On the morning of Jan. 16 last year, Acosta led soldiers on a 3-mile fitness run across Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq. Suddenly, insurgents attacked the camp with mortars.
Acosta remembers that he stopped, turned to yell at his soldiers and then dived for cover.
"Bam! That was it," he recalls. "Lights out."
An explosion about 60 feet away sent a piece of shrapnel — perhaps three-quarters of an inch long — through his left eye. It struck his brain and came out his right eye.
"It was a perfect hit," Acosta says.

During the Glass trial, 23 Marines from Platoon 2167 testified that he hit, punched and kicked them for minor infractions on dozens of occasions.  They also said he forced recruits to drink multiple canteens of water after eating. When some of the recruits threw up, Glass forced them to roll around in the vomit.

A conviction of this scope is rare. In the last three years, the recruit depot, which has nearly 500 drill instructors, has seen 44 drill instructors charged with misconduct toward recruits. Of those 44, only two before Glass went to court-martial; others were punished or admonished through an administrative process.

The U.S. soldiers fought alongside their Iraqi counterparts for more than 12 hours, killing hundreds of enemy, members of a cult known as Soldiers of Heaven, whose plan was the takeover of Najaf and its holy shrine.

The Special Forces soldiers also risked their lives when they went to the aid of two American Apache attack helicopter pilots who died when their aircraft was shot down by the enemy.