Getting Hit...Hard

Ok, so it was Friday, Aug 17, fairly normal day in Iraq. We go out to recover some broken down vehicles and headed home after a fairly boring day. anyway, on our way back we go by blast hole after blast hole. We go past one that we all hate b/c of it's location and nothing happens, but the truck behind me gets blowed up. Gunner's knocked out, so my truck, with the medic goes back to check on him. A coupla minutes later, we're rolling again.
Well, we get maybe 150m down the road when my truck gets hit by God knows what. I mean, the explosive was so big it left a whole you could put a queen size bed in. Not only that, but it went off less than 3 ft. from the truck. Anyway, my eyes are burning really really bad from all the dust and i drop out of the turret yelling at the medic to splash water in my eyes. this he does and before i had a chance to get back up in the gun, he says "Hey dude, you're necks bleedin' bad." Now I'm like crap, what happened. anyway, turns out i got hit with shrapnel in both my neck and face. Medic patches me up and i get up to join the firefight that's been raging outside for 2-3 minutes. Well, i had to use my personaly machine gun seeing as the .50 cal which mounts to truck had been blown off it's mount and onto my head (thank God for helmets). Well, I start shooting, not having a good idea of what i'm shooting cause i still can't see, and after about 75 rounds, put 3 rounds in my own shield.
At that point in time, I fired myself as the gunner and hopped down. team leader then hopped in the gun while i applyed pressure to the wound on my neck and continued flushing my eyes with water, while at the same time my truck and the truck behind me (the first truck to get hit within the last 7 minutes) head for home at top speed.
anyway, all said and done, I got some stitches in my neck and am being put in for a Purple Heart which, believe it or not, I wasn't trying to get.