I suppose it was only a matter of time until it was someone I know

Thank God he's ok...mostly.

January 12, 2005

Charleston native wounded in Iraq

1st Lt. William Rebrook IV taken to Germany for treatment

By Tara Tuckwiller

Staff writer

Charleston native William Rebrook IV, an Army first lieutenant serving in Iraq, is alive but badly wounded after insurgents blew up his patrol vehicle Monday south of Baghdad, killing two soldiers.

Rebrook, 24, is the son of Charleston lawyer Ed Rebrook and Beckie Drumheller. He is a 1999 graduate of George Washington High School and a 2003 honors graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. He had been in Iraq since July, his father said.

"He's been hit twice before - had two vehicles blown out from under him - but never injured," Ed Rebrook said Tuesday.

The Army hadn't released the names Tuesday afternoon of the two dead soldiers and four wounded in the attack, but Rebrook said his son was among the wounded.

"I knew it," he said. "I knew it last night. I was just all agitated, couldn't stop looking at his picture. This morning at 6 o'clock, someone called me from Fort Hood, Texas, and told me. At 9 o'clock, his colonel called me and told me the extent of his injuries."

The younger Rebrook was airlifted to a military hospital in Baghdad for emergency surgery on his left arm, which had suffered multiple fractures from the elbow to the shoulder, his father said. He also suffered burns to his face and neck. He did manage to say a few words to his father on the phone.

With pins stabilizing his arm, Rebrook was transferred to a military hospital in Germany for further orthopedic surgery on his arm. His father and mother are now arranging a flight to Germany to be with him.

"He is expected to remain there for about three weeks, and then he'll be transferred to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., for rehab," his father said. "They expect him to be there for eight months to a year."

The younger Rebrook had expected to come home from Iraq by March.

Monday's was a routine patrol: "That's what they do," his father said. "They take two or three Bradleys, 10 men to a vehicle, and they go out, literally looking for the bad guys."

The two insurgents believed to be responsible for the attack were captured and are being interrogated, Ed Rebrook said.

Rebrook's was the second heavily armored Bradley Fighting Vehicle destroyed by a roadside bomb in less than a week. On Thursday, a similar bomb killed seven soldiers in a Bradley, prompting the Defense Department to note that the insurgents seemed to be using bigger, more powerful bombs.

"It's fair to say that they are afraid of the elections" scheduled to take place in Iraq Jan. 30, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton told the Associated Press on Monday after Rebrook's vehicle was destroyed.

Monday was a particularly bloody day in Iraq: In addition to the destruction of Rebrook's vehicle, a suicide bomber killed at least four police officers and wounded 10 in Baghdad; a roadside bomb killed three Iraqi National Guard soldiers and wounded six in a joint patrol with U.S. troops in Mosul; and U.S. soldiers accidentally killed a 13-year-old Iraqi girl and wounded a 14-year-old boy near Baqouba, the AP reported.

Eddie and I aren't friends, not really even acquaintances. But he graduated the year after I did and Charleston is a small enough place that you pretty much know everyone who went to school with you.