Marissa has been an extremely busy young lady the past few days!!! Her Company Commander (Cpt. Matthews) and First Sgt Stearns flew in from Washington on Wednesday. We spent Wednesday evening in the hospital family room having a pizza party and them catching up on everything that happened in Iraq after Riss left and everything about the blast that she didn't already know. I will tell you all the real story in a minute. Yesterday we got ahold of a wheel chair van and brought Riss to Arlington Cemetary to see her team leaders grave site. We visited the Women's Memorial building and saw the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier. On the way back we stopped and had dinner at Red Lobster. She did phenomenal!!! She even went to the bathroom in the restaurant (not something I want to do a lot right now as she definitely still has to be lifted!!). She was pleasantly exhausted when we got back to the hospital but I know for a fact that the day was sooooo good for her for a lot of reasons. It was awesome to meet those guys and can't wait to meet the others that are coming at the end of this week. Dustin and Col Switzer are flying in on Wednesday and staying until Friday. It was amazing for me to sit back and listen to them talk about the work that they did together and to see how much respect they have for her because of the work (prior to the blast).
The incident... They were on a road that runs along side of a canal that is about 30 feet wide with another road on the other side. There were 4 - 1.5k units buried on top of each other (causing double the blast) under the road. They were controlled detonated as the vehicle was over them, blowing up through the center dashboard area of the vehicle. SFC Reynolds was in the front passenger seat, the IP Col behind him. They were blown 150 feet with the passenger door into the 5-6 foot high very thick brush along side the road on one side. The driver, Delgado, was blown to the bank of the opposite side of the canal where he landed with the lower half of his body in the water. The interpreter, behind him was actually in the canal with the turret. Marissa was blown completely out of the turret about 40 feet straight backwards and landed on what was left of the rear hatch of the truck, slumped over her hand weapons that rode on her lap with her. Her 50 mil (big gun) was blown completely across the canal and was recovered up on the edge of the other road. The soldiers in the other two vehicles immediately started to run around and find everyone but with the mess that the blast made, they had actually passed by Riss two or three times before they found her. Velasquez said that once the dust and dirt started to settle he noticed something that didn't blend with the scene and knew it was Strock. The matching tattoo's that she and I got for her 18th birthday was sticking out since her uniform had rode up when she slumped over the metal, that is what made her stick out from the rest of the landscape!!! Once he saw that, he ran toward it and heard her moans. Although she was coherent, she was not at all aware of anything going on or any pain. She fought with them that other people needed more help than she did. It took them almost an hour to find Reynolds and the IP Col, it was actually the Iraqi landowners that found them since they had come out to help secure the scene and do what they could. Reynolds was pronounced dead at the scene, Delgado died on the medivac prior to arriving at the cache. Velasquez and Iapolo are the two that are responsible for saving Marissa by applying tourniquets and CPR. The interpreter made it through with only two broken bones in his leg and a gash on his forehead. Marissa had asked to see pictures of her vehicle but Cpt. Matthews said that he honestly did not know if there were any other than the investigation pics. He said that the charred PIECES of the vehicle were picked up by hand and loaded onto a flatbed. It was so disturbing to look at that he made them tarp it off before bringing it back to the FOB and removed immediately the next morning.
Marissa was medivacced to the Baghdad cache which is where she lost her left foot. Cpt Matthews said that they worked relentlessly to get her stable enough to be flown to Lanstuhl on Friday. The rest, as they say, is history..
There is no way of knowing who detonated the explosive device as the brush along the road was very tall and very thick. The Cpt said that there could have been multiple people rolling around in it without EVER being detected. They do know that the call to recover a body found was in fact a legitimate call, not a ploy to get the IP Col out there.
I am glad that she finally got to hear the truth. Having them sit and talk about it with her was the best thing that could have happened. She is doing fantastic with it all. As you can see by her social life at this point, even the cold hard truth isn't holding her back. Tomorrow I told her that she is going to have a down day to recover from all the activities of the last few days. She was sore tonight by the time she was back in bed. Sunday she has another pass to go to the Malogne house on base for a Superbowl party!!! Oh, by the way.. we sat and had dinner with Dennis Farino tonight at Fran O'Briens in Washington. He has promised her that anytime she comes to Manhattan, she is guaranteed a personal tour of the Law and Order set and area!! She is going to have quite the scrap book by the time all is said and done..
Love to all.... This is a miracle Hugs, Dawn