Three Years and Counting

...since undergone multiple surgeries...

...Is it to much to ask of the U.S...

...During Akbar's trial, I could understand that calling him a terrorist would probably unnecessarily complicate the prosecution...

...military that these men and their wounded comrades from that night finally be awarded the Purple Heart...

...The brigade commander returned to duty later the next morning, and led his troops into Iraq three days later despite painful shrapnel wounds...

...Among the wounded in the attack were the brigade commander and his executive officer...

...It was clear he was trying to get the medics to go help the other wounded men...

...The blasts were still echoing when a young soldier at the back of my tent started shouting in pain...

...Let us work on you...

...Disregarding that danger dozens of soldiers rushed to help those injured...

...Please put yourself in my shoes, I just want to know his last words, did you visit him in the hospital tent...

...The fact that Akbar shot two soldiers as they exited their tents reinforced this impression and convinced us all that there was still considerable danger...

...Three years is a long time to wait...

...When he did talk about personal things it was usually about his sons, and it was apparent that they were his biggest concern and what he missed most about being away...

...I really don't think too much about that night anymore, but when I do it's usually because I've heard from one of the soldiers involved or from a family member...

...But as I took in the chaos, the reality of the situation slowly sank in...

...He may not have known how badly wounded he was, because he began to push the medics away, and though I could not hear what he was saying, I could hear the medics reply: "No, sir we have to take care of you" and "Everyone is being taken care of...

...SCUD alert warnings were already going off—this was March 23, 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war...

...But when I inquired further, I was told that the incident was not deemed a terrorist attack and therefore the Purple Hearts could not be awarded...

...He was a naturally easy-going guy, because he soon had a number of new friends in the brigade and was spending a lot of time on his official duties...

...BY JIM LACEY I HAD JUST SETTLED DOWN to go to sleep when two thunderous explosions shattered the desert stillness...

...He was just waiting for the opportune time to strike, and he found it in Kuwait on the eve of war...

...Before undertaking my duties as a journalist that night, I did help carry out some of the wounded, including Major Stone...

...From what I remember, we talked about some technical stuff and how a war with Iraq would be fought...

...Two soldiers were killed and 14 wounded by a terrorist when they went, at the behest of their country and without reservation, too fight a war in a foreign land...

...So, I talked to him less as the war got closer...

...Did he have any last words...

...In another entry a month before shipping out to Iraq, he wrote, "I will have to decide to kill my Muslim brothers fighting for Saddam Hussein or my battle buddies...

...I was never sure of the exact timing, but I doubt more than 15 minutes passed between the attack and when helicopters arrived to rush the injured away...

...So do those like Major Stone's two sons and his sister, Tammy Hall, who wrote to ask me "for anything you know about my brother, if you ever talked to him or just anything at all...

...Everyone assumed, at first, that terrorists had attacked from outside the camp and that they were still in the area...

...The Purple Heart, which is awarded to a service member killed or wounded as a result of enemy or terrorist action, has never been presented to those killed and wounded that night...

...Three years after the attack, the wounded soldiers and family members of the deceased are being denied this seemingly small, but emotionally important symbol by a military bureaucracy that cannot see past definitions...

...It was not a missile strike, but a terrorist attack that targeted the leadership of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division...

...The Pentagon claims that Akbar—who was convicted of murder in a military trial last April and now awaits execution at Fort Leav-enworth—was just a criminal and not an enemy...

...Akbar, a radical Islamist who had attended a Saudi-financed mosque in South-Central Los Angeles, had thrown two grenades among sleeping soldiers, then opened fire with his rifle, killing Major Gregory Stone and Captain Christopher Seifert, and wounding 14 other soldiers...

...By any reasonable definition these are the words of a terrorist...

...Hasan Akbar a terrorist...

...The soldiers attacked by Hasan Akbar deserve to have that award signifying America's appreciation for their sacrifice and their loss...

...I suppose we talked to each other because we were both strangers to the other soldiers in the unit...

...While the soldiers never mention it, the family members almost always bring up one point: Is there anything that can be done to get the soldiers killed and wounded that night their Purple Heart medals...

...Much later in that long night, I learned that the terrorist was an American soldier named Sgt...

...I wrote to Tammy Hall that I had spoken to family members of others that were seriously injured that night...

...Hasan Akbar...

...Others immediately entered the tents and began taking out the wounded...

...They have, so far, been denied this simple but important display of respect our nation gives to those who have sacrificed so much in its service...

...Judge for yourself...

...While other soldiers began tending their wounded comrade, I made my way outside...

...A major went to the operations tent, ordered medical evacuation helicopters, and alerted the nearby hospital trauma center...

...Was Sgt...

...His executive officer, whom Akbar shot when he left his tent to assist others, had to be evacuated and has Jim Lacey covered the Iraq war as a correspondent for Time magazine...

...All of them seemed to be truly bothered by the fact that it was another soldier who did this, and many said that it would have been easier to understand if it was a terrorist attack...

...he was, in fact, a terrorist...

...When the trial ended, though, I and many family members assumed the awards would be forthcoming...

...On the night of the grenade attack, Stone's tent was directly beside mine...

...He was an Air Force officer attached to an Army brigade, and I was there as an embedded journalist...

...In a diary entry Akbar made five years before he actually struck, he wrote, "My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed...

...I answered her, in part, that I had spoken to her brother a few times while we were in Kuwait...

...Despite the risk, one young medic ran several hundred yards in the pitch black to get his medical bag from a vehicle packed for the invasion and raced back with it...

...For a long moment I assumed that our camp in Kuwait had been hit by one or more missiles...

...There was nothing more that could have been done to save the lives lost...

...The efforts made by the soldiers, doctors, and surgeons that night were truly heroic...

...But I told her then, and I believe the trial of Akbar amply showed, that the man who killed her brother was not a soldier...