I’m looking out the window of my Humvee hoping to spot the tell-tale signs of an IED before it detonates and ruins my day.  Iraqi traffic is swarming past my truck in the fashion so common to third world cities the world over.  I pay no attention to the individual cars and trucks flying past except for a momentary glance to ensure they are not riding too low on their shocks; a good indicator that they’re burdened by hundreds of pounds of high explosives.  I am not afraid of the traffic.  I welcome it.  Car bombs are unlikely to target U.S. convoys and besides, I’m in East Baghdad.  The threat here is the EFPs.  

An explosively formed penetrator is a terrifying weapon, as ingenious as it is crude.  It is a tubular bomb with a round inverted copper or steel cap at one end.  When the bomb explodes the metal cap melts and forms a slug that is hurled accurately through the air at 6,000 feet per second.  The molten metal cuts through armor like a knife through butter, breaking, after entry, into fragments called spalling.  The spalling is what kills.  A single EFP can destroy a four million dollar Abrams tank.  EFPs are the reason I welcome the traffic.  

 A white car pulls up next to me and keeps pace for a minute or two.  The driver is an Iraqi man in his thirties.  He is pleasant looking, a smile peeking out from underneath his Saddam mustache.  He’s ferrying three passengers today.  A boy probably eight or nine is riding shotgun.  He is skinny with sharp birdlike features.  I’ve seen him a thousand times.  Likewise the girl in the backseat, her white dress and huge doe eyes are visible in every neighborhood I ride through.  The youngest is a toddler standing up on the seat next to his sister, a look of happy befuddlement on his fat face.  He doesn’t know what is so exciting but he’s happy to be a part of it. 

The excitement is emanating from the oldest, kneeling on the seat next to his father, his body turned to face my truck.  He’s giving me the thumbs up sign, a sign that was offensive in Iraq until the Americans arrived, but eventually took on the same meaning we give it.  I return the thumbs up.  He beams back at me and starts to wave, his sister following suit in the backseat.  I wave back.  We pull ahead.  I can no longer see the car through my armored metal door.  Traffic shifts and they’re back next to me smiling and waving, all hands and thumbs and teeth and joy.  I’m smiling and waving too.  But most of all I’m praying.  Praying harder than I’ve prayed in years.  Praying that this little white car next to me is not the vehicle that absorbs the molten copper slug meant for me.

We have only these low resolution photos of Evan taken soon after shrapnel was removed from his face.