Then, on September 19, he had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard- issue flak jacket, he stepped gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater.

He used his 7in knife to probe the ground and found a piece of red detonating cord between his legs. Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt. Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's feet.

His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. As they cut away his pants he wiggled his toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' "As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in.

"I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher." He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. "I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week.'"

Sgt. Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.

Semper Fi