USA. Darien, Wisconsin. 2007. Raymond Hubbard was injured in Baghdad on July 4, 2006, when a Russian-made 122mm
rocket crashed twenty feet from the guard post where he was stationed. Shrapnel tore into his
body. One fragment entered below his left knee, severing the leg. Another cartwheeled through
his neck, cutting through the carotid artery. He was still conscious as he hit the ground. He
remembers staring in confusion at the horrified faces of his comrades gathering above him. A
medic arrived on the scene moments after the blast. He plunged his hands into Raymond’s neck
and clamped the artery hard to stop the hemorrhage. His intervention saved Raymond’s life, but
he had already lost fourteen pints of blood, and suffered a massive stroke. He was evacuated to
Landstuhl, a huge American military hospital in Germany.
“After I was hit, I was in a coma for almost a month. I was having a series of massive
hallucinations. One was of an older gentlemen with long white hair. His left leg was gone and
was replaced with a wagon wheel. On the wagon wheel was a small cabinet where he carried his
huge pistol and his whiskey. He was an old person from out West and he intimidated me. He
played tricks on me during the day. One time he was smoking a cigarette in my room and I was
convinced the room was full of gas and that we were going to blow up. Now I think that old man
could have been one of three people. My father, myself in the future, or God.
“Another time I was in my coffin back home. It was my wake and I could hear my two sons, my
wife, my mom, and my father all standing outside my coffin. They were all trying to grieve. It
was a huge wake. The line went out the door and into the streets. At the end of the wake there
was a disturbance. My brother Billy said that he could bring me back. My oldest son’s mother,
Fran, whom I never married, said, ‘You can’t bring him back.’ They argued over this and the sky
was a violent torrent. My brother won the battle and b