Military Stories & News
THE MORNING MY BRAIN PACKED UP AND LEFT
PART 1: The Suicide Bomber
February 20, 2012
I went to Afghanistan in 2011 with the 209th Military Police Company, 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade (MEB). My squad was attached to the 4ID SFAT-10 Team.
Let’s get into it.
On February 20, 2012, we awoke like every other day; just this day, we had 3 or 4 hours of sleep. We left our tents, weapons in hand with backpacks and body armor slung. It was early, but it was already a very warm morning.
Upon reaching my M-ATV (MRAP All-Terrain Vehicle) truck door, I took the lock and chain off using the light of street lights. I hopped in my driver’s seat and conducted pre-mission maintenance checks. Checked the radios with our other trucks. I checked my tires. I made sure everything, except individual water bottles, was strapped down.
I turned to look up the turret where my gunner did his checks and worked on installing his weapon system and asked, “Hey, you good?” He joked back, “Of course, Lyon. I’m Special Forces. Get back to work. Wipe the sand off your truck; it’s unprofessional.”
With a loud exhaust system, my lovely M-ATV in the picture above started up. I looked out the windshield as I sat in my driver’s seat and put my headset on. I fit my helmet over the headset, leaving the strap dangling. Every time I put that microphone to my mouth it felt like power, it energized me. I adjusted the microphone to my mouth and did a communication check with my teammates.
As the helmet straps dangled, I adjusted my safety glasses. I grabbed my Mechanix Wear gloves and strapped them on, then cupped my sleeves. Right next to my steering wheel to the left was my Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) M249, pointing to the floor; I checked it and the ammo. Looking down at my combat vest, my pistol is seated in the chest holster, and my dagger is located right below it. I checked the strap. You don’t want that bouncing around the truck if it flips.
For a moment, as I sat in my seat, I looked out my open door at the other soldiers moving about and getting ready. In the back of my mind, I said, “My team’s good. Another day in Afghanistan.” I hopped out of the truck and walked around back to the bed, loud exhaust in my face. I checked the straps and made sure nothing could be taken out of the truck.
The morning began to speed up. I jumped back into the driver’s seat as I saw the sergeant heading over. I checked my rifle next to my seat again. I checked the pistol on my chest and the knife underneath the pistol. My team leader hopped in with his rifle and said, "You all good?!” as he nudged the leg of the gunner standing in the turret. I gave a thumbs up 👍 and my gunner yelled, “Yes!”
“We are Truck 1, Lyon,” he reminds me.
“Just the way I like it,” I said. I clipped my helmet straps. I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel with my left hand as my right hand took off the air brakes. My team leader put his headset on as I slowly pushed out of our staging area to let other driver’s know it’s time and I’m about to leave without them. As I approached the gate, the sergeant gave me a thumbs up 👍 and waved me forward.
It’s game time!
The front gate opened. I immediately started assessing the road and nearby buildings, as well as people, as I approached the end of the entry control point.
Right out of the gate, without stopping, I stepped on it! (It means hitting the gas pedal, for those who don’t know that expression). I heard the loud noise of my exhaust through the entry control point. A deafening sound. The gate is the most dangerous place in a compound to be. 1) The trucks are going slowly; 2) they are bunched up; and 3) only one truck can fit in the gate at a time. You want all the trucks out of the gate quickly so they can support each other if anything pops off.
My exhaust had a loud, deep whistle as it echoed through the streets. I personally enjoyed how loud my exhaust was. M-ATV’s had really loud exhausts when I was over there. I think they have gotten quieter since 2012. Everyone hears an M-ATV in town. All the townspeople know you are there. That’s not entirely tactical.
We approached a bridge, and I swerved left and right as I went under it and came out on the other side to defend against grenades or gunshots dropping in the turret from someone standing on the bridge.
Two Hours Later (maybe)
We staged outside a sandy Afghan police compound in Kandahar City. I was the second-closest truck to the front gate. We staged in a modified V-shape outside the front. We were there for hours! Just sitting ducks outside in the dangerous street. It was not our intention to have to stay outside the compound, but our trucks were too big to fit in the gate. That’s how life works sometimes. That’s a long time for someone not to come. In the back of my head, aside from fighting fatigue and sweat, I knew it would be a miracle if we made it out without getting “hit.” Hit means getting attacked.
You do not want to be sitting in the same spot for even 10 minutes anywhere that has bad Google ratings.
We all anticipated something and did our best to remain vigiliant and kept in communication with each other.
A couple of our people trained Afghan police inside the compound. The drivers, a team leader, and gunners were all in our vehicles. Of our large group of 15 people, we had about 10 outside the gate.
I watched a young boy, maybe 9, walk in front of us with a soccer ball. In the back of my mind, I said, “Get out of here, kid.”
Soon after, a dog walked slowly between our trucks in the same direction as the boy.
Soon after, I watched the same buildings and sand I’d been watching for 3 or 4 hours.
Today was Our Day
A suicide bomber (called a VBIED—vehicle-borne improvised explosive devise) drove up to the entry control point, or the ECP, targeting Afghans.
Without warning, he turned to the ECP and waited for the Afghan police to approach him. He blew up half the small Afghan compound with a couple hundred pounds of explosives in the back of his car. The ECP was not visible from my truck, so the explosion was a complete surprise. After a couple of seconds, my gunner dropped down from his turret and closed the hatch to keep debris from falling inside the truck and to not get his head taken off by shrapnel, and there were some large pieces! My gunner was half a foot away from having his head taken off by shrapnel. Where a spotlight was, just two wires stood up.
The bombing created a mushroom cloud, as other soldiers told us in the days and weeks to come. An explosion that vibrated the ground “a mile away,” said one soldier who felt it.
I might be remembering this incorrectly, like a few other facts from the story: 7 Purple Hearts were given out that day, and only 15 US soldiers were present. That tells you how many people can get hurt with a single boom. Just like that, everyone’s lives would change forever.
After the explosion, dust and debris covered all our trucks. My truck did not know what it was until the car's axle landed just feet in front of us, sticking straight up out of the dirt street. That axle was a vivid reminder of reality. One side of the axle stuck in the ground, making it stand up. When I say "axle," I mean no tires, no other part, just the axle. The rest of the car either blew to shreds or landed in other places, like the hundreds of pieces that pebbled our vehicle.
We got a real good taste of reality. Time doesn’t rewind for anybody, even if you’re a 9-year-old boy.
We were blind for about 4 minutes from seeing anything outside the truck. We tried radioing to the other trucks, but no response came back. Those were the longest few minutes of my life, not knowing if we were the only ones alive. My truck was also prepared and anticipated a secondary attack. That would have been the perfect time for one. I kept my eyes on the few rooftops I could see.
The truck nearest the ECP was about 15 meters away. They were all knocked out from the concussion. My truck was the second-closest, at maybe 30 meters. The third truck was maybe 50 to 55 meters.
After the dust cleared, we seen the whole compound wall on our side vanished. Two buildings in the compound that were nearest the gate — gone.
Entry Control Point (ECP)—gone.
All the Afghan police that were at the ECP — gone.
In minutes, dozens of police cars, trucks, military vehicles, and every other organization flooded the area. Three truck beds full of dead people were hulled off. They were stacked on top of each other on the beds. Of the victims, were the boy, maybe nine years old, that I saw playing with a soccer ball just minutes before, as well as many Afghan police and civilians.
It blew off one of the dog’s legs (probably by shrapnel). I saw the dog limp off with three legs. The dog would not have made it through the night if someone had not helped it; too many wild stray dogs run the streets at night.
Another soldier said to us, “I heard the boom, seen the cloud, and I knew someone just got blown up. S*** was bad.”
Couple of Weeks Later
However, for some reason, it is a mystery to this day (as in, 3/04/2024). I had a whole neuropsychological clinical team at the Department of Veterans Affairs that brainstormed about it. No one can come up with why I lost my complete memory in March 2012. Maybe two weeks after the bombing and a day or two after being dropped off at FOB Walton, solo, by the 209th Military Police Company.
I woke up in a tent at FOB Walton around the time I flew back to the US solo. When I awoke, I had to read “Lyon” on my body armor three times before I remembered my first name. Even after knowing my first name, I had no context to my life, so I still sat there trying to learn who this “Josh Lyon” was. I looked through my stuff and found my wallet. Day 1: I just knew who I was and why I was alone at FOB Walton. Just the details that surrounded that, I knew.
I knew some faces day 1 and 2, but not the ranks or names associated with them. I did not even know they were soldiers. So, I did not say much.
After a day or so, I followed the instructions to pack my stuff, and some unit drove me to the airport, where I stayed for two weeks. We got mortared a couple of times at the airport. I had to stay in a tent with the people entering the country. Whenever a mortar attack happened, they ran out to the bunker. I stayed in my bed. Me and my neighbor across the aisle, a man in his 30s who wore camo pants and a black sweater that matched his black hair. He was not in the regular military in the slightest.
Anyway, so I was jacked up. I sat there day in and day out, waiting for someone to find me and tell me what plane I was on. I saw people in my unit once in those two weeks. I knew their faces, but I had no idea who they were officially. It was just nice to see a familiar face. They had no idea about my situation or what I needed to do.
I could not wait any longer. I went to the chaplain (I don’t know why, but that is who I chose). I told him the story about my memory (not the suicide bomber; I did not remember that at that time). The chaplain asked what I wanted him to do. AS IF I KNEW! After looking at him as though he should know, I said, “Contact my unit.” He said he would have to contact my commander because of his rank (Lieutenant Colonel).
I said, “Okay... I need to get out of here!”
He asked, “Who is your commander?”
I said, “I think I would remember if we did not just switch commanders not too long ago—hey! I remembered something!”
He asked, “What is your unit?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
He read off some military police units. When 209th popped up, I said, “That’s it!”
After two short days, two sergeants from the 209th found me. Of course they found me quick after I jumped the chain of command!
Guess what they said. Guess the first thing out of their mouths. Yes, you got it! “Why did you jump the chain of command, high speed?” They were offended and hostile. I let them curse me out a little bit until I felt like telling them what happened. At first, I was not going to because they did not deserve it. But, when I did not even know who they were, I told them, ONLY because it would have been too hard for me to cover up that I did not remember them (only their faces I remembered).
After I told them, they looked like they wished they could take back being an a**hole to me. Too late! After you express that you are one, you can’t take it back.
The US Army says, “Welcome to the Army. We don’t care if you lost your whole memory in a country where you are alone and forgot all directions of what to do, f*** you. We hope you are married and hug the wrong person at the airport. We don’t give a s***. We wish you were that dog with three legs.” Veterans will enjoy this humor. They are probably the only ones, though).
This is where the story begins. Stick around to hear about my horrible time back in the United States! Part 2 is the last one in this miniseries, and it is where I met more loving people, just like those two sergeants from the 209 Military Police Company.
You know, it’s 2024, and still no one has volunteered to work with me to see where I’m at in reference to normality. At this time in my life, I've realized that I’m the only one alive who would do that for another person with Restore the Family: Military Transitions. I don’t need to be prompted to intervene in someone’s life. That’s taking ownership. That’s why I’m the CEO of the greatest military nonprofit on planet Earth.
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