Afghanistan Firefight Heard On Voice Mail - With Audio
OTIS, Ore. — An Oregon couple received a frightening phone call from their son in Afghanistan when he inadvertently called home during battle.
Stephen Phillips and other soldiers in his Army MP company were battling insurgents when his phone was pressed against his Humvee. It redialed and called his parents in the small Oregon town of Otis.
Listen to the entire phone call | WARNING: Clip contains foul language and is not suitable for some viewers
Sandie Petee, Phillips’ mother, and her husband, Jeff Petee, weren’t home at the time of the call. They returned home to find a three-minute voice mail on their answering machine.
“His friend died a year ago in Iraq and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, this may be the last time I hear my son’s voice on the phone,’” Petee said.
They heard shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition on the phone call from their son.
“They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating,” said Jeff Petee. “It’s something a parent really doesn’t want to hear. It’s a heck of a message to get from your son in Afghanistan.”
The three-minute call ended abruptly.
“You could hear him saying stuff like, he needs more ammo, or he needs another barrel,” said John Petee, Phillips’ brother. “At the end, you could hear a guy saying ‘Incoming! RPG!’ And then it cut off.”
As soon as the voice mail stopped playing, the Petees began trying to reach their son in Afghanistan. The family figured out Petee had tried to call home earlier that day, but he didn’t leave a message and the phone later redialed during battle.
They eventually reached their son.
“I finally got a hold of him,” Sandie Petee said. “He was embarrassed, he said, ‘Don’t let Grandma hear it.’”
Stephen Phillips is scheduled to return home next month, when his tour is complete, his mother said.
(KPTV)
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I don’t know, I think Grandma might want to hear it! If she’s anything like my Grandma she’d be cheering the demise of those criminal dress wearin’ flea infested child molesters.
Go Stephen! Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!!
May 6th, 2008 at 5:23 amI’ve “sent” a few of those calls, but nothing like that. One went to my mother and she said I could tell you were in a bar.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:29 am“They heard shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition on the phone call from their son.”
Perfect example of the press sensationalizing something like this…
That didn’t sound like “pleas” or “pinned down” to me. Sounded like he was doing what our men and women do during a firefight. Yelling over the loud-ass sound of gunfire to get it done. The so actually sounded pretty darn calm for being “pinned down and needing ammo”… Obviously the parents didn’t understand that all barrels overheat during extended firing of weapons and the ammo load is disbursed between the team to reduce weight…
May 6th, 2008 at 5:58 am