Searing memories of a brush with death in Iraq

A Marine recalls being hit by a bullet during an ambush. Such attacks are rising as insurgents shift from bombings.

By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer

November 24, 2006

CAMP PENDLETON — When he closes his eyes, Marine Cpl. Christopher Shelhamer can feel the bullet that tore through his body when he was ambushed while on routine foot patrol outside Fallouja, Iraq.

"I can feel the red-hot metal ripping me," he said. "It was like being hit from behind by a baseball bat."

Shelhamer fell hard to the ground and his fellow Marines sprayed bullets in a short but furious firefight with the unseen gunman 100 yards or more away.

Ambush attempts of the type that felled Shelhamer are becoming more common, Marines say, as insurgents shift tactics away from face-to-face battles or total reliance on hidden roadside bombs. Some of the attacks, like the one on Shelhamer and his platoon, are "spray and pray" assaults, from concealed positions, with insurgents firing AK-47s or Soviet bloc machine guns.

Other cases are classic sniper assaults — one shot, one kill — from hundreds of yards away, accomplished with high-power scopes and Chinese- or Russian-made sniper rifles.

In both instances, the insurgents' apparent primary aim is not to win battles but to inflict casualties, in hopes of undercutting the morale of troops in the field and the American public.

Much of the insurgent propaganda, including film snippets on the Internet, involves ambush attacks on American troops, U.S. military officials say.

One such snippet showing an insurgent sniper killing an American soldier aired on CNN, angering some politicians who believe it only served to further the insurgents' propaganda.

"He cannot openly oppose us or let his identity be known to his own people," Maj. Sean Riordan said, discussing insurgents in an interview from Fallouja. "He is purely violent for violence's sake and because it plays well on blogs, websites and the new media that are available to him."

Riordan is executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment, which has had Marines killed and wounded by sniper attacks. In response, the battalion has stepped up counter-sniper tactics, including raiding sniper nests and killing or capturing snipers and capturing their weapons.

While there is no sure-fire way to neutralize attacks from ambush, Marines are far from defenseless, Riordan said. "First and foremost, we make ourselves hard to kill," he said.

At the Marine base in Twentynine Palms, all Iraq-bound battalions go through a training course called Mojave Viper, which puts an emphasis on the threat posed by insurgent snipers and others who attack from ambush.

"We train very heavily toward this," said Brig. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commander of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Training Command, who added that specific tactics and techniques that have been perfected during the Iraq war are classified and cannot be discussed.

Stone believes the insurgents are switching to snipers and other ambush attacks because of the declining success of roadside bombs. "It's a growing threat, but it's one we anticipated," he said. "We're not worrying about it. We're just adapting."

After multiple surgeries and months of arduous rehabilitation, Chris Shelhamer is also adapting. He walked a mile the other day, but he probably never again will be able to carry hundreds of pounds over rough terrain for hours on end.

"I'm pretty much useless to the infantry now," said Shelhamer, 24, who was on his third tour in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment.

A personnel board is evaluating Shelhamer's case and will probably recommend that he be given a medical retirement.

He's thinking of returning to school, possibly Williams Baptist College in Arkansas, which he attended for two years before enlisting.

For now, Shelhamer and his wife, Amanda, live in a tidy duplex on the western edge of sprawling Camp Pendleton. Amanda, 23, is pregnant with the couple's first child and works at a local tanning salon.

Chris does four to six hours of therapy a week, stretching and exercising muscles that have been damaged or atrophied. The bullet that ripped through the lower left side of his back narrowly missed his spine. Otherwise he might be paralyzed.

Shot Jan. 20 as his platoon patrolled a rural area outside Fallouja, he was rushed to an emergency aid station and then to a bigger medical facility at one of the larger bases.

As he was being taken to surgery, medical personnel called his wife at her parents' home in rural Arkansas and handed him the cellphone. "I just told her, 'Babe, I've been hit. I got all my limbs. It hurts too much to talk. Goodbye,' " he said. "That's all I remember."

By Jan. 26, Shelhamer had been airlifted to the Naval Medical Center next to San Diego's Balboa Park, where he was reunited with Marines from his battalion who had been wounded in earlier fights. The Marine Corps flew his wife and mother to San Diego the same day.

His recovery is steady but slow. "He can't walk too far before the swelling and pain gets him and he has to stop and sit down," his wife said. "That's hard for any man to accept, especially a Marine."

On Shelhamer's back is a tattoo with the names of five of his buddies killed in Iraq.

He said he would be willing to return to Iraq for a fourth tour.

"I wouldn't mind going back to teach young Marines how to come back alive."