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LIVED THROUGH THIS
This Is My Vietnam
An Afghanistan veteran weighs in on whether what we did mattered in the ‘Forever War’
On December 10, 2003, Taliban and al-Qaida operatives launched a complex attack against the small forward operating base I’d been stationed at for eight months. In the barrage and carnage that followed, my friend Steve and I were wounded in action. I took shrapnel to my arms and lower back, had my wrist fractured, and was knocked unconscious. When I came to, muscle memory took over, and I ran out under a gauntlet of explosions searching for medics while Steve slowly bled out because a piece of shrapnel had hit a vein in his arm.
The attack ended when an Air Force combat controller called in a massive airstrike, leveling the side of a nearby mountain. To this day, I cannot recall how I left the area we had bunkered down in while I worked furiously to patch up Steve. I found myself standing on a tarmac covered in blood, watching a helicopter disappear in the distance while I clutched Steve’s rifle.
Steve survived, and three days later, the Army medically evacuated me to Kandahar. I refused to return to the United States and finished my tour of duty, answering phones with my good hand (medics had cast the other) and carting interpreters around.
