Memoirs of an Outlaw: Life in the Sandbox

Chapter 16: Tattoo

The Outlaws’ first significant casualty happened only a few weeks into our deployment. Not belittling the injuries that FirstLieutenant Nunnally sustained, but the wounds he took were minor in comparison to what others endured. I wasn’t present when the incident occurred, but I was able to see some footage of the firefight as well as hear many of the stories that were brought back that day, and believe me, it’s definitely a great story to tell.

On April 8, 2004, Blue Platoon (Third) was conducting an escort mission for an Army truck platoon. They had to escort a bunch of vehicles from Taji Airfield base to Camp Fallujah. It seemed like any other mission: one hell of a long, boring road patrol escorting vehicles from one point to another. That particular day, as the convoy was traveling west toward Camp Fallujah, a few civilian eighteen-wheelers had stopped because something happened to be blocking the road. Blue 2, the lead vehicle of the convoy, pushed forward to assist the civilians in removing the obstacle. As soon as he got close, insurgents appeared from nowhere and ambushed the vehicles, peppering them with RPGs and gunfire.

As most of the civilians did when they encountered an ambush, they tried to flee rather than stick around for the fight. Sure, they may not have had the firepower to do anything, but more often than not, they do more damage when they flee than if they just stay put. And, of course, they did damage. The drivers of the eighteen-wheelers jumped back up into their rigs and tried to back up and hightail it out of there. But due to the small amount of room to maneuver and the constant barrage of enemy fire, two of the rigs jackknifed, two others were disabled by the gunfire, and an LVS (a flatbed-type military truck used for hauling equipment and vehicles) took a round into its gas tank, totally disabling it. The drivers jumped out and headed for cover while Blue Platoon began to engage the insurgents. Unfortunately, this cut off Blue 2 from the rest of the platoon.

Sergeant Callendar, a medium height, no-nonsense kind of guy and the vehicle commander of Blue 2, immediately took charge of the situation and had his scouts engage the insurgents that were encroaching. I still remember seeing some of that footage, and I could hear the scouts screaming out, “Get some” and having a hell of a good time. You could even hear Lance Corporal Wheeler with his thick Boston accent screaming “Eat that!” as he shot round after round at the enemy’s position. I got an adrenaline rush just hearing it. Sergeant Callendar then had his gunner, Corporal Bradley Swenson, focus on taking out the RPG positions with the LAV 25 mm Bushmaster gun. While Swenson was blasting away at the RPG teams, Callendar popped out of his hatch and started picking off insurgents with his 240G pintle-mounted machine gun. At one point, he took some shrapnel to his hand, but it barely fazed him, the adrenaline was pumping too hard, and the last thing he needed to focus on was a small flesh wound.

Meanwhile, the rest of the platoon had come under fire. Second Lieutenant Rowell’s vehicle, Blue 1, started to come under attack from both sides of the road. Callendar had his scouts provide cover for Rowell while Rowell’s scouts engaged the insurgents who were trying to trap them.

A little over halfway through the firefight, a quick reaction force (QRF) of M1A1 tanks was sent out to assist Blue Platoon in defeating the insurgents. The tanks started blasting away at the insurgents' positions. Each time a round fired out of one of those beasts, you’d hear a big boom, and a short distance away someone or something was decimated. Callendar took this as an opportunity to get the drivers of the eighteen-wheelers back into their vehicles so they could get them out of the kill zone. The insurgents must have seen this happening because as soon as the big rigs began to move, several RPGs were fired all at once, spraying the LAVs and tanks with shrapnel. Just like before, Callendar and the rest of Blue Platoon engaged the insurgents, trying their best to subdue them while the civilians made their exit. Two of the rigs were able to head back in the direction they had come from, but there were still two disabled vehicles. Blue Platoon and the tank platoon surrounded the disabled vehicles waiting for additional support to take the disabled trucks away. This was when disaster struck.

Sergeant Callendar, still fighting off insurgents with his 240G machine gun and with his body half exposed, was struck by a 7.62 mm round on the right side of his chest. Somehow the bullet managed to hit the exact spot where there was no protection from the vest, and the bullet went clear through his chest, coming out the other side and lodging into the back of his vest. Callendar spit up blood, and it began to drool from his mouth, dripping from his chin. Wiping it away, he called over to Rowell that he had been hit and was spitting up blood. Rowell instructed him to maneuver his vehicle so he could meet up with the corpsman, Doc Ferguson, to receive first aid.

Callendar finally got his vehicle into position and slowly got out of his turret. He climbed down to the side of the LAV, and Ferguson began to strip him down so he could attend to the wound.

This next part will forever stick with me and will attest to how bad-ass Callendar was. With blood coming out of the side of his mouth and having one hell of a hard time breathing, Callendar calmly started asking Ferguson questions.

“Doc, did the bullet exit my body?” Callendar asked between breaths.   

“Yeah, it came out of your lower back,” Doc calmly said.

“Did it go through my tattoo? I’m gonna be fucking pissed if it did.”  No care in the world for his life, all he wanted to do was make sure that the tattoo dedicated to his wife wasn’t desecrated. Awesome.

“No man, it’s fine,” Ferguson responded with a chuckle.

Callendar started to feel a bit of the pain and noticed his breaths were becoming a bit harder to take.

“Doc, did it do any damage to my lungs?” Callendar asked.

Ferguson was hesitant to answer.  He didn’t want to say anything that wasn’t true nor did he want to freak Callendar out.

“Listen Doc, I think it punctured my lung.  It kinda feels like it.  What do you honestly think?”

“Yeah, I think it might have done some damage,” Ferguson said with obvious concern in his eyes.  “Wheeler,” Ferguson turned and yelled over the ongoing commotion “come over here and talk to Sergeant Callendar.  I don’t need him to go into shock.”

Lance Corporal Jason Wheeler who had been videotaping some of the events of the day came running over and started nervously talking.  “It’s friggin’ hot out here.  I can’t wait to get home where the weather…” Wheeler started to say in his thick Boston accent.

Callendar quickly interrupted him. “Stop talking to me about bullshit, Wheeler. Let’s talk about something normal.” Wheeler quickly pulled himself together and collected his thoughts. “Sorry Sergeant,” he said, “it was the first thing that came to mind. So, you and your wife figure out what you’re gonna name the baby when he’s born?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere and took Callendar by surprise. The whole time he was worrying about his Marines, he never once thought about the little baby boy his wife and he were expecting.

“No, we haven’t really figured it out yet,” Callendar responded, still trying to grasp the concept that if he didn’t live through this, his little boy would be fatherless.

Fortunately, the bullet did not take Callendar’s life. When a medivac arrived at the scene a few minutes later, Callendar stood up on his own will and slowly, with some help from his fellow Outlaws, walked to the helicopter. He was later taken back to the States to receive the proper care he needed and received a Bronze Star for his efforts. He damn well deserved it too. Watching the whole scene unfold on the video was motivating as hell. Seeing how Callendar handled it in such a calm way was inspiring. I’m truly glad he was able to make it through. Thankfully, his tattoo made it through in one piece too. The only thing worse than a crazed-up, suicidal insurgent is a pissed-off wife.