Defend Khe Sanh on Veteran Mode

First of let me start by telling that I've completed every Call of Duty game that came out on the Xbox360 on veteran mode. Sometimes it felt impossible (like the Mile High Club achievement in Cod4, of the level where you fight your way through the trenches in WaW), but I always managed to do it. Sometimes I died like 20 times at a checkpoint, but eventually I got through it.

But now I'm stuck at Defend Khe Sanh on veteran mode, where you have to fight your way down the hill. I know you have to kick over the barrels. But every single time I get to the barrels, I take out everyone near it with the China Lake, I sprint up to the barrel, press X, but right after the animation I'm dead. I don't even last half a second after that.

I tried diving away, going into prone, sprinting forward, backwards, sideways, standing still. But every single time I die instantly after the barrel is kicked over. The enemies just respawn and come back during the animation. I've died at this checkpoint at least 50 times now and started to wonder if my gamesave was glitched or there was a bug occuring, so I restarted the level, but the same exact thing is happening. I kick over the barrel and I die. It doesn't matter if I kick over the left or the right one first.
Am I missing something here, or do you just have to get lucky after a hundred tries?