Another POV on Fallujah

More first hand accounts of Fallujah, from the soldiers wounded there:

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Getting the Purple Heart Medal for his war wounds doesn’t mean Spc. Kris Clinkscales is a hero.

“Getting the Purple Heart just means the rocket found me,” quipped the 22-year-old sniper from the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Hood, Texas.

Clinkscales spoke with reporters Monday while recuperating from wounds sustained a week ago in the massive offensive on the one-time insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. He took shrapnel to his right elbow and has temporarily lost some movement in the hand.

The four wounded servicemen paraded in front of the throngs of media representatives at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center were in good spirits and up to cracking periodic jokes between renditions of how they sustained their wounds.

Lance Cpl. Ryan Chapman, 22, of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., took a bullet to the head from a sniper he had been hunting.

“Everyone keeps telling me I’m lucky. I’ll go with that,” said the TOW missile launcher. “It’s nothing too serious. [The bullet] cracked my skull, but it looks worse than it really is.”

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Despite it all, the four said they’d return if they could. None sustained wounds that will require them to leave the military.

“If I could get a helmet on,” Chapman said, pointing to the huge knot on the left side of his head, “I’d go back. Now. My brothers are still there.”

From Stars and Stripes. Read it all here.