Carnivore

Amid ferocious fighting that many times nearly took his life, Sergeant Dillard C. J. Johnson and his crew are recognized by Pentagon reports to have accounted for astonishing enemy KIA totals while battling inside and out of the Carnivore, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle Johnson commanded during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After miraculously beating stage-three cancer (caused by radiation exposure from firing armor-piercing depleted-uranium rounds during combat), he returned to his platoon in Baghdad for a second tour, often serving as a sniper protecting his fellow troops. Today, Johnson and his mens story is the stuff of legendearning them a cover story inSoldier of Fortuneand a display in the Fort Stewart Museum. But only now is Johnson telling his full story: reviewed and approved for publication by the Department of Defense,Carnivoreis the gripping and unflinchingly honest autobiography of a remarkable American warrior.The estimated enemy KIAs for Staff Sergeant Johnsons BIFV [Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle] during this fight [22 March, 2003] was 488. The informal estimate from the troop was that Johnson and his crew killed at least 1,000 Iraqis on 23 March. Later in the move north, Johnson engaged and destroyed 20 trucks and tallied 314 KIAs in the vicinity of An Najaf. At Objective FLOYD, Johnsons platoon fought yet another bitter fight against what they claim was a thousand paramilitary troops. Events were corroborated by separate interviews with the remainder of C/3-7 CAV, to include the troop commander. On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the official study of the 2003 invasion commissioned by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff