Melissa was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army in May 2002, after which she received training as a transportation officer. She was deployed to Iraq in March 2004 and found out right away that a transportation officer’s job is a tough one.
The roads in and out of Baghdad are mean – loaded with homemade bombs. One of those weapons took out First Lieutenant Stockwell’s vehicle as she led a convoy along those treacherous roads. The blast threw the vehicle into a swerve. It slammed into a guardrail and crashed into a house.
There was a lot of blood. A medic put a tourniquet on Melissa’s leg, but she didn’t yet know her leg was gone. She got that news when she woke up in a hospital and talked with her husbandm who was also a soldier stationed in another part of Baghdad.
It was a tough moment, but self pity never entered this young officer’s mind. Her thoughts went straight to the troops under her command. She was grateful that she was the one who was wounded, not one of the soldiers for whom she was responsible.
Melissa was glad her husband, Dick, was there for her at that moment, and they made an immediate decision: “Let’s get on with this, and on with life.”
The roads in and out of Baghdad are mean – loaded with homemade bombs. One of those weapons took out First Lieutenant Stockwell’s vehicle as she led a convoy along those treacherous roads. The blast threw the vehicle into a swerve. It slammed into a guardrail and crashed into a house.
There was a lot of blood. A medic put a tourniquet on Melissa’s leg, but she didn’t yet know her leg was gone. She got that news when she woke up in a hospital and talked with her husbandm who was also a soldier stationed in another part of Baghdad.
It was a tough moment, but self pity never entered this young officer’s mind. Her thoughts went straight to the troops under her command. She was grateful that she was the one who was wounded, not one of the soldiers for whom she was responsible.
Melissa was glad her husband, Dick, was there for her at that moment, and they made an immediate decision: “Let’s get on with this, and on with life.”
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