JOSH
It was miserably hot walking along this dirt road, sweeping the metal detector back and forth as everyone walked behind me. I had already been on a ton of missions at this point, and I felt like I knew what to look for before my metal detector went off. But this day had a weird vibe that I couldn’t put my finger on. We decided to cut through an opening carved out of the mud wall separating the road from a grape field. Something sharpened in my posture as I approached this wall. At this point I had found dozens of IEDs and I thought, If I were to plant an IED, I would put it right here in this shortcut. So I swept in front of the opening, then swept again. Nothing. Safe to cross.
As I stepped across the opening to sweep the other side, I felt the ground explode beneath me. Suddenly, I could only see the blue sky, then the ground, then the sky again, as I flipped through the air. I felt my body slam against the ground, but I couldn’t hear it because my ears were ringing from the explosion. Through the dust, I saw people running toward me as I gave myself the once-over noticing the blood everywhere and my dangling fingers on my left hand. I confirmed Doc’s story with Paige. Yes, I asked if anyone had seen my sick flip and yes, I rubbed a fentanyl lollipop in the dirt because it was the wrong flavor.
After that was a long wait for a helicopter. I kept asking people to pour water on me because I felt like I was on fire. Doc told me that my legs were no longer there and judging by the sound of the explosion, I felt lucky that that was all I had lost. However, looking back on that day, I realized how hard it must have been for all my guys to stand there looking at me and pouring that water on me while we talked about barbecues and running legs.
Finally, the bird arrived to take me to Kandahar. When I left my guys, I felt everything changed. My adrenaline and determination to keep everyone positive quickly began to fade, and I just wanted to go to sleep. The flight medic kept telling me to stay awake. He was really getting on my nerves because every time I closed my eyes, he would ball up his fist and rub his knuckles across my sternum. Finally, he said, “I’m not going to be able to give you an IV because of the tourniquets on your arms, so I’m going to have to give you the FAST1.” Oh, heck no, I thought. I had heard about the FAST1, so I threatened this guy with all I had left, demanding that he not give it to me. He got out of my line of sight, and I thought that maybe he had changed his mind. Then, suddenly, he was on top of me, puncturing through my sternum with the nine-needled FAST1 to begin IV fluids (which explained the circle of nine scars Paige found on my chest when I got to Walter Reed). I told this man that I hated him and then begged God to let me make it to Kandahar. I never thought that I was going to die, but that was out of ignorance of the consequences of falling asleep. I was kept awake for the rest of the flight and finally closed my eyes in Kandahar.
PAIGE
I didn’t ask many questions; I just listened. This was a large part of what I was thankful for: that Josh could remember what happened to him so no one else had to tell him. It was in these conversations that I learned Josh’s role as the team leader and that he volunteered to hold the metal detector, believing he could be the most effective with it. As we conversed with each other and with his platoon, we learned that the metal detector did not pick up this IED because it was the first nonmetallic IED they had encountered on their deployment. Instead Josh found a carbon rod IED, an explosive that is detonated with carbon parts rather than metallic parts like metal wires. We also learned that Sgt. David Brooks was injured, too, taking shrapnel to the face as he stood close behind Josh. He flew to Kandahar as well, though Josh was too busy fighting off the flight medic to remember. I was partially freaked out at some of
