Prologue

My name is John Tyree and I was born in 1977 at Wilmington, North Carolina. I graduated from Wilmington high school in 1995 and then joined the army in late 1997 for four years. My unit was part of the First Infantry Division, I upped in November 2001 in and reupped in November 2003. My father died in August 2006. I flew back from Germany to attend his funeral and take care of probating the will through his lawyer, William Benjamin. I returned to Germany and then rotated back to Baghdad, Iraq in October 2006. At that time I was a sergeant in charge of a squad of men, and by all accounts good at what I did.

In December 2006 I was involved in the fire fight that changed everything. What I have been told, and you can see it on YouTube, there were two of us moving round a corner to check out the surrounding area when we were both shot. The Taliban were trying to push their videos to a new level and show how they could execute two soldiers at once. The video, and I have watched it a lot, shows us approaching the corner, bending low, rounding the corner and straightening up, then we drop like sacks of potatoes. They were tracking us. We both fell into a crater and that was that. The video then shows two heavily scarfed olive colored men holding up their rifles yelling, "Death to Americans!" Then comes the voice claiming they will be going after three next time. That is what the records say and that is all I know.

My memory starts from that point forward.