Sgt. Jackel's story told in his own words! 
"On August 23rd 2011 My vehicle rolled over a culvert and out of the corner of my left eye I noticed a wire running into it so I yelled to the driver to back up so I could confirm what I had seen. Sure enough, It was a white and black twisted wire, but before I could yell drive forward the IED was initiated on us and we went airbourne. The wheels were blown out from under us and I went from a seated position to laying sideways when we landed. I must have been knocked out for at least 20 min or so because all the dust had settled from the blast. My gunner and dismount were pinned from the blast and the two Soldiers in the front were still knocked out. All I could hear was screaming and moaning. Everything was fuzzy and it smelled like burnt rubber and plastic. I tried to lift my legs but they were both broke. I tried to yell and noticed my teeth had pierced my bottom lip, so I had to pull my bottom lip from my teeth then spit out all the blood in my throat. I lifted my right leg up again and my foot went from upright to pointing straight down. I then knew I was pretty freakin’ jacked up. I started to work my way to my dismount radio to call up to my platoon sgt the damage we had occurred from the blast when I started to hear the .50 cal. rounds cook off and saw that a fire had come up through where the IED breached the vehicle so I dropped the radio after I told him we had a fire. I moved toward the fire a fast as I could and used my right leg as tool viscously putting the fire out because the fire suppression system had failed. After I smoldered the fire enough I used the wires running along the ceiling to move my way to rear of the vehicle where I saw my platoon sgt. He pointed down at the door handle I tried to open it but the hydraulics on the door failed and I point to the hatched on the ceiling and then used the strength I had left to reach up to unlock the hatches so we could be free. Never in my whole live did I ever think by the power of GOD could I be a vessel to save the lives of four fellow Soldiers as well as my own.."
