By: E&P Staff One of the first on-the-scene reports from site of the deadly attack on U.S. troops in Mosul today came from a reporter/photographer team from the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch.
At latest count, the rocket attack had killed at least 24 and wounded 64 in a dining-hall tent inside a U.S. military compound. The dead included at least 14 U.S. soldiers. Two of the soldiers were from a Richmond-based battalion.
Embedded reporter Jermey Redmon quickly sent a lengthy report to his paper, posted on its
Web site along with a photo of soldiers tending to the wounded, taken by his colleague Dean Hoffmeyer. Hoffmeyer's photos have been picked up elsewhere, including on CNN.
Redmon offered this eyewitness account: ?The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and pellet-sized shrapnel sprayed into the men.
?Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot.? Soldiers shouted frantically for medics.
?Near the front entrance to the chow hall, troops tended a soldier with a gaping head wound. Within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag. Three more bodies were in the parking lot then. ...
?Sgt. Evan Byler, of the 276th, steadied himself on one of the concrete bomb shelters.
?He was eating chicken tenders and macaroni when the bomb hit. The blast knocked him out of his chair. When the smoke cleared, Byler took off his shirt and wrapped it around a seriously wounded soldier.
?Byler held the bloody shirt in his hand, not quite sure what to do with it...
"Grim-faced soldiers growled angrily about the attack and swore as they stomped away."
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