US Soldier Saves Base from Bombing

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported June 12, 2007, about an alert soldier in Iraq.

Soldiers of a 10th Mountain Division battalion, deep in the heart of Iraq’s bloodiest region, are alive and well today because one young soldier from Norwood was on lookout Sunday afternoon.

Spc. Brandon Rork, a 24-year-old 2002 graduate of Norwood High School, was on guard atop Patrol Base Warrior Keep on Sunday, manning a 240 Bravo machine gun and keeping a lookout for danger.

What he found could have reduced Patrol Base Warrior Keep to rubble and left dozens, possibly hundreds, of his fellow soldiers in the 2-14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, dead on the ground.

“We have some trucks drive by every day, but this was different,’’ Rork said in a phone interview from Iraq. “I knew right away there was something wrong.”

What he saw, perched in his guard post with Spc. Charles Osgood, a soldier from Virginia, was a heavily-laden dump truck, its load covered with tarpaulins, make a sharp turn toward the perimeter of the base, toward the gate of the base at Sadr Al-Yusifiyah, about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad.

Rork and Osgood opened fire.

“At first I was concentrating fire on the engine block, but once I saw it was inside the gate, I started shooting into the cab,’’ said Rork, who joined the Army about three years ago. “We must have fired about 100 rounds into the cab.”

The truck stopped; and Rork reported to the unit’s command post via radio. Osgood, Rork said, approached the dump truck and yelled out to him that the driver was behind the truck. Both soldiers fired; and the driver went down, wounded in the leg.

When they pulled the driver off the ground, they found that he had a 15-pound bomb strapped to his chest. Osgood, Rork said, got the vest off the man and, soon, a medical evacuation helicopter came to take the Iraqi out of the base for treatment. But what the soldiers found in the truck was more frightening still. It was loaded with 8,000 pounds – four tons – of explosive ordnance.

“It would have leveled this base,’’ Rork said. “There would have been nothing left.”

Kudos to Rork and Osgood.

Boos and hisses to the mainstream media, which ignored this story. A quick Google search revealed the only media that picked up the story when it was released by the military were the local outlets where Rork and Osgood are from, and the New York outlet near Fort Drum, where these soldiers are based. That's it, besides the blogs.

But you can bet that if these two soldiers weren't alert, and the terrorists accomplished their mission, the MSM would have led with the story of the bombing. Because, according to them and their ilk in Congress, we're losing the war. It's disgusting.

Still, I don't want to end on a sour note, so I'll let Rork have the last word (emphasis added):

Since the incident Sunday, Rork said, his fellow soldiers of the 2-14th have been coming up to him “just overwhelmed with thanks. It makes me feel good.”

“After it happened, the only thing that kept running through my mind was that I was just happy no one got hurt,’’ Rork said. “People will call me a hero, I guess, but I was just doing my job. This is what a soldier does.”