Sergeant Corey Hicks

Turning my head to the left and I seen the nose of that drone.

popped through, and as soon as it did, I knew what it was, turned to my right, and that's when it blew up and just blew the whole building apart.

Wounds on my face from shrapnel, so when I smile, I can't smile very well.

I've got shrapnel wounds on my arm and severing of artery impact my groin area, and I still have shrapnel coming out of me.

It's just popping out of...

places.

Deployment to Kuwait, everybody jokes about, all the military community jokes about it as being a vacation, not a deployment.

But at any point in time, you know, something can kick off with another country like Iran and you'll find yourself in a situation where it can be hostile really quickly.

You know, we thought we were safe and thought it was just going to be a silly another 12-day war and

Israel and Iran are gonna do their thing and it'll be over, you know.

It's coming to a realization that it's turning into something bigger than we thought.

Yes, sir, she was literally five feet from me.

The drone impacted basically right above her.

And she was just the kindest,

Kindest woman ever.

She always went above and beyond to make sure you were taken care of.

She tried to get me into reading books more.

I just want everybody to know to don't take anything for granted.

Life is precious.

Life is short.