From: Father of Spc. Chamblee Poyner
Date: October 1st, 2006

On September the 21st one of your specialty vehicles, a Cougar JERRV, saved the life of my son and his team leader. My son is an Army EOD and has been in Iraq since mid July. He is 23-years-old and enlisted in the Army at the age of 21. The Army spent practically two years training him as one of their elite Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialists.

His story about the occurrence was pretty brief but vivid enough to cause his old Dad to lose it. As he wrote, his team had been called out to dispose of an IED discovered by our troops. They set about doing what they were trained to do, dispose of the explosive. After detonation, he says he and his team leader drove out to the location to make sure no unexploded ordinance was left. After verifying that all was good, they turned around and were headed back to their "safe zone" when the second bomb went off directly under their JERRV. He said it wasn't exactly like he expected, that the blast took his breath for a second and he discovered after the dust settled that his side was on fire. He said that he exited the JERRV on the passengers side, right behind his team leader. By the time they got out, their security had driven down to assist and had just gotten out of their vehicles when they came under mortar attack. They all pulled back until the shelling was over, all the while watching the JERRV burn up with over 2 million dollars worth of equipment aboard. Luckily, he only lost his hat and rifle, and not his life.

As his father, I wanted to thank God and each and every one of the individuals that had a hand in putting his vehicle together. Sometimes, as a worker, laboring day in and day out, performing a job that sometimes comes with little gratitude, we forget who our customers are. I want you all to know what a great job you do and what you do does matter. For if it weren't for the product you build, I would be planning a funeral at this time and not this email.

God Bless,
From the Father of,

Spc. Chamblee Poyner, 756th ORD CO. EOD
Camp Taji, Iraq