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Justin Donnelly

Operation Iraqi Freedom | 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division

After basic training, Justin Donnelly went to Advanced Infantry Training which for him was EMT school. The prospective combat medic was at Fort Sam Houston, a place he would always remember because of a special person he met there. (4:04)
He was six four and strong when he joined the outfit. That alone would deter most of the hazing but Justin Donnelly was also a medic. That made him special at 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment. Infantry love their medics, who took care of them on the battlefield and at the party in the barracks. (3:44)
When combat medic Justin Donnelly got to Iraq, it was hot and it smelled like oil and sewage. He was based at Camp Liberty in Baghdad and his first assignment was a macabre visit to a morgue. (5:34)
They had no medics so Justin Donnelly was sent to the National Guard unit that was attached to his battalion. They were Georgia boys but he got along fine with them despite being a Yankee. On an operation, after they searched a compound, an Iraqi woman brought him a child with a serious birth defect. Could he help? (6:50)
Combat medic Justin Donnelly's first casualty was a soldier hit in the shoulder by a sniper. The training kicked in and he went to work. The whole episode was no more than an hour but it seemed like a lifetime. (6:31)
His battalion lost five KIA on that first Iraq deployment. Combat medic Justin Donnelly recalls how one of the Humvees was completely destroyed by an IED. He was lucky. He managed to get all of his casualties safely evacuated, unlike some other medics he knew who were devastated by losing patients. (4:12)
Justin Donnelly had a friend back home who sent soccer balls and children's shoes to him for the kids in Iraq. It meant a lot to them and that was just one example of his friend's life of helping others. (5:08)
Justin Donnelly was standing at the gate when a car began accelerating toward him. That's a car bomb, he thought, and he turned around and ran. Then came the explosion. (Caution: strong language) (8:08)
He was on a roll. Justin Donnelly had just been promoted to company medic and, back home, his wife had just given birth to his first child. But then he was injured in a car bomb explosion and sent back to the States. He began to recover from his wounds and adjust to a new life. (5:57)
Was it justified? In Justin Donnelly's mind, Operation Iraqi Freedom was totally justified. We were there to get rid of a dictator and help the people of Iraq. The politics and troubles afterward would not alter his opinion. (4:31)