#How 3 US soldiers survived staring into the face of death

Many Americans value the heroism of our troops during WWII and understand the horrors they faced in Vietnam. 

But front-line experiences during the country’s modern era of conflict are less known. 

James Patterson’s new book, “Walk in My Combat Boots” (Little, Brown), out now, provides 45 first-person accounts from service members of all stripes, young and old, men and women, infantry to high command, from the 1990s through today. 

Compiled with the help of ex-Army Ranger Matt Eversmann and novelist Chris Mooney, Patterson’s collection reminds us that the military’s legacy of dedication carries on. 

But also of the terrible toll on those who fight for their country. Here are three of those stories.

‘I lost my foot, ankle and half my intestines’ 

Greg Stube, a Green Beret medic and instructor, trained students to treat combat injuries, then saw his charges off to war in Afghanistan. In 2006, he joined the fight, volunteering for Operation Medusa in the Panjwai Valley, where his unit’s job was to “flush out the bad guys” — a stronghold of enemy fighters on a hill called Sperwan Ghar, near the Taliban birthplace. Here, he reveals what happened on day five of that conflict… 

Ten guys start to fight their way up to the hilltop. When they get to the other side of it, one of our Afghani counterparts steps on a mine. It blows off one of his legs and puts some holes in his chest. 

As I work to get him packaged up to be evacuated I hear the voices in my headset growing more urgent. The gunfire suddenly gets even crazier. It seems as though our ten guys are about to be overrun. 

I’m ordered to get in the weapons truck, with its heavy machine gun, and drive it up to the top of the hill to provide covering fire so our guys can withdraw. 

I manage to get to the truck. I drive up the hill. There’s an explosion. 

I’m blown up, burned, and shot in a matter of moments. 

Yet I’m still conscious, so I can see what’s happened. I’ve lost half of my intestines. My right foot and ankle are missing, and I have major burns all over my body. 

A bunch of guys rush over to me. One of them is a medic — a guy I flunked in one of the courses I taught. His name is Riley Stevens, and he had to go all the way back through school a second time. 

I haven’t been face-to-face with him since flunking him way back when. 

“Hey,” I say, my voice weak. “No hard feelings, right?” 

I watch him go to work on me. 

“A remotely detonated IED got you,” he says. “I’ve called in a medevac.” 

Two choppers arrive to clear the area for the medevac. They’re immediately attacked by rocket-propelled grenades. Luckily, they miss, but the choppers have to retreat because the fighting is too intense. It’s too risky for them to stay. 

An hour later, another pair of choppers — two Apaches — fly in and, like angry wasps, attack the bad guys. They work so hard — and risk so much — to kill them all. 

Later, I’ll be told that these two brave Apache pilots, upon hearing that a Green Beret was down, decided to do whatever it took to wipe out the enemy. 

Two hours from when I’m injured, I’m on a medevac. Behind the haze of morphine, before I go unconscious, my thoughts shift back to Riley Stevens, the man who just saved my life. 

When I lay wounded on the battlefield and my teammates approached me to help, my first thought was, “There’s no way these chuckleheads can save my life. They have no idea how to deal with this kind of trauma. And whose fault was that? It was mine.” 

I wasn’t able to see the greatness in Riley until there was something in it for me. That greatness was in him the whole time. I could have mentored him better. I could have brought him closer instead of stiff-arming him away, just allowing him to fail. 

Later on, he’ll be killed in Afghanistan. 

I’m unconscious when I arrive at Kandahar. 

Once the surgeons stabilize me, they spend 18 hours doing vascular surgery to reattach my foot and ankle. Most of my intestines are already gone, but they manage to put my abdomen back together. I have to wear a colostomy bag. 

Thirty percent of my body, I’m told, is covered with third-degree burns. 

When the IED went off, the doctors explain, it pushed diesel fuel and rocket propellant and other stuff into me, and it just continued to burn, burn, burn. 

Because of the intestinal loss, I can’t control my bowels. I have yellow diarrhea constantly running into my third-degree burns. Anywhere between 15 to 20 times a day I have people I don’t know coming into the room to wipe my ass for me. 

These people take care of me in ways I’ve never taken care of anyone else. They say it’s their job, but I can see the genuine love and compassion in their actions. The one thing people always told me to do was never surrender. 

But I have to surrender to this kind of service, to this kind of love and compassion, if I’m going to make it. 

‘I was Saddam Hussein’s dentist’ 

Ron Silverman, a brigadier general who started his career as a dentist, was stationed at Camp Victory, Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad palace that the US Army turned into its headquarters, after an Iraqi court convicted the captured strongman of crimes against humanity. When Hussein cracked a tooth, Silverman says he jumped at the chance to treat him personally in 2006… 

“Hello,” Saddam says. 

I’m surprised at how short he is — 5’8”, maybe. He’s well groomed and holding a Quran. 

Fortunately, I know a little Arabic, and it’s clear he knows English. 

He starts talking about the history of the Middle East, how Iraq was won, the king before him. It’s not so much a discussion as a lecture. 

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, my major was ancient history. I know a lot about the Middle East. When Saddam says something that’s wrong, I tell him he’s wrong. 

“How do you know?” he asks. 

“I studied this stuff.” He realizes I know what I’m talking about and stops lecturing me. 

“You have a mistress?” he asks. 

“I’m married.” 

“You’re too happy,” he says. “You must have a mistress someplace.” 

“I don’t.” 

“When I get out of here, I’m going to get myself a new wife, another wife. A younger one.” 

“What’s with the Quran?” I ask. “You’re not religious.” 

“Yeah, I know. But it’s good for show.” 

The next day we meet, Saddam blurts out, “Do you think I killed a lot of people?” 

“Yes, you did.” 

He pauses for a moment. 

“You’re right, I did,” he says. “But if you want to control this country, you have to kill a lot of people.” 

I ask him, “What’s the story about weapons of mass destruction?” 

“I wanted them.” 

“Did you get them?” 

“No.” 

“So why did you kind of lead everybody on that you had weapons of mass destruction?” 

“Well, that was for the Iranians. I never thought you, the Americans, would believe it.” 

It’s the last conversation I have with him. He doesn’t come back for the next appointment because the Iraqis hang him.

‘I brought soldiers home to die’ 

Jodi Michelle Pritchard, an Air Force flight nurse, tells how she was sent to Iraq in 2003 to care for injured service members as they were flown from the battlefield…

I have my personal bag with me. It contains my death letter, my final message to my loved ones. I hope to God I don’t need it. We’re flying to Baghdad to collect our patients: wounded soldiers, children, even prisoners. 

“Gunfire, eleven o’clock.” I can hear it, the gunfire happening outside. The plane is spiraling — Bam, we’re on the ground, pulling back the engines. 

We load the patients and take off. Ten of our twenty patients are on stretchers — some of them are all shot up, and some have lost limbs. 

One soldier is missing half of his face. He looks up at me and says, “Ma’am, I need to know when this plane’s going to land. I need to know when I can get back to Iraq.” Ninety-nine percent of our patients want to go back to the battlefield. Even the ones going home to die. 

That same year, our commander explains our next mission. 

“We have three patients who are pretty sick. They’re going home to die. You need to keep them alive until you get to Walter Reed.” 

We arrive at the hospital, get our patients sorted out inside, and return to the bus to retrieve our equipment. 

I feel a tug on my flight suit. I turn and see a little girl with curly hair. She’s 5, maybe 6. I also notice a frantic woman standing directly behind her. 

“Is this your mom?” I ask the girl. 

She nods. “Did you bring my daddy home?” 

I get down on one knee. “What’s your daddy’s name, sweetheart?” 

She tells me. 

Her father is one of the patients I brought home to die. 

“I did,” I say, feeling sick all over. 

“Is he OK?” 

I glance at the woman. It’s obvious she hasn’t seen her husband yet but is fully aware of his grave condition. 

“Can I see him?” the girl asks me. “Can I tell him I love him?” 

“Sweetheart,” I say, “you’ll be able to go in to see him soon.” 

And then I lose it. The woman does, too. I can’t confirm the girl was able to see her father again. Whatever happened, I know I’ll carry this moment with me for the rest of my life.