Hard-headed Marine walks away from shot to helmet

Photo By Cpl. Erik Villagran | Cpl. Daniel M. Greenwald an assaultman from Rockland, N.Y. assigned to Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5 points at the spot where an insurgent sniper bullet hit his Kevlar helmet. The helmet prevented the round to cause any serious damage to Greenwald.  

FALLUJAH, IRAQ

09.15.2006

Courtesy Story

I Marine Expeditionary Force

By Lance Cpl. Erik Villagran
Regimental Combat Team 5

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Sept. 15, 2006) -- Cpl. Daniel M. Greenwald knows that being hard headed isn't always a bad thing.

Greenwald, from G Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, was shot in the head by a sniper while conducting vehicle checkpoint operations in the Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He's now an expert at explaining just how good his helmet is.

"I was the greeter on one of the ends of a vehicle checkpoint," said Greenwald, a 24-year-old assaultman from Rockland County, N.Y. "I was doing a double check on my vehicle, turned in and that's when I got shot."

The bullet's impact knocked him out for a short moment. When he woke, he was wondering what sort of 18-wheeled truck just hit him.

"Everything went black," he said. "I knew I got hit with something. It sounded like a grenade or a small improvised explosive device."

Greenwald jumped behind his humvee for cover as soon as he got to his feet. Still dazed from the impact, he radioed his Marines that he was hit.

Marines set up security to block the area they believed the round originated.

"We wanted to make sure he was alright and get him out of there," said Cpl. Daniel J. Kelley, a 25-year-old squad leader from Centerville, Tenn. "The squad reacted well. They set up the cordon automatically."

The squad's hospital corpsman rushed to aid Greenwald.

"When I first got up there I thought he was dead because blood was running down his face," said Navy Seaman Jared D. Condry, a 20-year-old corpsman from Jacksonville, N.C. "Then I started talking to him and he was responsive."

Condry began to assess Greenwald's injury and discovered an inch-long gash on his head. He put a patch on the wound and loaded him into a humvee that transported him to Camp Fallujah.

• Date Taken: 09.15.2006
• Date Posted: 09.20.2006 15:52
• Story ID: 7793
• Location: FALLUJAH, IQ