The Soldiers' Stories: Bullet in Iraq leaves Fairbanks man grasping for future

FAIRBANKS -- Precisely six months into a yearlong tour in Iraq for the 1st of the 506th Infantry Regiment, Spc. Robert Roof was taking his turn in the turret of a Humvee. As he was standing out of the hatch of the vehicle, his upper torso exposed and manning a .50-caliber machine gun, he was hit by a sniper's bullet.

The single round would result in two surgeries in two days in Iraq, a four-leg trip stateside for more surgeries, a monthlong stay in a Washington, D.C., hospital and a summer recuperating at home in Fairbanks.

Because of his injury, Roof has difficulty tying his shoes. He was his squad's designated marksman; now he can steady a Marlboro but not a rifle. He's a former assistant captain of the North Pole High School hockey team, but he no longer has the strength to hold a stick to the ice.

The injury might mean permanent damage. It certainly means the Army career of the 21-year-old and Fairbanks native has been altered.

Roof has remained resolute that he will recover, even from the first moments after he was shot when he forced himself to remain conscious as medics attended to him and he was rushed to a nearby air base for his first surgery.

"I just thought, 'I'm not going down like this,' " he said. "I tried to bring out my own fight or flight."


ORDINARY DAY IN RAMADI

The soldiers of the 1st of the 506th, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky., deployed in November 2005 to Iraq. The unit was sent to, and remains in, Ramadi, the western point of the tumultuous Sunni Triangle, which includes Tikrit, Baghdad and Fallujah.

The mission of the Bravo Company soldiers, including Roof, on Saturday, May 20, was to patrol a main supply road in the area. There wasn't anything exceptional about the day that Roof remembers; it wasn't too hot and the traffic on the road was moderate.

Roof said soldiers on patrol would routinely encounter sniper fire, small-arms fire, rocket- propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices. The area was perilous enough that soldiers were instructed not to dismount their Humvees on the supply road. He said soldiers grew accustomed to the attacks.

Late that afternoon, one of those rounds found its mark. A single, 7.62 millimeter shot, likely from an AK-47 rifle, came from the northeast, smacking into Roof's Kevlar body armor and into his upper chest before exiting under his arm.

The impact punched his shoulder, swinging his upper body to the left. The force left Roof with the impression that he'd taken the round in his shoulder or arm.

"I pulled on it to make sure it was still attached, because it kind of felt like it had been blown off," he said.

The shot was the only fire the unit took that day. He said he doesn't remember that anyone returned fire. When Roof was hit, he was immediately pulled down from the hatch and into the interior of the Humvee as he was rushed to medics at Al Taqaddum Air Base, or "TQ," between Ramadi and Baghdad.

In less than an hour, he was in surgery. Doctors wouldn't let him look at his wound or tell him much about it as he was readied for transport to the more advanced 10th Combat Surgical Hospital in Baghdad for a second surgery.

He was then sent to Balad Air Base in western Iraq, the main staging area for injured soldiers being sent out of the country. From there, Roof was flown to Germany, where he turned 21 on May 22, before being flown to Washington, D.C., for further medical attention.

While waiting at one of the aid stations en route to Balad, Roof's commander pinned a Purple Heart on his blanket as he lay on a stretcher.

"I was just happy to be getting it while I was alive," he said.


SATURDAY MORNING PHONE CALL

Roof is Cindy Pasley's oldest child and her only son. He's a protective big brother to his 16-year-old sister, Jennifer. Roof and Pasley were a tightknit family of two for several years before Jennifer was born and Pasley married Roof's stepfather, Sean Pasley.

In Fairbanks on the Saturday that Roof was shot, the Pasleys were awakened at their home in the Aurora neighborhood by an early-morning phone call. Cindy Pasley said she immediately knew it wasn't good news.

"Nothing good happens when the phone rings early Saturday morning," she said.

But she took solace in the call -- her son was alive. Had he been killed, she knew, the news would have come with a knock on the door.

"I just kept thinking, 'They're on the phone, they're on the phone. They're not on the doorstep,' " she said.

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