Consultant's Son Survives Enemy Blast in Iraq!

By Patrick Reynolds

May 2004

HOUSTON – Signa Engineering Corp., An American soldier fighting the War on Terror in Iraq is a little banged up but alive this week, thanks to a generous – yet practical – gift from his father, and maybe a little help from above.

Jonathan Kirk Wieder, of the U.S. Army’s 1st Division, 7th Calvary, narrowly escaped death last week when an enemy Iraqi shell blasted him from behind.

Jonathan is a seasoned soldier stationed in Iraq, serving as a tank commander in the War Against Terror…but his father says his true home is in Texas, where he learned his shooting skills growing up on the family farm.

“We used to sit on the creek bed and I’d show him how to shoot rifles,” remembers Jonathan’s dad, Richard Wieder, Sr., a contract consultant for Signa Engineering Corp. “We used to shoot thousands of rounds just sitting there. I used to tell him, ‘One day you can join the Army and shoot for free…’ I didn’t think he was going to take me up on that idea.”

Jonathan, now 25, has served in the U.S. Army since he was a teenager. He signed up for another six years when the war in Iraq started gathering steam last year. Before he left on his second installment last January, Richard thought it was appropriate that his son wear a flak jacket while serving on the tank, but felt the “Standard-Issue” jackets provided for U.S. soldiers were inadequate. Richard decided to invest in the best for his son.

“We decided to get him a flak jacket like the SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) police teams use here in America. We picked it up at Ft. Hood, and he took it with him,” his dad recalls.

Richard spent $1,500 on the jacket out of his own pocket (the Army only pays for the standard issue jacket; any other jacket must be paid for privately). Jonathan wears the protection regularly, although Iraqi temperatures are already soaring into the upper 90s this year. Inside an iron-plated military tank, wearing a heavy flak jacket, those degrees are magnified significantly.

“A lot of the guys over there don’t like wearing the flak jackets right now. It’s so hot and all in the desert…But I’m glad my son had his on,” Richard says.

Last week, Jonathan was perched atop the M1A1 Tank he commands, looking through his night-vision goggles in the early-morning desert hours. He was trying to locate a group of enemy Iraqis who were firing on the tank with an RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade). “He wanted them to come out and ‘fight like men,’” his father says. “But they wouldn’t do that… But then, who would, when a U.S. tank is coming after you?”

Jonathan tried using the heat sensors on the night vision goggles to find his target, but to no avail. Suddenly, hot metal whizzed through the night and smashed into his back, ripping his flak jacket and sending him careening forward out of control.

Jonathan had been hit hard from behind, reportedly by an AK-47 with NATO rounds. The jacket was severely mangled, but withheld the impact of the blast.

“It felt like someone hit me with a sledgehammer,” Jonathan told his father. Judging by the picture of the damage that the jacket sustained, it was a significant impact.

“In retrospect, I’m glad we went with the SWAT jacket,” Richard says. “I’m not sure the standard issue would have stopped the round.”

Jonathan is doing well, although his exact condition is not known. Much of the information available on soldiers fighting the War in Iraq is classified, and even communications with family members is limited. But his father thanks God for modern technology.

“I’m proud of him, and I’m proud of each and every one of the soldiers in Iraq right now, regardless if I feel like they should be over there or not,” Richard says. They’re doing it for God and country and there’s no better way to die, if that’s what happens. They’re risking their lives so you and I can sleep at night.”