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Stabbed in head 2 years ago, MP back in action

On June 23, almost two years after being stabbed in the head, Sgt. Dan Powers will make his first parachute jump from a military aircraft.

Powers, of the 118th Military Police Company at Fort Bragg, N.C., was on his second deployment to Iraq when on July 3, 2007, during a mission in east Baghdad, an Iraqi man shoved a 9-inch knife into his head. Powers didn’t even know he had been stabbed until he was told by a medic.

The knife had entered just below Powers’ helmet, above his cheekbone. Army doctors in Iraq and back in America, along with the Air Force flight crews that flew a rare nonstop flight from Iraq to the U.S., saved his life.

After spending time attached to Fort Bragg’s Warrior Transition Unit and working at the post’s provost marshall’s office, Powers returned to the 118th MP Company in January.

Powers’ jump is scheduled for June 23 in Key West, Fla., said Capt. Thomas Cieslak, a spokesman for the 16th MP Brigade, the only airborne MP brigade in the Army. The 118th MP Company belongs to the 16th MP Brigade.

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