RIP
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10764950.htm?1c
Despite wound, medic fought to return to Iraq
By Ken Dilanian
Inquirer Staff Writer
BAGHDAD - Taylor Burk's friends here in Iraq told him over and over: Don't come back. You've bled enough for your country. You've got nothing to prove.
But the 21-year-old medic from Amarillo, Texas, couldn't stand to be away from his brothers in arms. So, even though the gunshot wound he sustained while saving another soldier's life made walking painful sometimes, he pushed to leave Fort Hood in Texas and return to his unit. And when he got back to Iraq, he finagled his way out of a headquarters job and into a frontline company.
Spec. Burk died Wednesday after a powerful roadside bomb exploded next to the armored humvee he was driving in southwest Baghdad.
Soldiers were told that a small piece of shrapnel ripped into him under the collarbone, severing major blood vessels. Two other soldiers were wounded - one hit in the head by shrapnel, the other suffering a broken arm. They had been on the way back to base from a routine patrol.
Happening as it did on the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Iraq - a day when a helicopter crash killed 30 Marines and one sailor - Burk's death merited barely a mention in news reports. But for the soldiers of his battalion, it was shattering. Several - hard men, men trained not to let their emotions get in the way of their jobs - cried when they heard.
"We've got people who made it their mission not to leave this" base, said Burk's squad leader, Sgt. Andrew Wintz, 40, a native of Brooklyn. "We've got people who went home on leave and never came back. He took a bullet and he came back."
Wintz added: "I want people to know that he was proud of what he did. He was proud of being a combat medic."
He was good at it, too. On April 4, during one of his first missions in Baghdad with Charlie Company, First Battalion, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, which is part of the First Cavalry Division, a soldier in his humvee, Pvt. Joseph Bridges, was shot in the face and thigh during a five-hour firefight against more than 100 insurgents.
The thigh wound was life-threatening because it hit an artery. Burk began to tie a tourniquet around it when he was hit by a rifle round that took a chunk out of his heel.
He kept treating his patient all the way to the combat hospital.
Bridges made it, and is now in the United States.
Burk also was sent home to recover. For his actions that night, he was awarded a Bronze Star; for his wound, he received a Purple Heart. When he was well enough to work, he was sent to his unit's base at Fort Hood, where he was given a rear detachment job.
He spent a lot of time chatting online with his buddies in Iraq. Almost immediately, he began pushing to get back to Baghdad.
"He said, 'Hey, I didn't join the Army to cut grass,' " Wintz said. " 'I joined the Army to be a combat medic.' "
When he returned to Iraq, he was given a job at battalion headquarters, a job that didn't require him to leave the base often. That didn't suit him.
When a medic was wounded from Alpha Company, he begged to take that spot. He knew it would mean near-daily patrols into Baghdad's Doura district, where roadside bombs and gunshot attacks are routine.
"I would tell him all the time, you're a better man than me," said his roommate, Spec. Lamart Brown, 21, of Goldsboro, N.C.
Indeed, most of his fellow soldiers disagreed with his decision to come back. But they were glad to have him around.
"When he came into the room, even if he was in a bad mood, he'd have you laughing and joking around," said a close friend, Pvt. Kirk Kelley, 24, of Nacogdoches, Texas.
Burk was a little nervous in his first few missions after returning, but he settled quickly into the routine, soldiers said. He didn't have occasion to treat another wounded American, but he treated plenty of Iraqis, they added. Army field medics in Iraq are constantly beseeched by ailing civilians who can't find help in Iraq's decrepit health-care system.
Like many soldiers, he wasn't sure whether the American mission in Iraq was succeeding, friends said. What he knew was that he wanted to be there to help his comrades.
He was driving the third in a three-vehicle convoy when the bomb, a 155mm artillery shell, exploded. Soldiers were told it was unclear how the shell was detonated. The convoy was carrying a device designed to jam radio-detonated bombs, but the machines are not foolproof. Neither is the armor on even the most heavily armored humvees, as Burk's was.
Two nights before he died, he was sitting with a group of medics who were planning a post-deployment adventure. The unit is scheduled to leave Iraq in a month.
"He was talking about how he'd never been hunting, and we were talking about doing that when we got back," said Sgt. Bryan Hayes, 32, of Haughton, La.
Hayes shook his head, eyes downcast.
"There's so much you could say about him. He was a great guy."
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