[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S4625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GEORGIAN SOLDIER SAVES CIVILIAN

 Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, today I share with my colleagues 
the story of a 3rd Infantry soldier, and a fellow Georgian, who risked 
his own life to save a civilian caught in the crossfire in Iraq. The 
following article was printed in the April 1 edition of the Atlanta 
Journal-Constitution.
  Michael Carter wanted to talk about his son, CPT Chris Carter, 31, 
whose heroic rescue of an Iraqi woman flashed across the newswires 
Monday, but the batteries on his cordless phone were running down.
  ``I didn't know about it until the phone rang this morning,'' he said 
Monday afternoon, adding that it hadn't stopped ringing since.
  Constant phone calls kept him from logging on to the Internet and 
reading about Chris, commander of A Company, part of the 3rd Battalion, 
7th Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized).
  ``I've been so busy with phone calls, I have not had time to download 
it,'' said Carter, 63.
  He and his wife Shirley, 60, live in Watkinsville, where Chris grew 
up and attended Oconee County High School. On Monday pretty much 
everyone in Watkinsville wanted to call and congratulate the family.
  Chris was an ROTC student at the University of Georgia and a member 
of the Georgia Army National Guard. He was commissioned as an officer, 
trained with the 82nd Airborne Division and took the mountain section 
of his wilderness training with the 5th Ranger Training Battalion's 
Camp Merrill, near Dahlonega.
  Of medium height and a stocky build, Carter loves to hunt, fish, and 
sing Hank Williams, Jr. songs, said his girlfriend, Amanda Cofer, 24, 
an assistant to State Senators Mitch Seabaugh and Dan Moody.
  Carter distinguished himself Monday when he left his Bradley fighting 
vehicle and dashed out on a bridge during a firefight outside of 
Hindiyah, to try to bring an Iraqi woman to safety.
  An Associated Press account of the rescue began with Carter saying, 
``We've got to get her off that bridge'' and then determining to save 
her.
  The woman had apparently tried to race across the bridge when the 
Americans arrived, but was caught in the crossfire.
  Soldiers who had spotted her through the smoke at first thought she 
was dead, as was a man sprawled in the dust nearby. But the woman sat 
up and waved for help during breaks in the gunfire.
  According to AP reporter Chris Tomlinson's account, Carter ``ordered 
his Bradley armored vehicle to pull forward while he and two men ran 
behind it. They took cover behind the bridge's iron beams.
  ``Carter tossed a smoke grenade for more cover and approached the 
woman, who was crying and pointing toward a wound on her hip. She wore 
the black chador, common among older women in the countryside. The 
blood soaked through the fabric, streaking the pavement around her.
  ``Medics placed the woman on a stretcher and into an ambulance; 
Carter stood by, providing cover with his M16A4 rifle. Then she was 
gone, and Monday's battle for this town of 80,000, 50 miles south of 
Baghdad, raged on.''
  When Carter's girlfriend, Cofer, heard about the rescue, her first 
thought was, ``Get back in the vehicle!'' she said.
  Cofer and Carter met last October during a victory celebration in 
Buckhead after the Georgia Bulldogs beat the University of Kentucky in 
football. ``I knew immediately he was a special person,'' she said. 
Carter was deployed to Kuwait the next month.
  ``He is the kind of man every parent in America would be glad to have 
as a son,'' said Carter's father, who is retired from the Environmental 
Protection Agency.
  Though the Carters haven't heard from their son for 3 weeks, they 
keep up with him through the news.
  ``We have more current information on him than any other parent in 
the United States,'' said the father, adding that Carter's vehicle has 
been host to an embedded reporter during much of the campaign. ``Every 
day since he's been over there he's been in some newspaper. The next 
best thing to being able to talk to him personally has been to read the 
papers.''
  Carter then excused himself to answer the door. Television cameramen 
were ringing the bell.

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