BY MARK ARSENAULT
Journal Staff Writer

May 1, 2005

On a highway 20 minutes south of Baghdad, a Rhode Island Guardsman reached bloodied hands for his squadmates and screamed: We're under attack.

Shrapnel had cracked into Edmund Aponte's skull, to his brain, and he bled into the sand. The father of three from Providence couldn't work his legs.

His squad from the Rhode Island National Guard 115th Military Police Company carried him from his burning Humvee, which was leaking diesel into a puddle of fire. M-16 rifle ammunition popped and pinged as it cooked off in the flames.

View a graphic of the attack

Aponte's body was limp, he was unable to move on his own. The soldiers could not believe how heavy he was. Just 10 steps under the desert sun, and they were exhausted.

The fire spread inside the crippled Humvee. Ammunition cans for the Mark 19 grenade launcher exploded. Smoke grenades blew.

Some of the tractor-trailers the squad had been escorting on the Iraqi highway swerved around the chaos, and grumbled toward Baghdad.

Platoon medic Kyla Cannon made sure Aponte's airway was open, and then dug into her bag for bandages to try to stop the blood.

"They're gonna come," Aponte cried, "and shoot us!"