Spc. Dustin Perry1/34 BCT Public AffairsBALAD — “Watch any war movie,” said Spc. James Black, “and you always see some crazy and brave guy with a red cross on his arm doing the impossible to save his brothers – that is what people come to expect from combat medics.”
Black, a 23-year-old student from Weatherford, Okla., didn’t have a red cross on his arm Sept. 4, 2006, nor does he consider what he did that day to be crazy or brave. It was just his job.
The mission was to escort supply trucks to an Army base in northern Iraq. Black, then attached to the B Troop of the Lincoln, Neb.-based 1st Squadron, 167th Cavalry Regiment, was the convoy’s medic, driving in the middle Humvee as the group returned to Balad.
They were on the road for about a half hour when Black saw a flash followed by a large fireball and a loud boom, he said. An improvised explosive device concealed in the median of the highway had detonated as the scout vehicle, ahead of the rest of the convoy, drove by it. A written report said the vehicle spun several times and immediately burst into flames.
(PHOTO: Spc. James Black, a combat medic formerly attached to the Lincoln, Neb.-based 1st Squadron, 167th Cavalry Regiment, poses for a photo while preparing for a convoy mission. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army.)
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