“It was like a nightmare, everything was in slow motion,” Carrie said. “All I could hear was gunfire, and all I could smell was gunpowder and blood.” Six men with AK-47s and at least one Uzi submachine gun surrounded the vehicle, their weapons were raised, and they fired at will. “I felt pain everywhere,” Carrie recalls. “Bullets and shrapnel were ricocheting off the walls and floor of the truck. There was no way out.”
Carrie couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She could barely pray that God would stop the bullets, and once she did, she blacked out again, only to awaken later to an eerie silence. All the bustling people on the streets had disappeared; even the traffic had disintegrated. All that was left was the remains of the truck and the shattered humanity within it.
Carrie’s limbs wouldn’t move. Her left hand was missing fingers; bones were exposed. She couldn’t breathe through her nose but couldn’t figure out why.
Jean Elliot, slumped against Carrie, was dead. Moments later, Karen also breathed her last. Larry, in the front seat, was gone as well. Carrie started hollering for help in Arabic, but she could barely breathe and her voice was faint. Still, at the sound of Carrie’s strained call, David sat upright in the driver’s seat and sprang into action, moving as if he hadn’t even been hit.
Unbeknownst to David and Carrie, their attack was the start of the targeting of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Iraq. In the next forty-eight hours, more news became available about American civilians who were killed, burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. “Soft targeting” had officially begun.
Lord, search my mind and heart and help me achieve righteousness on this earth before you call me home.
“O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.” (Psalm 7:9)