Bad news is made better
An Anoka County mother is thankful her son was the one to make the weekend call informing her of his injury in an Iraq ambush that killed two other soldiers.

BY KERMIT PATTISON
Pioneer Press

When the bad news arrived from Iraq, Gwen Sams could take solace in one thing: Her son delivered it himself.

The phone rang Sunday morning with a satellite call from her son Joshua, a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq. Only a few hours before, he had been wounded in an ambush while on patrol. Two other soldiers in his Humvee had been killed.

But Joshua was alive. The sound of his voice eased the panic of a mother who has spent much of this year praying that she would never see a stranger in a uniform appear at her door with bad news.

"It was much more reassuring to hear about it from him rather than anybody else," Gwen Sams said Wednesday. "He kept saying, 'Such-and-such was supposed to call you' and he was upset that they didn't let me know. I said, 'Josh, the fact that I heard your voice instead of someone else, I could handle that much better.' "

The attack has left Gwen Sams, who leads a military support program in Anoka County, simultaneously proud of her son and increasingly skeptical about the direction of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Army Spc. Joshua Sams, of St. Francis, Minn., was wounded when a patrol of the 173rd Airborne Brigade came under fire late Saturday while investigating an explosion outside the oil city of Kirkuk, about 160 miles north of Baghdad, according to his mother and military officials.

According to Gwen Sams, her son gave the following account:

He was driving the last Humvee in a convoy late Saturday when they came under fire by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. The grenades missed, but AK-47 fire raked the vehicle.

Sams was thrown from the vehicle, but his body armor caught on the Humvee and he was dragged at 45 mph. When the vehicle finally came to a stop, it rolled backward onto his arm.

His wounded lieutenant managed to get the vehicle off Sams. Then Sams applied pressure to the lieutenant's wound but was unable to stop the bleeding.

"The lieutenant died in his arms and he was screaming and everything," said Gwen Sams. Joshua is "having a real hard time with that."

Another soldier was already dead, wounded in the neck. A fourth soldier in the Humvee escaped without injury.

The military identified the dead soldiers as 1st Lt. David R. Bernstein, 24, of Phoenixville, Pa., and Pfc. John D. Hart, 20, of Bedford, Mass. Gwen Sams said her son had patrolled with the other men for about three months.

Joshua is recovering in a hospital in Kirkuk. He has a cast on his leg, and most of the ligaments are torn. His left arm is in a soft cast and numb, and it may have nerve damage, according to his mother.

"He's very, very bitter," she said. "He's had a few too many close calls. He almost shot a 12-year-kid who came running out of an alley with a gun pointed at him. They found out later it wasn't a real gun and the kid was yelling, 'I'm going to kill you Americans!' "

Joshua was anxious to do his part when he left for Iraq earlier this year. But over the past few months, his mother said, he has taken a dimmer view.

He is disheartened by the anti-U.S. sentiment among Iraqis and by the military leadership that has extended his three-month deployment to 13 months. He previously wound up in the hospital with exhaustion and dehydration because of the heat, and his weight has dropped from 170 to 130 pounds. A couple of weeks ago a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Humvee but failed to explode, his mother said.

Joshua Sams comes from a military family: His father served in the Army during the Korean War, and two brothers also serve in the Army. This week a brother received orders to go to Afghanistan.

His parents, Gwen and Karnis Sams, are the "family readiness coordinators" for the Minnesota National Guard in Anoka County. Over the past few days, however, they have been on the receiving end of prayers, hugs and gifts of food.

"My own unit has been wonderful," Gwen Sams said. "I've heard from everybody, 'What can we do for you?' It's kind of different because I feel like that's my job and they've turned around and done that for me."

Gwen Sams said she remains proud of her son and all the individual soldiers in Iraq but has begun to question the overall U.S. mission there.

"All we're doing is getting our guys killed over there, and nothing is changing at this point," she said. "I'm proud of every one of them for being there and putting themselves in harm's way, but at the same time I'm getting to the point of, 'What are we doing there?' At first I was very firm on what I thought we were doing there, but my doubts have really set in."

She said the military may award her son a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, but Joshua doesn't think he deserves the decorations.

"He said, 'I was just doing my job; you shouldn't get medals for doing your job,' " said Gwen Sams. "The lieutenant's family will get a Silver Star, and (Joshua) doesn't think that's enough for them."