Fathers, Sons And Brothers: The Mission

Once In Iraq, The Guardsmen Face One Of The Most Dangerous Missions

(CBS)  Spotting roadside bombs is tough: imagine looking for suspicious wires at 40 miles an hour.

On this day, wires that were spotted led to a typical roadside bomb-artillery shells lying down with bottles of gasoline on top. A bomb tech wired it up to finish it off.

Who’s planting these bombs? It's hard to say. This territory is in control of Sunni insurgents fighting the occupation. But when the bombs explode, there's never anyone around. Once in a while, the soldiers do get lucky. A group of men were stopped at a checkpoint; their car tested positive for explosives.

By August 2006, the guardsmen had been away from Iowa for ten months. They had escorted 20,000 trucks, 45 million gallons of gasoline and driven one million miles.

Sean Rohret, the guy who married Esther on a four-day pass before he shipped out, was driving a Humvee when a bomb went off. His armored Humvee was shattered.

"Don’t move any farther, there’s pressure plates, do move any farther!" a soldier warned. They’re worried about pressure plates in the dirt that might detonate another bomb.

The truck commander and the gunner walked away from the blast. Rohret did not.

"I remember being very, very afraid. I was taken out of the truck, which was painful because of my broken back. I remember I passed out on the helicopter," Rohret remembers. "I had a collapsed lung, tension hemothorax, where my lung cavity filled with blood, ruptured spleen."

60 Minutes found Rohret three weeks later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "I have four broken vertebrae which are still broken," he explained.

Even with all those wounds, he's okay and headed back to Iowa. But 60 Minutes wondered whether the trauma had shaken his faith in the mission.

"As an activated national guardsman, I work for the president. I believe that the people that make the decisions and put me into that position have the education and experience to know exactly what they’re doing," Rohret says.

In the summer of 2006, the Guard had settled in at the Al Asad base. When they left Iowa they talked about spreading democracy, but it has become more about looking out for each other and getting through the day.

The young guardsmen had figured out how to splice their iPods into the intercom systems so, now, there's road music. Which music depends on whether it's a son or a dad at the wheel.

It turns out, most of the cargo trucks are in lousy shape and stopping the convoy is dangerous. If a truck goes lame, they destroy it so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. A gasoline tanker was disposed off with an incredibly well-aimed grenade.

When they're off the road, they’re usually online. Home has become a show on the Web.

Remember Margo Bodensteiner, who met her husband Jim to conceive a child before he left? That was nine months ago.

"We're going live to Iraq and it's over the Internet we're going to introduce little Irelynn here to her daddy," Margo explains.

"Can you hear me? Everybody looks good. Ok, I’m ready," Jim Bodensteiner says.

"Are you sure?" Margo asks.

"Of course I'm sure," he replies. "Oh my, look at that. Hey babies, what ya doing? Look at that hair, she’s beautiful. I just wish I was there to hold her."