Sgt. Paul Brondhaver Speaks

At church today, I had the honor and privilege of hearing Sgt. Paul Brondhaver speak of his time in Iraq. The following is a news article of Sgt. Brondhaver's experience just days after he came under attack.

300 holes in his body, courage in his heart

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Wounded Guardsman tells of grenade attack

By Reid Forgrave

The 35-year-old's body is riddled with 300 holes. Some are an inch deep and the size of a quarter. Some are tiny pockmarks. Others are the size of grains of pepper.

Four days after shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade rained down on Staff Sgt. Paul Brondhaver in an attack in Iraq, 30 pieces of metal are still lodged in his face. Blood still seeps from the larger wounds in his legs. His body is pumped full of Percocet and morphine for pain and tranquilizers to help him sleep.

Paul Brondhaver has been injured in Iraq and is in a hospital in Germany.

As his nine doctors filter in and out of his hospital room, the Ohio National Guardsman and New Richmond native is learning to read lips. His hearing is at about 50 percent now, and everything sounds like he's in a cave.

Brondhaver is expected back in the United States today for treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He could be there for several months.

But even though the Ohio National Guard staff sergeant is eager to see his wife, Lisa, and their three young children, Brondhaver feels guilty he's not with the other 56 men in the platoon he commanded in Iraq with the Army's 216th Combat Engineer Battalion.

"My heart is still there with my men," Brondhaver said Sunday from his room in the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near the town of Kaiserslautern."If I don't make it back to Iraq, I'll be the first one to welcome the 216th off the plane when they come back to America. I made a promise to see this through to the end."

The attack

On Sunday, Brondhaver told of the harrowing attack last week that killed Pfc. Samuel L. Bowen, a 38-year-old National Guardsman from Cleveland.

"They tried, but they couldn't get me," Brondhaver said. "They got one of my buddies, but I'll see him again some day. He was right with the Lord, so I'll be seeing him in heaven."

Bowen, nicknamed "Smokey," worked as a hotel chef and is survived by four children.

"There's nothing a soldier wouldn't do for another soldier," Brondhaver said. "You would die for each other. I would give my life to save my buddies,' and he did that for me."

Around 2 p.m. local time Wednesday, a vehicle in Brondhaver's convoy broke down in a small village between Balad and Samarra north of Baghdad.

Brondhaver, the commander of a truck equipped with a .50-caliber machine gun, called the lead truck in the convoy to tell him of the vehicle's problems. Brondhaver's part of the convoy assumed a box formation - like circling the wagons - while a mechanic fixed the vehicle. Twelve soldiers stood guard around four vehicles.

The soldiers heard a quick, sharp whistling sound, then - BOOM!

A rocket-propelled grenade exploded, striking Bowen and spraying Brondhaver with shrapnel. Brondhaver and his buddy were thrown 12 feet in the air.

One soldier landed on Brondhaver's legs, obscuring them from his view.

"I thought I was dead," he said.

Paul Brondhaver worked in community service before being called up.

His ears rang like a heart monitor flat-lining. Brondhaver could see soldiers rushing around him, could see their mouths moving, could see them firing weapons, but for 20 seconds he couldn't hear a thing.

When another soldier got to him and offered help, Brondhaver told him he was fine.

Take care of my buddy, Brondhaver said, then crawled back to his Humvee. There, he radioed for reinforcements and called for a Medivac helicopter for himself and the other injured soldiers.

His left leg was lifeless, his left eye shuttered with a piece of shrapnel.

Hanging out the window of the Humvee, Brondhaver fired at the attackers and ordered the machine gunner to lay down suppressive fire.

Then he grabbed the Bible he takes with him everywhere. With bullets spraying around them, Brondhaver's captain quickly joined him to pray for safety.

"We got done praying, and the captain got back to work," Brondhaver said. "God brought me through it."

Within 10 minutes of the attack, a helicopter was rushing Brondhaver to the temporary coalition military base in Balad.

He was losing blood quickly.

Brondhaver told fellow soldiers about a letter to his wife that he left at their base. The letter began, "If you're reading this, I didn't make it home."

"If I didn't make it, I wanted them to be sure my wife gets this letter," he said. "I told them to tell my wife and kids how much I love them. And I told them to tell my wife and kids that if I didn't make it, I did it because I wanted to do it."

He was in surgery within the hour.

After he awoke from his first surgery, doctors asked Brondhaver if he needed anything.

"I didn't know if I was going to make it," Brondhaver said.

His only request: a satellite phone to call Lisa, his wife of 13 years, his high school sweetheart from growing up in New Richmond.

He told her he was a bit injured but alive.

"You hear my voice, don't you?" he said to his wife.

In Germany

Soon after, Brondhaver took a five-hour C-130 flight to Germany. His condition steadily improved throughout the weekend.

He said he was walking well Sunday and was able to take a shower. He got a haircut, and he shaved around the shrapnel bits to look "presentable."

Brondhaver made sure the hospital staff got his thank-you note and a bag of German chocolates before leaving for America today.

He sports a necklace of his favorite Bible verse, Joshua 1:9. He can recite it from memory - "Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

"I'm only alive because God protected me," said Brondhaver, a congregant at the First Baptist Church of Glen Este. "Sometimes that's all we got to go on, the strength of the Lord and the power of the Lord."

He's not sure when he will see his three children, but his wife, Lisa, and his father, Eugene, will be trekking to Washington this week to be with him.

This weekend, Brondhaver spoke with his 10-year-old son, Tanner, for the first time since the attack.

"Daddy, I'm just so proud of you," Tanner told Brondhaver as the father choked up.

"I can't wait to come home and wrestle with my kids on the living room floor," Brondhaver said. "I don't care how much my legs hurt. I'm not sure if I will be the same Paul Brondhaver who left for Iraq, but I know I've learned something. Live every day like it's your last day."

'Rocky' in the mirror

Somehow - even though doctors have told him they're amazed he survived the attack - Brondhaver did not suffer a broken bone. His entire body is black and blue, and Brondhaver says he looks like he got in an alley fight.

"I look in the mirror and I see Rocky Balboa," Brondhaver said, laughing. "It's just like, 'I love you, Adrian!' Except, for me, I'm saying, 'I love you, Lisa!' "

From his eye, surgeons also removed a piece of shrapnel, which did not even scratch the lens of his eye.

But he says his physical pain doesn't compare with the pain of losing a military brother in the 216th out of Hamilton, who were mobilized on Dec. 1, then sent to Iraq in February for a one-year deployment.

Bowen was the unit's first casualty of the Iraq war.

"That was the most pain I've ever felt," Brondhaver said of learning of Bowen's death. "He was friend, a brother, a comrade, a brave soldier. He gave his life to have a better world. For the last six months I've fought a war with the bravest men and women I've ever known. We'd all sacrifice our life for a brother. I want to get back there. I need to get back to Iraq and finish what I started."

Sgt. Brondhaver came to speak complete with a powerpoint presentation comprised mostly of pictures he took of all of the good that our soldiers do abroad.

Children given MRE's, wearing shoes donated by our soldiers, Iraqi police and soldiers that were hugging our men! None of these images appear on the news, but to see them and hear Sgt. Brondhaver's narration was more moving than I could possibly convey to you here.

God Bless our men and women in uniform! Every day that we rise and breathe the free air is because of them!