Soldier's book offers a look at service

Today I want to tell you about "Walk in My Combat Boots", the story of Jeddah Deloria.

Before dawn on August 22, 2007, Nuristan Province, Afganistan, and he was at the Ranch House, which is what they called this remote outpost in the Hindu Kush mountains.

Jeddah said the terrain was all rock, no dirt, and he wondered how any trees grew there at all, but there were some. From there him and Dell were told to go to Post Three, 300 meters up the steep mountain. The higher altitude got to them, as they were carrying a lot of weight. Dell was throwing up as they went up.

Post Three consisted of a guard tower, and underneath, a 15-foot by 15-foot sleeping area. There were two others with them. They worked in shifts, look out and sleeping. Jeddah was sitting in the tower, his back up against a pole — all of a sudden, two shots, the sandbag next to him explodes.

He spots two Taliban members about 50 feet away; he shoots and kills them. The next thing he knew, a rocket-propelled grenade had hit the tower, collapsing the roof almost on top of him. He looked at his right hand all torn up.

It was just him there, others below. The next thing, he is shot in the shoulder, then he tried to crawl out and was shot in the rear end. He wiggled out, and then got a bullet to his thigh. He thought, "I am not dead," and crawled out, the others called in helicopters that proceeded to eliminate the remaining enemy.

His fellow soldiers drug him down the mountain, and he was helicoptered out to a hospital. It was then that he started to feel the pain, he was given a pain killer. The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital in Germany. After they removed the bullets and fragments, he was flown to Walter Reed Army Hospital, where President George Bush presented him with the Purple Heart. He was one of the lucky ones.

Roger Gregory was a captain in the 1st Infantry Division during Vietnam. He is now a businessman in Priest River.