It wasn’t exactly a stellar start for Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Heath Nettleton’s day.
The 15-year Navy veteran was almost at the end of a four-month tour in Iraq with Whidbey Island’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 11 when he was told his team’s deployment was being extended indefinitely.
His day would soon go downhill from there.
Mobile Unit 11 is a Navy bomb squad, and Nettleton and his team of sailors had been deployed to Iraq in January 2004. Based out of Babylon, the team was tapped by the Army and other coalition forces to defuse roadside bombs and other explosive hazards across a wide swath south of Baghdad.
Nettleton recalled the day his deployment was extended. Two hours after the announcement, a call came to defuse a roadside bomb that had been discovered by Ukrainian forces.
But what some soldiers had thought was an improvised explosive device, wasn’t.
The object turned out to be a decoy, something bomb-squad members call a “come on.”
When Nettleton and the three other Whidbey sailors in his Humvee drove toward the fake bomb, insurgents detonated a 225-pound aerial bomb that had been buried in a berm next to the road as the sailors’ Humvee passed by.
“I remember a nice, clear sunny day,” Nettleton said. “The next thing I know I’m looking down at the dash of my Humvee and wondering why I’m looking down.”
“I started to lift my head up and the windshield is totally black,” he said.
Nettleton and his three fellow sailors – Lt. Mark McGuckin, Petty Officer 1st Class Brent Barto and Petty Officer 1st Class Chad Munroe – were injured in the blast.
During a ceremony Thursday at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Nettleton and Munroe were awarded the Purple Heart, a combat decoration given to those who are wounded or killed in action.
McGuckin has already received his award, and Barto will get his Purple Heart when he returns from deployment.
Nettleton, 36, grew up in Fife.
He was two years out of high school and working at a movie theater in Federal Way when he enlisted, and spent eight years as a submariner before he decided to make a challenging career change.
He’s been in Mobile Unit 11 for four years.
It was his second deployment to Iraq. The first was aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. He met his wife, Kendra, on the ship during its 290-day deployment for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Munroe, 31, calls Eugene, Ore. home.
He joined the Navy at 26. A tae kwon do instructor, he had been running a martial arts school and training for the 2000 Olympics when he signed up.
“I was just getting tired of starving myself to death and competing,” he said. “I got burned out and wanted something new to do.”
Originally, he became an intelligence specialist. But he was later intrigued by the members from the explosive ordnance disposal unit he met aboard the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. They took apart bombs. They skydived. They were trained for scuba missions. Munroe decided to volunteer.
The deployment to Iraq was his first.
Munroe recalled how the bomb blast swept through the Humvee.
“My sinus and lungs filling up with air, my ears were ringing, there was a loud crack,” Munroe said. “I couldn’t see anything. We were in a cloud of smoke and dirt.”
Nettleton could hear Munroe in the back seat after the explosion.
“He was yelling obscenities,” Nettleton recalled. He kept driving out of the “kill zone,” and the group stopped in a clearing about a quarter-mile away.
They discovered McGuckin was unconscious. He had taken the brunt of the blast and had head injuries that required medical evacuation by helicopter.
The explosion left Barto with a ruptured eardrum, while Nettleton and Munroe escaped with minor injuries.
Nettleton called his wife as soon as he could to tell her what happened. If he didn’t, he figured, she’d quickly hear about it anyway through other Navy wives.
“She knew by the tone of my voice that something happened,” he said.
Nettleton didn’t tell his family, though. And while Munroe called his dad with the news, he too tried to keep a lid on it.
“I called my dad. I just needed someone to talk to,” Munroe said.
“I told him not to tell my mom or my wife until I got home,” he added.
That didn’t work for long. His wife, Shellee, found out within a few days when Munroe’s commander called.
Munroe and Nettleton said their injuries seem slight when compared with others who have been awarded Purple Hearts.
“There’s definitely more deserving individuals out there, and people who definitely gave a lot more for their Purple Hearts,” Nettleton said.
“It’s an award no one ever wants to get,” Munroe said. “I was lucky enough to get away with a lot less serious injuries than a lot of people who get Purple Hearts.”
“No one wants to get injured, no one wants to get the award, but it’s an honor to get it.”
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
