THE CONVOY

On Monday, Sept. 1, 2003, Kyla Cannon wrestled into her body armor, grabbed her Beretta 9 mm handgun and her medic bag stuffed with bandages, gauze, morphine, burn cream, a cervical collar, plastic tubing, needles, a tourniquet and bags of saline for IV drips.

Cannon was assigned to ride with 1st Squad of the 1st Platoon, 115th Military Police Company, Rhode Island National Guard.

Their mission that day was to escort a convoy of trailer trucks down a portion of Main Supply Route Tampa, a key military supply artery from Kuwait.

They were to begin some 50 miles north of Baghdad, and drive about 150 miles south, to a fenced truck stop. There, they would pick up a northbound convoy and retrace their route -- an exhausting 12-hour day in sweltering desert heat.

Convoy escort could be dangerous work, but the 115th had been lucky. The soldiers had survived ambushes, returning to base with bullet holes in their trucks. Just the day before, a roadside bomb had detonated prematurely about 40 yards ahead of the convoy.

No Rhode Island National Guard unit had seen any combat fatalities since the fight for the Philippines, in 1945, near the end of World War II.

The 1st Squad was split into three teams -- Alpha, Bravo and Charlie -- each with three soldiers in a four-wheeled Humvee. The trucks lacked the "up-armor" designed to toughen them against roadside bombs.

The lead truck that day carried five soldiers: the Charlie team, the squad leader and Kyla Cannon, the medic.

Her right side was sore that morning.

She had spent 12 tense hours in the Humvee the day before, on the right-hand side of the truck, leaning to the window and watching for roadside bombs from a metal chair the size and shape of the cheapest seat in a football stadium.

She wanted to abuse her left side for a day.

Her squad leader, Staff Sgt. Joseph Camara, a New Bedford cop, agreed to swap seats.

Cannon climbed in behind Dameon Harrington, the driver, a mortgage broker from West Warwick.