The Soldiers' Stories: Shattered leg, worried spirit

Scanning barren, trash-strewn dirt roads in Fallujah, Iraq, from atop a Humvee four weeks ago, Chris Saunders suddenly felt his arms jerk backward . He awoke on the floor of the vehicle hearing screams of agony. An improvised explosive device had detonated under the Humvee. Fire had erupted. The heavy machine gun he had been manning was on top of him.

Near him, another Marine writhed in pain with a hole in his throat. Two others in the vehicle were hurt. Saunders, a 24-year-old lance corporal, tried to struggle to his feet but felt a jolt of pain in his leg. ``I thought maybe my foot had been blown off," he said. Fading in and out of consciousness, Saunders managed to haul himself out of the burning vehicle. He awoke at one point lying in the dirt as bullets zipped through the air overhead. He gazed at his critically injured buddy as another Marine feverishly applied bandages to the man's neck. Saunders wondered if his friend was about to die.

Saunders is now home in Dorchester, with a metal plate and 10 screws holding together his shattered leg. He has three months of convalescence in front of him and is unlikely to be sent back to Iraq. But even as he thinks about resurrecting his lifelong dream of becoming a Boston firefighter, he says he can't help nagging thoughts of returning to the war.

``It's really dangerous in Fallujah and you just don't know what's going to happen once you step out of the wire, but I still have buddies there and it's tough being here and knowing what they're going through," said Saunders, sitting on a chair in his mother's living room, his injured leg resting on an ottoman.

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