DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ
Hawai'i soldier glad to be back with unit after setback

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

KIRKUK, Iraq — It's the kind of military honor Staff Sgt. Christopher Hendry could do without.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Hendry, 35, is back at Forward Operating Base McHenry in Iraq after recovering from a roadside explosion southwest of Kirkuk on Feb. 11. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"I could have gone this whole year without a Purple Heart and I'd have been just fine," said Hendry, whose biggest concern was having to spend several weeks recovering in Germany away from his soldiers. But an SA-2 rocket blowing up on the side of the road will do that to you.

The Feb. 11 "improvised explosive device" southwest of Kirkuk created a crater big enough to swallow the front end of the Bradley fighting vehicle in which the 11-year Army veteran was riding.

"It was about like a really loud firecracker. I just remember hearing the pop and trying to dig stuff out of my eye. It happens fast," said Hendry, who was half out of the vehicle in the gunner's hatch.

Blood was running down his face. He couldn't see. He had a burst eardrum. His weapon had been blown out of his hand.

"It was just a bad day all the way around," said the mega-coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking Texan. He spent several weeks in Landstuhl, Germany, and recently returned to Forward Operating Base McHenry. His vision is actually improved in his injured left eye, he said.

Hendry was itching to get back with his soldiers from 3rd Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment.

"I was irritated (when the bomb went off) because I couldn't return fire, and they were taking us out of the fight," he said. "We hadn't gotten totally settled in here, and I didn't want to leave my men."

Maj. Scott Halstead, the 2nd Brigade adjutant, said getting Hendry back was positive. "From a morale standpoint alone, that's significant, because you are more capable," Halstead said. "When you have a staff sergeant that's gone and comes back, the unit is going to be better led by having him back."

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team has suffered other casualties since most of the Schofield soldiers arrived in Iraq at the beginning of February. Three soldiers were wounded in an ambush March 8 in Kirkuk, representing the largest number of Hawai'i-based soldiers to be injured in a shooting in Iraq.

About eight soldiers have been injured in vehicle accidents, and five now have been wounded by enemy fire, officials said. Another 1-27 soldier, Pfc. Chris Tenayuca, 21, from San Antonio, was shot in the arm during a "cordon and search" in Al Huwijah in mid-February, and now is back in Hawai'i recuperating, officials said.

Hendry was conducting a "left seat, right seat" ride-along on a 4th Infantry Division Bradley to get acquainted with 1-27's mission area. Two soldiers from the Fort Hood, Texas, division also were injured in the roadside blast. Ironically, the Bradley team was working on route clearance — checking for bombs so passing U.S. convoys wouldn't hit them.

"This one we just didn't see because it was put in very, very well," Hendry said. "We didn't see it and we were looking."

He had propped his goggles on his forehead because it had been misting, and the rain and mud was obscuring his vision. After the blast, Hendry remembers thinking, "I have all my digits, I could feel everything, so I'm OK. I'm not dead — that's a plus."

The father of two children ages 3 and 5 had a small piece of shrapnel in his forehead, and still has some debris in his eye. But that will work its way out. Hendry is just glad to be back on full duty.

"This is where I belong," he said. "I ain't dead, I ain't dying, I didn't lose anything. So my place is here. I didn't feel right being (in Germany) when everybody was here. This is my unit."