A deadly turn of events

U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Democrat from Bucks County, the only member of Congress who has served in the Iraq war, writes about the experience as well as his childhood in Northeast Philadelphia, his run for Congress, and his early days on Capitol Hill in "Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress," just released by Henry Holt.

The following excerpt from the book, which Murphy wrote with author and Democratic speechwriter Adam Frankel, comes from the chapter "Who Killed Specialist Keith?"

At 2:01 a.m. on July 7, 2003, just a few days after I arrived in Iraq, I was awakened by Lieutenant Colonel Rowe, our brigade executive officer. "Murph, get up and report to the [tactical operations center]. We have a KIA," he whispered, placing his hand on my shoulder. An American soldier had been killed in action. I jumped up, dusted off my uniform, pulled on my desert boots, and hustled to the TOC.

There was a steady buzz of action reports coming in. Twenty-one-year-old Specialist Chad L. Keith, from Batesville, Indiana, had been killed by a roadside bomb, also known as an improvised explosive device (IED). My [Brigade Operational Law Team] got to work drafting instructions on the mandated investigation into Specialist Keith's cause of death. I also had to appoint a personal effects officer in Iraq, one back at Fort Bragg, and lastly, a paratrooper to return with the casket to the States.

After the facts were gathered and a briefing was held, someone said delicately, "The honeymoon is over, gentlemen." He was right. When Specialist Keith was killed, IEDs were a relatively new tactic. But they would soon become the leading cause of death of U.S. troops in Iraq, responsible for 70 percent of our casualties, including seven of the nineteen paratroopers in our brigade who were killed during my tour. . . .

We recognized the dangers of the relatively new IEDs. Leaving the [forward operating base] meant preparing for battle. Even the most routine trip required traveling in a convoy of at least two vehicles, two or three men in each. As the captain and convoy tactical commander, I always rode shotgun in the lead vehicle with a radio attached to my ear, my right leg dangling out our doorless Humvee, my M4 pointed toward the ground, and my gunner on a SAW [squad assault weapon] or an equally powerful .50-cal above in the turret. Each time we passed through the front gate, it felt like we were playing a game of Russian roulette.

On convoys we drove fast and down the center of the road. IEDs were most commonly hidden along the roadside. Every twelve inches away from the curb, we were told, gave us another 10 percent chance of surviving a bomb blast. But even in the center lane, we weren't safe. In one of our daily intelligence briefs, we learned that an insurgent standing on an overpass had dropped an IED on a Humvee passing underneath. So we eyed every curb for bombs, every rooftop for snipers, every vehicle trying to get close - and now, every overpass.

On one patrol, baking in the sun, operating - as usual - on only a few hours of sleep, I strained my eyes, searching the landscape for any signs of danger. Then I heard the words that still make my heart race.

"Sir, I think I just saw an IED," RV [Specialist Juan Arevalo] said from the driver's seat next to me.

"What did it look like?" I yelled over the roar of the engine.

"It was a concrete cylinder-like thingy with wires sticking out."

Driving at fifty miles an hour, there was no way to be sure. But I trusted RV. So we radioed back to Scania [the operating base], called for the bomb squad, gave them the six-digit grid coordinate of our location that I quickly plotted on my map (GPS was not standard issue), and told them we'd rendezvous just south at the site of the possible IED.

As we waited for the bomb squad to arrive, we initiated standard protocol when a possible IED was discovered - shutting down all six lanes of traffic in both directions, not an easy task for the handful of soldiers we had with us that day. It wasn't the best way to make friends with Iraqi commuters, who mostly grimaced at us behind their windshields, but it was a precaution that could save lives. That day, it did. The device RV caught was packed with two artillery shells, a force powerful enough to tear apart a couple of Humvees - killing about six people, if triggered at the right moment.

You learn in war - it becomes chiseled into your bones - that in most cases, there's no good reason why one person dies and another one survives. It tears you apart when you start asking those questions, trying to make sense of the randomness of the violence and the killings. It reinforces your faith, or crushes it, or ignites a faith that was never there - as you hunger for an assurance that there is some reason for the chaos around you. The uncertainty of war - the uncertainty of my own survival - was often on my mind. I wrote in my journal on Thursday, July 31, 2003:

About to go on a 2 vehicle convoy on the same road in which 3 ambushes occurred today. I'm a little afraid, but I refuse to back down. If I die, play Danny Boy, have J.J., Brian, Tony, Chris R., Norbeck and T.J. be my pallbearers, tell everyone to smile more often, have fun, and try to change the world (or someone's world), for the better every day, and tell Ashley that I thank her for teaching me what true, selfless love is, and that I expect her to move on, probably with a less charming, less muscular guy, but that I'll be waiting for her at the pearly gates and for that guy to expect some competition.

In Iraq, survival came down to a simple truth: Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.