Photography and Video by Ryan McGeeney and Web Production by Chris Hickerson

The Iraqi sniper had eluded American soldiers all morning.

Army Captain Tim Hornik scanned the busy intersection through binoculars, searching for the shooter who had successfully wounded another soldier in the security team only 20 minutes before.

It was early November 2004, and citizens of Baghdad had been on edge since U.S. Marines began their bloody assault on Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold 43 miles west of the capital. Hornik and his men had been assigned to provide security for the Iraqi Army as it quelled possible uprisings against the operations in Fallujah.

“It started out as a crappy day,” Hornik, Chicago graduate student, said of the chilly afternoon. It was about to get worse.

With Hornik in his sights the sniper squeezed the trigger one more time.

It was a clean, straight shot that pierced Hornik’s left temple. The bullet traveled behind his left eye and exited millimeters away from his right one. Hornik collapsed from the turret of the Bradley vehicle he’d been commanding and was caught by his comrades, who methodically applied primary first aid as the tank-like vehicle roared through the pock-marked streets toward Baghdad Hospital.

DEVOTION SAVES LIVES

The immediate attention Hornik received from his squad saved his life, according to Hornik’s wife Cate, an Army captain.

The dependency troops have on one another is one reason Hornik would want to return to Baghdad and finish his deployment, despite injuries that would eventually cause him to lose his sight. The camaraderie formed between soldiers is an unbreakable bond, Hornik said, and it isn’t uncommon for troops to want to deploy to a war zone in order to stay with their units, no matter the cost.

“I have unfinished business,” he said, “Many of us who had it short often want to go back. I only spent 49 days there.”

Lt. Col. John Basso, battalion commander and professor of military science, said the camaraderie was also necessary for safety reasons. Basso said soldiers and Marines worked in small groups where each person had a different, specific duty.

“If anyone gets injured or fails in that mission, there’s an increased chance another one might lose their life,” Basso said, “If something happens to you and you can’t be a part of that team, it’s a real blow because you feel like you’ve let them down.”

Cate said she understood the desire to stay together as a team and the disappointment that came with being left behind. Cate was about to embark on her first deployment to Iraq when her husband was injured. She wouldn’t be going. When a direct family member is injured in action other family members are no longer deployable to combat zones.

“You spend this time training with these people and you develop these unique friendships,” Cate said. “It makes you a lot closer to be with them 24-7; they’re your family.”

Part of the disappointment Cate said she felt in not being able to deploy was because of the desire to look after the men and women of her unit.

“It’s sort of hard to watch your friends go down range because you’re worried about them too and when you see what happened with your husband, you know that that could happen with them too,” Cate said.

Captain Gates Brown, Lansing graduate student, said he understood wishing to return to combat after being injured because of the loyalty to the other men and women in a unit.

When Brown learned he wouldn’t be returning to Iraq after being injured he said he felt guilt and frustration at having to leave his comrades.

“I realized, ‘I’m leaving them,’” Brown said, “It didn’t matter the circumstances, I wasn’t there, I wasn’t going through the same things they were; I had abandoned them.”

DISCOVERING A NEW PURPOSE

Hornik said he didn’t feel any anger that his assailant would probably never be captured or punished.

“It was a time of war,” he said. “It’s the antics that, ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ and well, he just happened to be a little better than we were.”

Though he wasn’t able to return to Baghdad and finish his deployment with the rest of his unit, Hornik is thinking positively. He said the ordeal had strengthened his marriage and given him a new lease on his passion: helping those who need it most. He currently works with the Douglas County Correctional Facility’s pilot re-entry program, designed to help inmates learn skills for the future. He has a new desire to work with the disabled and said his ordeal had given him the ability to identify with those who had experienced a physical loss.

— — Edited by Chris Hickerson