‘Shrapnel Struck Garrett in the Head’

U.S. forces in the Middle East have come under fire from Iranian proxy militias some 115 times since the autumn, usually eliciting a tepid American response. But as that tally mounts, Americans might dwell on the reality that U.S. sons and daughters are in repeated danger, ducking explosive drones and rockets. One of them was Army pilot Garrett Illerbrunn.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Illerbrunn from the Army’s 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade was one of three service members wounded in a Christmas Day attack on Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq. “During the drone attack,” an online fundraiser organized by family friends says, “a piece of shrapnel struck Garrett in the head, lodging from about his temple to almost the back end of his ear” and “hitting the motor function area of his brain.”