Again Into the Breach, Again Wounded

It was just six weeks ago that Lt. Col. Tim Karcher pondered what would happen when U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq's cities -- including the Sadr City area of Baghdad where he commanded operations as part of 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

In an interview with Stars & Stripes that ran May 15, Karcher expressed concern about pulling back too far from the Iraq troops and police he had been working with.

"We've got … to continue to support [them] and I can't support them from too far away," the paper quoted him as saying.

It was just that kind of determination to keep helping those in the thick of things that brought Karcher back to Iraq for a third tour, and his latest after being wounded previously. And so it was that determination that found him in Iraq on Sunday, June 28, when an explosion blew off both his legs below the knees, according to ABC reporter Martha Raddatz, who has posted a blog item about Karcher on her network's Web site.

Raddatz said she had been with Karcher a few months ago in Sadr City, where they walked along the narrow alleyways, taking in the sights and the smells of raw sewage and rotting vegetables. But Karcher, she recalled, wore a soft smile that came across in every photo she shot of him, and seemed optimistic and realistic about Iraq's future, she says in her blog.

"Now this big bear of a man is lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life, both his legs blown off above the knees," Raddatz writes. "It breaks my heart, and judging from the tons of emails I have received from Soldiers, reporters and others who knew him, many feel the same."

Raddatz said Karcher was on his third deployment to Iraq, and that he had to fight to get back after an enemy round ripped through his shoulder, tearing up much of the deltoid muscle, on his last tour.

"He said he felt guilty if [his troops] were in the fight and he was not," Raddatz wrote.

Read Martha Raddatz blog entry