First-person monologue by Jamie Pennell recounting a violent encounter in a hotel courtyard: he describes seeing dead UN workers and a suicide bomber, grenades/explosions, entering a damaged building, and a subsequent massive explosion. He highlights the bravery and stoicism of his comrade Steve Askin—wounded in the head yet insisting on continuing—ending with admiration for Askin's relentlessness.
The lights were outside the hotel. A dead terrace lay on the floor. And it was me and Willie up here, turned up there. So we walked into the courtyard. I could see the two UN workers dead on the ground. I could see the guy who had detonated the. The fist. The suicide vest that he was wearing around his arms and legs. So gun battle got a guy on an uncleared floor who's wounded. We couldn't get comms with him. And we're getting grenades rained down on us as well. We didn't know any of this had happened. We just heard explosions, but we didn't know we were going to walk into basically a roof full of head, arms, legs and guts that just revealed itself as we started moving closer and closer. So we kicked the door in a couple of times. And then as soon as there was a crack, there was a massive explosion.
Steve Askin was sitting in front of me, and he said in. I said, oh, is everyone all right? And Steve goes, no, I've been. I think I've been shot through the side of the head. I could see that his ear was sort of hanging off a little bit. And he had taken around through the side of his. His ear got in and out. And then I looked him in the eyes and I said, you had enough yet? And then just laughed. And I said, you're going home. You're going. You're going to go to hospital now. And he said, no, I'm good. I'll keep going now. You're going to hospital. Relentless. What a legend.
