Cayuga Island resident injured while saving convoy from car bomber in Afghanistan
A hero returns home from war
NIAGARA FALLS — When the black Toyota Corolla sped alongside his Army convoy on a road in western Afghanistan Nov. 16, Spc. Joseph LaFreniere knew what to do.
He raised his M-4 rifle and fired a couple of rounds into the vehicle, which promptly blew up.
It was a suicide car bomber’s attempt to wipe out the convoy of armored vehicles. As ill luck would have it, the only person injured in the incident was LaFreniere.
Now LaFreniere, who turns 23 next week, is home on Cayuga Island, with a livid scar on his left cheek and the prospect of more surgery to repair the scar and nerve and salivary duct damage inside his face.
It could have — and, if LaFreniere hadn’t been alert and well-trained, would have — been a lot worse.
He already has received his Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman’s Badge as a result of the incident, and he has been recommended for a Bronze Star and a Distinguished Service Medal.
As a three-year member of the 101st Cavalry of the New York National Guard, LaFreniere knew that when an unmarked car speeds toward a military convoy, the driver probably isn’t there to throw flowers.
He was atop a Humvee in a machine- gun turret, but relied on his rifle because he couldn’t get his machine gun cranked around in time.
The action happened on a two-lane road in Herat Province, near the Iranian border. LaFreniere’s outfit normally works on supply missions and the escort of high-priority figures. On Nov. 16, the assignment was to pick up the U. S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who was flying into a military airfield.
The convoy was moving about 50 mph at the time of the attack. LaFreniere said he shot at the bomber’s car from behind at a range of about 50 meters.
“Our base [Camp Stone] is about 7z miles from the airport. We were heading down the road to the airport and a car came up from the rear and flew past the tail vehicle. I was in the next vehicle in the convoy and I caught it in the corner of my eye. I couldn’t get my turret around fast enough, so I just grabbed my sidearm, which was my M-4, and just popped a couple of shots with that. He blew himself up a little bit early,” he said.
LaFreniere said he was shooting at the driver, but doesn’t know if he actually hit him. It was his first experience with a car bomb during his eight-month tour in Afghanistan.
“If you see a speeding vehicle coming up on you, react. Disable it at first. If they still try to keep coming, open up on the whole vehicle,” was how he summarized his training.
At first, he wasn’t aware that a piece of steel from the exploding car had knifed into his face.
“The adrenaline kicked in. They pulled me out of the vehicle and told me I had a chunk of metal in my face. I just laid back and let them do what they had to do,” he recalled. “It went through and through. My upper jaw is what stopped it from going all the way through my face.”
The five-vehicle convoy, with three soldiers in each vehicle, proceeded to the airport, operated by Spanish and Italian forces, where surgery was performed to remove most of the steel.
“I flew from there to Kandahar to get a CAT scan,” LaFreniere said. “From there I went to Bagram and I had another surgery there. . . . From there I went to Landstuhl, Germany, and from Germany back to the States.”
He was in the hospital at Fort Bragg, N. C., for about a month before returning home Monday.
He will have laser surgery to make the scar “unnoticeable.” In the meantime, his unit is returning home. LaFreniere will be considered on active duty until his treatment is completed, but the 101st is not currently scheduled to return to the war zone.
“Once I get off active-duty orders, I’m going to apply to be a cop,” he said. “If that doesn’t work out, I’ll just go to the post office and get a job there.”
He said he needs a steady job, since he’s married to his high school sweetheart, Doreen, with two children, Madison, 2, and Anthony, 1.
“He’s a hero to me,” said Doreen. “At first I was devastated. I didn’t know the extent of what happened.”
She said she was awakened at about 4:30 a. m. Nov. 16 by a call from a sergeant in her husband’s outfit, telling her Joe had been wounded.
“It was a lot less than what they explained to me,” said Doreen, who did not go overseas after the injury, although plans were being made for such a trip at first.
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