‘Bullet Magnet’-Sgt. Camacho has earned 5 Purple Hearts in 5 years:
The soldiers in his New York-based combat unit call Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho the “Bullet Magnet.” Camacho – either the luckiest or unluckiest soldier in Afghanistan – is on his second tour here with the Fort Drum-based 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team.The reason for the nickname: He’s just earned his fifth Purple Heart after being shot in the left knee in a firefight 100 miles south of Kabul, military officials said.
“One of my friends said, ‘You’re the luckiest unlucky person I know,’” said Camacho, 24, who grew up in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
Purple Hearts are awarded to soldiers wounded or killed in combat. It is the oldest of U.S. military decorations and was established by Gen. George Washington with an order from his upstate Newburgh headquarters on Aug. 7, 1782.
