Bomb No. 3 exploded on a security patrol. It injured a Marine riding in the turret of Stevens' vehicle.
That was October.
"October to Thanksgiving we were pretty much hitting one every time we went out," Stevens says.
Bomb No. 4 hit his vehicle. No wounded.
Bomb No. 5 hit his vehicle, and sheared off a live power line overhead, sending it sparking on top of the neck collar of Stevens' flak jacket. He shows the ripped, burned material. "Two-in-one on that one," he says.
Bomb No. 6 through 9 hit his convoys.
In factory-armored Humvees - the vehicles of choice for patrols - Marines know they can survive all but the biggest bombs and the unluckiest hits. None has been killed in any of the bombings Stevens has survived. "It's not that we laugh about it, but we joke a lot, once we know it's all right," he says.
What saves his life, Stevens doesn't know. He doesn't do anything special. "Just pray. That's all you can do in this place."
What saves his spirits are the Internet and phones, put in not long ago at the Marines' forward operating base. "That way you can call the wife, say it's been an easy day, even though you've just got hit with an IED."


If I was a Class AA team, I'd bring this guy in when he returns. I think a bottom of the ninth, two down, bases loaded situation when your down by three wouldn't faze this guy.

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