Kimberly Dozier - Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive, and Get Back to the Fight

FIGHTING TO SURVIVE, AND GET BACK TO THE FIGHT

KIMBERLY DOZIER

ASSOCIATED PRESS CORRESPONDENT

2008 and 2011 by Kimberly Dozier. All rights reserved.

Breathing the Fire is a revised and updated edition of the original work first published in 2008 by Meredith Books, Des Moines, Iowa. This edition published in 2011 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., East Petersburg, PA.

Photography credits: Front Cover Thorsten Hoefle; Flaps Mosadeq Sadeq/AP; AP/Michael Probst

Page 178 top Laura Winter; 178 bottom Megan Towey; 179 top Thorsten Hoefle;

179 bottom Thorsten Hoefle; Ben Plesser; 181 top Kurt Hoefle; Agnes Reau;

Agnes Reau; 185 top Ben Plesser; 185 bottom AP/Khalid Mohammed;

AP/Khalid Mohammed; 187 top Cal Perry 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company.

All Rights Reserved.; 188 top AP/Michael Probst; 188 bottom Nancy Miller;

189 bottom left Dennis Dillon/CBS News; Don Lee/CBS News; 191 top Nancy Hoss;

191 bottom courtesy Jennifer Funkhouser; 192 top Bill Clark/Roll Call;

all other photos courtesy of Kimberly Dozier

ISBN 978-1-56523-615-8

eISBN 978-1-60765-067-6

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dozier, Kimberly.

Breathing the fire : fighting to report--and survive--the war in Iraq / Kimberly Dozier. -- Rev. and upd. ed.-- East Petersburg, PA : Fox Chapel Publishing, c2011.

p.; cm.

ISBN: 978-1-56523-615-8

1st ed. published: Des Moines, IA : Meredith Books, 2008.

Summary: While serving as a CBS News foreign correspondent in Iraq in 2006, the U.S. Army foot patrol she and her crew were filming was hit by a car bomb, killing some in the group and severely injuring her. This book recounts how the blast changed her life.

1. Iraq War, 2003- --Personal narratives, American. 2. Dozier, Kimberly. 3. Journalists--United States--Biography. 4. Civilian war casualties--Iraq. I. Title.

DS79.766.D695 D695 2011

070.92--dc22 1104

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Printed in the United States of America

First printing: April 2011

ePub Version 1.0

This book was made possible by every soul who stayed by my side, fighting to keep me alive, and by everyone who prayed for me and pulled for me along the way. It is an attempt to thank themand to honor those we lost that day.

To my family and loved ones: Sorry I put you through all that hell, but were you really that surprised?

I published this in the first edition after it was sent to me through the wounded warrior community. I later had the privilege to meet the author, Navy SEAL Lt. Jason Redman.

He will tell his own amazing story one day. In the meantime, you can see the short version at his website: www.woundedwear.org .

A lot has happened since the bombing in May 2006...

FALL 2008

Every time I sit at my computer to write about the ordeal of the past two years, I find a million other things I need to doanything but write.

But I know I need to write it, to move beyond it. This ordeal wont let me go. Put another way, many caring and well-meaning people wont let me leave it behind.

Perhaps its because they never got the whole story and they havent caught up with my recovery. They cant comprehend how the shattered woman they saw on their TV screens two years ago, unconscious on a stretcher, got better. Maybe they cant quite believe it.

Im hoping that telling my story will help lay it to rest. And through me maybe I will reveal a fraction of what U.S. troops are experiencing, to say nothing of Iraqi families and anyone else who lives in a war zone.

No one can be the saint worthy of all the prayers that were said for me and the letters, notes, and emails sent to my hospital room. But I understand that I was a symbol for much of whats happening to the servicemen and women, to Iraqis, to loved ones, or to strangers who become as familiar as loved ones.

I only wish I could be more gracious to some of the well-wishers I meet. When a well-meaning stranger chirps, Oh, how are you? or Can I help you? I sometimes snarl back, Fine! or No, thanks!utterly frustrated with people who still think I need help. And worse, I then have to bite my tongue when I hear their sympathetic follow-ups. Of course you can do it yourself, dear, they say indulgently, as if to a 5-year-old who patently cant.

On Memorial Day, May 29, 2006, I was the hit by a car bomb, along with my camera crew and the U.S. Army foot patrol my crew and I were filming. The weapon was a battered Iraqi taxi, carefully packed with some 500 pounds of explosives with a trigger hardwired to a cell phone inside the car. Someone was watching and waiting for the right moment to dial the phones number, complete the bombs circuit, and trigger the explosion.

The taxi was parked on a street used by Iraqi patrols. An Iraqi convoy had been hit on the same street the day before. We had come to ask people what theyd witnessed, whom theyd seen, and if anything seemed suspicious or out of place.

So in we walked, an entire U.S. Army foot patrol10 soldiers, an Iraqi interpreter, and a liaison officertrailed by an American network TV crewa cameraman, a soundman, and me, a reporter. We walked straight into whats called the kill zone of the ambush.

The killers probably could not believe their luck.

Closest to the bomb were my friends and colleagues: CBS cameraman Paul Douglas and freelance soundman James Brolan, just 10 to 12 feet away from the wired car. Next to them was the U.S. Army officer we were following, the Fourth Infantry Divisions Capt. James Alex Funkhouser, and his Iraqi translator, Sam. All four were killed, three just about instantly. With the same stubborn will hed fought with throughout his life, Paul tried to stave off his death, until he lost too much blood. Soldiers who had run to help stayed with Paul to the end.

I only found this out later. The soldier who treated me at the site kept telling me, Your guys are fine.

The blast also killed an Iraqi man who was standing at the wrong tea stand on the wrong corner when we walked into the ambush.

The explosion injured six other soldiers, leaving two of them and me with a yearlong battle to heal our shattered bodiesfor me, less than a year. For them an their particular injuries, much longer..

Back in the United States, the attack made headlines. Normally a car bomb that kills one U.S. soldier and wounds six more is a sad footnote to a newscast, if it makes the cut at all. But add in a network TV crew with a female reporter on a slow news day, as U.S. holidays generally are, and you have wall-to-wall coverage.