One Marines Story to be Proud of !

[Mooseman684]

Here is a story from Iraq about the dedication of our soldiers and How one Marine has made a difference, I wish I could post the picture of him Flipping off the Insurgents after what happened to him.....Semper Fi Mike !

Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron
> Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had
> become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the
> Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of
> ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got
> blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had
> killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb
> protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and you get
> tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and
> standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers
> term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft
> wide crater. The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base
> station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his
> 7in knife to probe the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating
> cord between my legs," he says. "That's when I knew I was screwed."
>
> Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35,
> yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent,
> probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his
> mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's
> feet. "A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb
> exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the air I remember thinking,
> 'I don't believe they got me.' I was just ticked off they were
> able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel
> anything from the waist down."
>
> His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt.
> None could believe his legs were still there. "My dad's a Vietnam
> vet who's paralyzed from the waist down," says Sgt Burghardt. "I
> was lying there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next
> to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut
> away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling
> down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in
> business.' As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger
> kicked in. "I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to
> let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher." He
> stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered
> salute. "I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round
> but I'll be back next week'."
>
> Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy
> for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across
> America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in
> Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior
> spirit. Sgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs
> and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have
> earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a
> Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in
> Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against
> insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of
> killing Americans.
>

[Gunnie Ed]

[FutureMarine]

sweeeet

[Shaun]

Sounds like a marine to me

[Trey45]

It's gave me a sense of pride knowing our boys are over there under very harsh conditions, and they havent lost their spirit! Semper Fi Semper Invictus!