SOUTH CHINA – The Purple Heart license plate of Spc. Christopher Fraser’s red Chevrolet S10 pickup says it all – IED06.

The license plate is only one reminder of May 6, 2006. The scar tissue on the ball of his right foot that has required skin grafts and numerous surgeries; the shrapnel embedded in his left leg; and the numerous photos, newspaper clippings and picture albums of his two comrades who died are other reminders of that tragic day.

The 20-year-old’s apartment office, rich with high school wrestling awards and Maine Army National Guard memorabilia, features one very special memento. An eagle-topped urn, containing the ashes of Staff Sgt. Dale “Doc” Kelly, rests on the top shelf of the soldier’s desk. Fraser, who is considered by Kelly’s widow to be part of the family, received one of nine urns distributed to Kelly’s family members.

“Dale James Kelly Jr., November 30, 1957 to May 6, 2006, Always our hero, Ascend to Victory,” the urn’s plaque reads.

On May 6, 2006, Fraser was the gunner of a convoy truck escorting Iraqi civilian 18-wheelers carrying supplies. He was deployed with the Maine Army National Guard’s Security Force I unit in March 2006.

As his truck approached a bridge in Ash Shamiajah, Fraser spotted a man in the distance who made him uneasy.

“I saw who I personally thought was the triggerman,” Fraser recalled. “I came up to him and he had two kids, one on each side. He could have been a dad, but he wasn’t right; he was moving around and fidgeting. I bent down and tapped V [Staff Sgt. Dave Veverka] and said that the guy was not right. Then I went back up to adjust my [gun] to him, and as soon as I got ready to turn it, we got hit.”

The improvised explosive device burst through the 21/2-ton light military tactical vehicle that carried Fraser, Veverka, 25, and the driver, Staff Sgt. Dale Kelly Jr., 48.

Only Fraser survived.

“When I got to Texas [Army hospital] I kept wondering, ‘why me?'” Fraser said. “Ninety-five percent of the time, the gunner dies. I had accepted that. I wanted fate in my own hands.”

But on that day, his fate rested in the hands of his two comrades.

“The way Dale drove saved me,” Fraser said. Kelly was killed instantly when the bomb hit, Fraser said, but his grip on the steering wheel kept the truck from plunging off the bridge into the ravine below.

Kelly had served as the Security Force I unit’s “father,” Fraser said. Because the two had worked together since the beginning of the deployment, they shared a special bond.

The explosion blew the passenger-side door off the truck, and Veverka was injured seriously, taking shrapnel to the face. Despite that, Veverka followed protocol: he unbuckled, hoisted himself to Fraser’s gunner position, unsnapped him from his post, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and pulled him into the truck to safety. If Veverka had not done this, and Fraser had been at his perch on top of the truck when it rolled, “I would have been a goner.”

“The toughest part was not knowing about V,” Fraser said. “I knew Dale didn’t make it, but I didn’t find out until four days later that V didn’t.”

Fraser, who was trained in basic medical skills, hobbled to the convoy’s second truck after the attack, administered his own IV and inspected his blood-filled boot. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in his left leg, but blood gushed from his right foot, where a hole had been burned to the bone.

“When I tried to take my boot off, the skin from my foot slid with it, so I just put it back on,” the soldier said, noting that he did not feel pain until almost 30 minutes after the explosion.

Although physical pain did not overtake the young soldier immediately, the survivor’s guilt was overwhelming, Fraser said. It only intensified when the widowed Nancy Kelly showed up at his Texas hospital room only days after the explosion.

“I really thought she was going to blame me for the death of her husband,” Fraser said.

“Instead, she said, ‘I don’t blame you. God told me to be by your side, so I came here,'” Fraser recalled.

Now, almost a year later, she continues to be at Fraser’s side.

Nancy Kelly traveled to Texas last week with Fraser for a checkup on his foot. Unfortunately, the scar tissue has bubbled up, resembling a bone poking through the ball of his foot, and Army doctors told the soldier that despite the 10 months of treatment he already has endured, they will have to begin again.

Still, Fraser said he is very lucky.

“He has full privileges and responsibility as any child in this family,” Nancy Kelly said, noting that her husband treated Fraser like a son while they were deployed. “We all agree, he’s ours, as long as he wants to be – he’s a child of this family.”

In fact, when Fraser moved into his South China apartment, Nancy helped furnish the place, which included the important purchase of a large-screen television.

“Every child of mine that has ever gone out on their own, we’ve always helped them furnish their apartment,” Nancy Kelly said. “That’s what I do for every one of my kids, and he’s one of my kids.”

Everywhere Fraser turns there is a reminder of his comrades, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Last July, he got a tattoo on his left upper arm that pictured the standard fallen soldier memorial – boots, rifle, dog tags and helmet – that read “Fallen But Not Forgotten, May 2006.” The dog tags are inscribed with the initials DJK and DMV, for Dale James Kelly and David Michael Veverka.

“I wanted a memorial for them,” Fraser said. “The fallen soldier memorial was just right.”