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American Morning

Americans Wounded in Afghanistan

Aired February 14, 2002 - 09:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Back now to that firefight at the Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan yesterday. Initially, U.S. officials said that no American troops were wounded. It was a quick attack. It occurred yesterday. But today now, they are saying that two U.S. soldiers suffered some minor injuries.

CNN's Martin Savidge is in Kandahar, and he filed this report a little earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the area with Charlie Company where the fighting was most intense last night. The firing, the soldiers say, was coming right from where you can see the tops of those trees there, about 65 yards away. That's how close they were. There's a ravine that allowed the enemy to move into position.

At times, the gunfire was so intense the soldiers that were in this position here could here the snap of it cracking over their heads. The bullets were thumping and impacting into the sandbags, tearing them apart and also forcing some of them to go right on the ground.

Amidst that fire fight, Lt. McDonough (ph) was wounded, shot in the neck.

Tell us about what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After the initial fire, I moved from the position I was at, which is to the right of this position. I was trying to make my way to the position where the guys were at, and I had a lot of fire coming around me. And I stopped momentarily and got some cover fire from my men, took a few steps, and I heard a whacking noise and burning sensation on my neck. Basically, got a graze, which just kind of clipped the edge of my neck.

SAVIDGE: At the moment, you didn't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the moment, I didn't know blood was coming down. I really didn't know what was wrong with me. I hit the ground on the berm over here, and I assessed myself and put out over the radio I think I was hit. And just trying to get control of myself at that time.

SAVIDGE: Then, Cpl. Mata (ph), you are the one that heard the call. What did you do? How did you react?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heard the call, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I think I'm hit. I left position here. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Continuous gunfire. Nonstop, just chaos and gunfire everywhere.

It was just around this berm right here behind you. I was praying to God he wasn't any farther than that because I didn't want to run too much further than I had to.

SAVIDGE: When you saw him, what did you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't know what to think. There was blood everywhere. So I decided to take a deep breath, pause, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) see what's up. He was reaching like this, so I pulled his RBA down and wiped off his neck, and I said, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), it's a burn mark.

SAVIDGE: And you got him out of there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I said, hey, sir, we can't stay here. You got to go. So from that time, we moved and fired back to this position right here.

SAVIDGE: Well done, corporal, thank you very much.

There are two things soldiers know. First of all, it was their training that carried them through. It was also a lot of human emotion that came into play.

Another thing they know is that those who were firing at them were no cowboys just cracking off some shots. They were well trained, they were no fools, and they were no amateurs. For these soldiers, it's as close as you can get and still walk away.

Martin Savidge, on the front lines, Kandahar Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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