Woody, USMC/USA, 5 deployments, Drew, USA, 2 deployments
Woody and Drew met at the Reception Battalion for the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, they were in the same Company, Platoon, and Squad. But what drew them together was a common connection, they were both from Missouri, Drew from St. Louis, and Woody from Independence.
Drew: The first deployment is when all this happened. So, I just turned 21. Out in Afghanistan. You can't fucking have anything to drink. Nothing. Dry country.
And-- this is a normal day. We're on an OP (observation post). You know, about a week later after I turned 21.
Woody: We were running the sniper veil. We're fucking digging this trench for a fighting position. And we hear an explosion about-- quarter mile, half mile. Close enough to shake the Striker. That I was sitting in.
And we start doing to move out, we got to do a BDA (battle damage assessment) to make sure, like, maybe some stupid kid tripped it, or car hit or fuck, maybe we're taking indirect fire, whatever.
Drew: Just before the explosion, our BC (Battalion Commander) comes to visit. Fuck, I don't even remember exactly what he said. Something like, “They're going to test you”.
Woody: So, when we were digging the fighting hole, the BC (battalion commander) came for a visit. He came to our little OP (observation post), I guess to say hello or whatever. This was his first time meeting us. So, he comes over to us and we're standing there and we're talking to each other. He's like, “Well, you boys see anything since you've been out here.” We're like, “nope.” And he passes and says, “Don't worry, you will.”
Drew: And that was the day that all this transpired. It's like, well, it could be worse. It could be raining. It's just then the fucking God's open-up.
Yeah, so I (Drew) was a SAW (squad automatic weapon) gunner at the time. He's a grenadier.
We're walking out in a wedge formation. And I think something just kind of kicked in where I was like, you know, something doesn't feel right. I'm going to get my ass chewed for this. I'm like, “Hey, Woody, fucking switch spots with me.” And then before we went up to this graveyard, Woody looked at me to switch, and we did.
So, yeah, we switched. And as we're walking out, you know, it's like… There's an eerie feeling. It's eerie. Like, you know in horror movies, right? Like the chicks running through the woods or whatever and it's quiet. Except I'm not a great, you know, a huge, stacked blonde. I'm a fucking 250-pound man-child.
So, we're walking into this graveyard.
There are cairn stones everywhere, which is insanely beautiful, but weird at the same time. Because you're like, these are buried people. And it's quiet. There's like nothing going on. And it's like you could hear a fucking mouse fart in a church. No wind or anything. Nothing.
Woody: This is like, it's like the weirdest time, where there is even no radio chatter.
Drew: So, yeah, where your butthole's puckered to like to a 10. And it's like you can put a lump of coal up there and out comes a diamond 10.
Woody: It's the middle of the day. It's 2:50 pm at this point.
Drew: Yeah. 2:54 pm at this point. We get there and it's just…, we're doing our BDA. It's the only time I will admit it as a terrible fucking soldier. I got down on a knee to pull security. Everyone will admit it, you know, like, “Oh God, pull security.” Like, no, my fucking back comes first, man. Like, I'm carrying eighty---eighty pounds of gear! A SAW and all that comes with it. So, I got down on my knee.
And as soon as my knee touched the ground, fucking… BOOM.
I'm sitting there, dust cloud in front of me. What was it? Lieutenant fucking... I can't remember his name. It's him in the cloud. And it's not in the cloud. They had walked in between us.
Woody: Because right before that when we got ready to take a knee, I remember I had just the time to scan the ridge line. I looked at Drew and I was like, Hey man, what's up? It's like this much distance between us. And I was like, Hey man, what's up? He's getting his head down. He's like, fuck this. And I was like, whatever. And then by the time I could scan back, I made it maybe three-quarters of the way back. And then that's when the bomb went off.
Drew: Underwood, Lieutenant Underwood. The Underwood. That's him. Oh, fucking yes!!! Lieutenant Underwood and Sergeant McLeod. Because they walked in between us. As they walked in between us, that's when the bomb went off.
Woody: So, he (Drew) took shrapnel, and I took all the concussion and blast.
Drew: Jesus Christ. Yeah. But it was insane because I remember it going off and there being, you know, just the cloud. And it's possible there could have been a secondary. I don't know.
So, we're screaming like indirect. And I'm like, no, if it was indirect like you would hear something, right? Like anything a fucking order to however far they are. You know, there was a village across the way and I'm sitting there. I have my SAW up. So, I'm sitting there like that. Like, what the fuck's going on? I think that's when another one goes.
And it goes and I get hit and I just fall backwards. And I'm just like staring up at the sky and I'm like, oh, fuck man. Here it goes, this is it. I'm going to be on some fucking status list like no one's going to know me don't know my name, know nothing about me, but KIA (killed in action), an Afghanistan number, fucking four hundred and one thousand or whatever. Right.
And looking up and I'm just sitting there like, fuck you. If this is it, like, well, here we go. We are for the ride or not. And just something kicked in. I hear him (Woody) yelling. He's like, oh, shit, Drew. Yeah. And I'm getting back up on my knee. And he comes running over and I'm back up on my knees ready. Like, I'm waiting for like, I don't know, maybe I'm thinking it's like an action movie. So do I like pop-up and Lone Survivors going to happen like 30 years or come run over this fucking hill and I'm going to be, you know, the good guy. Go, go, go, go. No, I get up and I'm like, fuck, dude, I need you to check me, see if I'm bleeding because I'm so like amped up. He's… He was putting his little fucking child hands all over me, checking to see if I was bleeding and if there were any open wounds. And I'm sitting there with the SAW, behind the SAW like behind it. All right. So, fucking.
Oh, my God. This brings in Corporal Briggs, Briggs comes up and then a couple of other dudes like, “Hey, we need to break contact. Riley come with us” and we're going. We get behind this fucking rock and Truchet, Sergeant Truchet is like, “Dude, what happened? I think you got fucking hit with what I don't know”, all I could say was, “My mom's going to be pissed.”
“How’s your mom going to find out, dude?”
“She’s, my mom. She's going to fucking find out anyway. I don't know how it's a mom sense. She'll be like, they know you got hit, didn't you? You got hurt. That's why I told you, you can't play football because you'll get hurt. You'll be hurt, shit, just like that. And they're just like, “Dude, she's not going to find out asshole.” “She will man. She fuckin’ will. I know it.”
And we walked back to the fucking Striker and by then the fucking pain is kicking in like I'm crashing from adrenaline. I'm having a hard time standing up. We get to the truck, take off all my shit, and what was it? Pilgrim?
Oh, the doc. Yeah, it was supposed to be secure, but he was tasked out. So, I think it was Pilgrim or someone else. They came up. They're treating me and Sergeant Brantley took my vest while I was being worked on and fucking pulled the round out.
Yeah, keep it right there. I got it.
It's going to be a hard goal. But keep it right there.
He comes up and you know, while they're bandaging me up. They're putting fucking a bandage or whatever. And he comes up and shakes my hand. He puts it in my palm. He's like, don't let them ever take this from you.
And I look at it. It's hot. It's fucking scorching hot!!! And I wept and I was like. This hunk of metal. It is what could have changed everything.
Woody: And what's crazy is how we know God is real, is if Drew and I never switched places where the round hit him. It would have punched right through me and killed me. And I'm, Is it because of height and width? I mean, 1000 percent.
Drew: When I was in, I was a solid two-twenty. OK, but I was I wasn't built like a brick house, but I had some chomp.
Drew: Yeah, I was a chunky boy. (...) Yeah, I want to be standard. I can run for days, man. Oh, my God. I can run for shit. Y'all are fucking. Oh, shit. I have to change it. Y'all. And what else is crazy is that.
Woody: So, after we got it back, we got back, and they were trying to patch it up and stuff and Bradley gave me around. I remember they were like, Drew, pull your shirt up. And from Drew's elbow, all the way down to his ass was completely purple. Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. So, I don't know if you know about how shooting works, but I'm fortunate to have had the savvy.
There's a bunch of so there's more to this, too.
A second round went through the fucking SAW drum, it cooked off all my SAW rounds on my chest. That's the other party left.
Woody: Yeah. So, as I was running across and come checking because I was like, oh, fuck. So, I was like, Drew, I came running over there. And as we grabbed him, because before we got ready to bow back, his rounds, thank God they were facing outward. But the heat of the round started. He started cooking rounds off.
Oh, my God. It started going off! Yeah, he's going to.
But yeah, before us bounding it cooked the cook those off. Dude, and the way my vest was, in fact was always set up was like this. So, it went through my fucking med kit, broke off my turn to kick, hit the saw drum, cooked those off, and bounced into the plate. Yeah.
And yeah, because when the block when the blast went off, just went up into the right. So, all the concussion went this way. So, I absorbed all the concussion and then all the shrapnel he took his way. So, it was literally just here and over. It was like, check it back, back until oh, my fucking God. And then there was only probably 10 feet between us.
The bomb went off from where I am to probably the edge of your garage door. And it was big. Big.
Drew: So, I get CASVAC, or I get medevac ground evac. Funny enough, my buddy from basic training picks me up. And I remember getting into the Striker. His squad leader team leader was like, hey, man, I need your SAW. I handed the SAW off to him and I don't remember anything else.
My buddy said in the truck, I sat there staring. I just would get like, yeah, yeah, no, one-word answers because that was like, I guess that shell shock that kicked in finally. And I definitely had a concussion. Because they also when they went to give us the MACE test, I remember they asked about the months of the year. And it was I said all I was like January, September, October, like all over the place. Yeah. So put your shirt on inside out. And I put my shirt inside out backward.
But I remember getting to the med station and there's like, fuck, two or three of them all standing outside, and they had a body bag.
And they're sitting there, the ramp drops and they're sitting there. There's the gurney or the fucking stretcher which had a body bag on it my dumb ass walks out.
And I'm like, hey, because that was the other thing when they when they reported the blast, they reported it. But they reported it wrong because they reported to the talk. I guess they thought that we were the other way around like how we were initially because they reported the talk that I was that I got shot. Right. And I was dead. So, our buddy Ian who worked in the operations center thought that I got killed.
And so, and then obviously they corrected it to say, you know, Drew was the one that got hit. I took all the concussion, and he took shrapnel.
So, I walk out of the striker and in like my best horse gump sitting on the boat dog. Hi. And they're just like, who are you? And I'm like, I'm your casualty.
You're the guy that got hit. Yes.
Told him the distance. He's like, how is your brain not fucking jelly? My mom and his raise a stupid boy. What can I say? We're just hard. We're just. Yeah.
It sounds unbelievable, huh? Dude, yeah, I'm still trying to.
You see why we only tell like certain the fucking drum. Yeah. Yeah. It was how didn't you get hit by all those? Those. But still, they did. They drove that got their cover. Yeah.
It's an I did not anything come back. Dumb luck. And it didn't hit anybody in front of him. Yeah. Yeah. Because of our team leader. You still. Yeah. We still had people in front of us in front of us because I came across and he was facing outward. Dumb luck. We're divine.
I have been working on this project for over 10 years now and this was the first time I was able to interview and photograph two Veterans at the same time, who were involved in the same incident. I do my best when it comes to documenting the interview and this time was no different, the above was the story from their mouths, and I was videoing it just so I could remember the story. I was not aware that we had been sitting there for an hour and 20 minutes when the alarm for the video camera sounded letting me know that the battery was dead. So, this is from me, I asked Drew an extremely difficult question and Woody was sitting right next to him, “Did you ever get mad at Woody for trading places in the wedge formation?” It brought both men to attention, whether it was the uncomfortable question for both, the anticipation for the answer, or it was mine the surprise that I had asked such a question. Drew said, “I can definitely answer that question with a, NO!!!