Lieutenant Colonel Michael Infanti was a Mustang officer, a former enlisted man who had worked himself up through the ranks to earn a commission. As such, he brought with him a special affinity for young soldiers that kept him constantly on the move circulating among his companies, checking on the men, letting himself be seen taking the same risks they did, reconfirming with deed and word the spirit and letter of their mission in Iraq—that the 4th Battalion would live among the people, in the midst of danger, in order to prove it was here to stay until peace and stability returned to the AO. There would come that turning point, he insisted, when it would begin to come together.
A job in the military was one of only a few that entailed ordering someone to go out and possibly die. To Infanti, the lives of his men were his sacred responsibility, a truth the casualty cards he carried in the breast pocket of his ACUs never allowed him to forget. Casualty cards kept a running account of the soldiers of the 4/31st who were either killed or wounded in action. The longer the 2nd BCT remained in Iraq, the thicker grew the deck of cards. He sometimes took out the little stack and shuffled through it, trying to remember the boyish faces that went with the cards.
Although Infanti was too young to have served in Vietnam, he remembered hearing ’Nam vets speak resentfully of how colonels and general officers would live in air-conditioned mobile homes while their troops dug holes and huddled in the rain. He swore his men would never talk about him like that.
At FOB Yusufiyah, he lived in an old steel shipping container that had previously been used by ocean-going freighters, although other facilities offered better accommodations, even with one of the buildings having been gutted by fire. His TOC (Tactical Operations Center)—communications, operations, Intelligence—was housed next door in a GP (General Purpose) Large tent that allowed easy access. He insisted on being awakened any time something happened day or night within the AO.
His battalion second-in-command, Executive Officer Mark Manns, and Battalion Command Sergeant Major Alexander Jimenez, who bore the same name as Specialist Jimenez in Delta Company but to whom he was not related, worried about their commander. After all, due to his penchant for sharing danger, Infanti’s was one of the first trucks in 4th Battalion to hit an IED.
It occurred on Sportster Road while the Colonel, as he was generally called, and his PSD (personal security detail) were on their way back to Yusufiyah following an impromptu inspection of Delta Company’s Inchon on Malibu Road. Infanti’s hummer triggered an IED whose blast bent the frame of the vehicle and slammed it against his knee. He ended up in a support brace that he would have to wear for at least a year or until the Polar Bears returned home and he took the time for more definitive medical treatment.
“Sir, you don’t have to be out there every day,” Major Manns argued.
Infanti was a stubborn man. “The soldiers have to know that we don’t talk the talk while they’re out there walking the walk,” he said.
Infanti had had that same obstinate unbending streak during the previous 2004–2005 deployment when he was Brigade Deputy Commander. Manns and CSM Jimenez had heard all the stories from Corporal Shane Courville, a medic who had been with Infanti then and returned with him as his PSD medic this time.
Courville was big enough to toss a wounded man over each shoulder and jog off the battlefield with them. The big man had in fact carried soldiers out of harm’s way on at least six previous occasions, one of whom was Infanti on a November afternoon in 2004.
Infanti’s convoy was speeding down the overpass leading into the city of Abu Ghraib to distribute blankets to a local school before winter set in when Captain Jennifer Knowlden noticed that the streets were suspiciously deserted. The disappearance of children was always a warning.
An IED went off underneath Knowlden’s lead vehicle and sandblasted out the windows. Infanti heard the whooshing report of an 85mm rocket-propelled grenade belching from the mouth of an alley to his right. It caught the commander’s truck near the right front door, the concussion tossing it sideways in the street and popping open the doors.
Although disoriented and almost unconscious from injuries to the back of his head, Infanti leaped out of the smoking truck with his M-4 blazing against black-hooded RPG gunners hammering the stalled convoy from the alley and from the cover of a nearby wall. Rockets crisscrossed the street, screaming and etching smoke. One struck the pavement and skidded underneath a hummer where it detonated in a ball of red flame, jolting the truck completely off the ground. Another targeted the last unscathed vehicle in the convoy and ripped off a tire. A third penetrated the rear hatch of Captain Knowlden’s disabled truck and lodged in its cargo of blankets without exploding.
In the midst of all the smoke, noise, and confusion, Knowlden saw Colonel Infanti collapse in the street next to his truck, seemingly unconscious or mortally wounded. His adrenaline had finally worn off. Knowlden got on the radio, yelling for the medic who always accompanied a commander’s patrol. The call was unnecessary. Courville was already racing through the smoke toward Infanti.
Even though Captain Knowlden had herself been injured in the IED explosion, she scrambled out to help the big medic. Just in time, it seemed, for a second IED detonated underneath her truck, ripping off the back hatch and sending it flying end over end through the air. Fortunately for the other passengers, they had abandoned the truck to return fire against attacking insurgents.
Still under fire, Courville hoisted his unconscious commander off the pavement and stuffed him into the back seat of his damaged vehicle where, at least partially protected by side armor, he began to treat him for head injuries.
As usual, the contact didn’t last long. The ambushers hauled ass, leaving in their wake four damaged or disabled humvees, two wounded Americans, and a number of injured civilian bystanders caught in the crossfire. Colonel Infanti suffered from a serious concussion and other cuts and bruises, but, characteristically, insisted on staying with the brigade until it was recalled to Fort Drum.
During his battlefield treatment of the wounded officer, Courville used scissors to cut off Infanti’s clothing to check for additional injuries. Infanti had put on a new uniform that morning. From then on, every time the Colonel got ready to circulate, he lifted an eyebrow at the medic in mock rebuke.
“Corporal,” he joked, “this is a brand-new uniform I’m wearing.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got a brand-new pair of scissors.”