AP Reporter Earns 'Unofficial Purple Heart' in Iraq

By: Denis D. Gray (AP) An ear-shattering blast, a swirl of dust, a sting and I was unofficially awarded the first purple heart in the platoon.

"You're bad luck," joked soldiers of the 2nd platoon, Bravo company, after a mortar round struck 30 feet from our Humvee and a tiny sliver of shrapnel punctured my left arm.

Just moments earlier, the Humvee chief had decided to save fuel by shutting off the air conditioning and opening our armored-plated doors, leaving us partially exposed.

Then the light mortar round, the day's first, slammed into a compound of Jolan Club, an abandoned sports complex, alleged to be a hangout and weapons storage site of the rebel al-Mahdi Army.

The platoon of the 1st Cavalry Division was taking part in a search Wednesday for arms caches in Sadr City, a Baghdad slum rife with insurgents.

Supported by helicopter gunships and airplanes, U.S. and Iraqi troops fought gunbattles through the night and into the day.

But instead of weapons, soldiers bursting into the walled Jolan complex found shoddy weightlifting equipment, empty rooms and an outdoor basketball court with no backboards or hoops.

The troops occupied the compound through the morning, taking occasional sniper bullets as explosions and exchanges of fire rocked the slum around them.

U.S. jet fighters screamed overhead at rooftop level.

Just as the order came to move out of the compound, the mortar round struck -- unexpected because they don't whistle in like artillery shells.

A medic extracted the shrapnel fragment from my arm and delivered it to me in a souvenir plastic packet while the soldiers joked around.

Every unit in their battalion has sustained casualties during its seven months in Baghdad.