THE ACOG® THAT SURVIVED AN IED EXPLOSION
JAN 06 2025
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IT WAS A ROUTINE PATROL RUN. FOUR HUMVEES TRAVELING DOWN A COUNTRY ROAD OUTSIDE KIRKUK, IRAQ.
THEN ONE HIT AN IED.
Kenny Cook, soldier in the 25th Infantry, remembers the night perfectly. It was October 4, 2006. Clear and crisp. They were between checkpoints. Pitch blackness in the middle of nowhere. Kenny was in the vehicle behind the one that got hit.
The explosion disabled the Humvee and sent the top-mounted M240B flying across the road and into a ditch. The smell of sulfur filled the air.
“As soon as we smelled that, we knew exactly what was going on,” Kenny recalls.
It had been an IED. The convoy pulled over to ensure everyone was okay—and they were.
UNTIL THE SECOND EXPLOSION.
After the initial blast, Kenny and his team secured the area and called EOD to investigate for additional explosives or hostile presence. EOD determined the area safe.
Unfortunately, they were wrong.
Kenny’s First Sergeant asked him to assist in searching for the missing machine gun that had been ejected from the Humvee. Kenny did, and while walking the ditch, he stepped on a secondary IED, or perhaps a poorly designed daisy chain that didn’t properly detonate with the first explosion. “Either way, the bomb went off approximately three feet away from me.”
NEXT THING KENNY KNEW, HE WAS ON HIS BACK.
“I woke up to my medic running over and telling me, ‘Don’t move, don’t move.’”
His injuries were extensive—a broken leg, a severely sprained ankle, severe shrapnel wounds, blown ear drums, fractured vertebrae, TBI, third-degree burns, a partially detached retina, and chipped teeth.
“It destroyed the rifle in my hands.”
“The blast ripped my pants off at the thigh, tore one side of my boot off, ripped my helmet from my head, and sheared the connecting pins out of my M4, destroying the rifle.”
THE ACOG® SURVIVES.
Kenny was medevacked to the hospital on base where he later was told the only piece of his gear that survived was his Trijicon 4x32 ACOG®.
“I couldn’t believe it. Out of all the things. I mean, I knew it was durable, but to survive something like that, to take pieces of shrapnel. They’re solid.”
The M4 carbine, broken in half with a destroyed laser, had been sent back for repair. But the ACOG® was still operational.
Once Kenny returned to civilian life, he bought his first optic—one he had personally field tested—the ACOG.
“I don’t think I would ever trust another optic.”
SEE FOR YOURSELF WHAT MAKES THE ACOG® SO DURABLE.
Kenny with his own TA-33 3x30 ACOG®