Det One - Force Recon Association

“Ops Normal” 59
ing the wall around the target house, the team approached
the entrance and took cover behind a wall
partially masking the doorway. Kingdon crept around
the corner and squared up to the door. He quickly
and quietly placed his charge on the lock side of the
big, heavy wooden door, then withdrew behind the
wall to protect himself from the blast. While doing so,
he thought he heard part of the charge come off the
door, so he went back to check it, and seeing the
charge still in place, drew back again. He announced
over his radio, “breaching, breaching, breaching” and
detonated the charge.
The subsequent blast knocked Kingdon off his
feet, shattered his weapons and gear, and momentarily
stunned the Marines right behind him. Something
had gone wrong with the breach, and although he
did not know what it was, he definitely knew he was
injured. While he was down on the ground, stunned
and wounded, Hospital Corpsman First Class Robert
T. Bryan began to work on him, and the rest of the
assault force initiated the backup breaching procedures.
Master Sergeant Wyrick looked at the door and
the charge and thought at first that it had only partially
detonated, or “low-ordered.” He called for the
secondary breach, which used sledgehammers and a
wrecking tool appropriately called a “hooligan.”
When that approach failed, Wyrick called for a third
method, another explosive charge, which got the
door open. The alternate breaching took only a few
extra seconds, but now the all-important elements of
shock and surprise were gone. 8
Leaping over the prostrate Staff Sergeant Kingdon
or dashing around him, the assaulters burst into the
house and began to flood the interior. Just inside the
entry was a room with an open doorway. Master Sergeant
Wyrick moved down the hallway, past the
doorway, and button-hooked back to clear the inside
of the room, flashing the bright white light attached
to his M4 as he passed to assess the situation. He saw
nothing, but concealed in the shadows of the room
was the target himself, awake, alert, and armed. Shots
rang out from inside the room, and one of the assaulters
shouted, “He’s shooting through the door!”
Wyrick threw in a flash-bang and entered. Right behind
him was Staff Sergeant Glen S. Cederholm, who
saw the armed Iraqi in the corner positioned to shoot
Wyrick and killed him with precise fire from his M4
carbine. 9
Outside the house, casualty evacuation procedures
were in motion. Further examination revealed what
had happened to Staff Sergeant Kingdon. The explosive
leads with the blasting caps and booster charge
had come loose from the main charge and were
coiled up under his M4 carbine, which hung down
on the right side of his chest. When he initiated the
detonation, the blasting caps and booster charge exploded
and also set off a sympathetic detonation of a
flash-bang. The main charges still attached to the door
were unprimed and therefore untouched, leading
Wyrick to think that they only partially functioned.
Kingdon’s body armor shielded most of his torso, but
his unprotected right arm took the full blast.
Lying there while the assault progressed, he heard
Wyrick call for the alternate breach, then saw the assault
teams flood past him into the house. “Doc”
Bryan placed a tourniquet on his arm and that, according
to Kingdon, hurt worse than the blast itself.
He heard the gunshots from the house, then heard
Master Sergeant Keith E. Oakes call for a body bag.
Not knowing that the body bag was for the now-dead
target of the raid, he wondered who it was for. 10
There was also another Marine casualty. Hospital
Corpsman First Class Michael D. Tyrell was hit in the
leg with one round from the burst fired by the target
of the raid. Despite the wound, Tyrell continued with
the mission of clearing the house and even went outside
to assist in treating and evacuating Kingdon.
When he went back into the house to help with the
search, Major Kozeniesky ordered him to stop and be
treated. 11
While the house was being searched, three or four
Marines took Kingdon to the designated casualty
evacuation vehicle to get him to the helicopter. Master
Sergeant Hays B. Harrington, the radio reconnaissance
leader, jumped into the driver’s seat and sped
off to the primary landing zone. He found it unusable,
fouled by wires, and headed for the secondary
zone. The helicopter pilots, seeing another patch of
clear ground that looked better than the secondary
zone, vectored Harrington there instead. The helicopter
flew Kingdon to the Army’s 31st Corps Support
Hospital in Baghdad, where he was immediately
taken into surgery. *
*
Kingdon was sent from Baghdad to Landstuhl, Germany, from
there to Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, and eventually back
to Camp Pendleton. On 24 March 2005 he recounted the details of
the incident to the author. When the blast happened he thought he
had blown his arm off. Two things immediately worried him. Displaying
admirable cool headedness and a keen sense of priorities,
he assessed his own condition: “I had Doc Bryan check to see that
my nuts were okay”—they were—“and then I took my own pulse
just to make sure that I had one.” The wry humor belied what
were very serious, life-threatening injuries: “a nearly severed arm,
a broken artery, a four inch chest compromise, and burns to the
chest and groin area.” HM1 Bryan would receive an award for his
speed and skill in treating him. At the time of his interview, Kingdon
had been promoted to gunnery sergeant, was back on full
duty with Det One, and his arm was working at “98 percent.”