Piosa made his way forward. Elizabeth, Balazs, Tim, and I, the medic, and a few other soldiers followed behind. The sustained fire had abated.
We came upon Specialist Carl Vandenberge, who had been shot in the arm. His chest and thighs were covered in blood. As he lay in the brush semiconscious, Sergeant Stichter stood over him, pouring a bag of fluid into his mouth while warming Vandenberge’s body with an instant chemical heating pack to try to prevent him from going into shock. I stopped. I sat down next to them, surrounded by a blanket of vast forest and tall pines. The others continued pushing forward.
“Hey . . . sorry . . . ,” I said, my voice hushed in case the Taliban still lingered nearby. Stichter looked over at me briefly and continued tending to Vandenberge, who was on his back in the brush.
“Do you mind if I photograph?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Stichter answered for both of them. He was calm, focused, as if a battle hadn’t just taken place.
“You’re gonna be fine.” Stichter was talking to Vandenberge, who had lost massive amounts of blood through the artery in his arm. “Tell me about the car you’re going to buy when you get home. What color is the car?”
“Am I gonna make it?” Vandenberge asked. “Am I going to live?”
Stichter was standing over Vandenberge, straddling him, emptying the final drops of the IV envelope into his buddy’s mouth.
“What color is the interior of your car?” Stichter asked.
I wondered if Vandenberge’s last thoughts were going to be on the color of the interior of the new car he was going to buy back in the States. I sat with them in silence, photographing, relieved to be in the illusion of a safe place, away from the hysteria. I didn’t want to get up.
Once Vandenberge rehydrated and regained enough energy to walk, the two soldiers stood up and walked toward the medevac helicopter landing. I headed once again toward the front, where Sergeant Rice and Staff Sergeant Rougle had been hit. As I walked forward, I saw Sergeant Rice, who had been shot in the stomach. He hobbled along, carrying his own IV bag, as two soldiers accompanied him toward the medevac zone. Rice had been shot before, and he appeared less traumatized than the soldiers accompanying him.
“Hey, Rice,” I said, approaching him with my camera slightly raised in front of my chest, as if asking for permission without words. “Is it cool if I take your picture? Is it OK?”
“Yes.” He nodded as he continued walking toward me.
I walked with them for a while, photographing as we walked, when Rice paused.
“Hey,” he asked, “do you think you could e-mail me some of these photos?”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah, Rice. Of course I can e-mail you some of these photographs. It’s the least I can do. What’s your e-mail address?” I asked, having learned that it’s much harder to try to get these things after the fact. Rice spelled out his address for me as we lumbered toward Vandenberge ahead.
As we neared the medevac point, I saw Captain Kearney running at top speed down the mountain toward us from his overwatch position. His gun was slung over his shoulder, and tears streamed down his face. “Rice!” Kearney wrapped his arms around him, and they all stood there and wept, soaking up the incredibleness of the ambush.
I photographed Rice and Vandenberge walking across the bleak terrain, covered in blood, arm in arm with their comrades. It was the first time I felt as if I were as much a part of the story as I was bearing witness while covering a war. But I was so consumed by adrenaline, I wasn’t even processing my emotions. Rice and Vandenberge were loaded onto the Black Hawk, and I watched them take off into the dust kicked up by the propellers.
Seconds later I heard, “We have to go get the KIA.”
The KIA? I asked myself. The KIA. The. Killed. In. Action. Fuck. “Wildcat”—Rougle—had been hit, and he was still missing. Rougle, who had just been telling Elizabeth and me that he was going to propose to his girlfriend when he went home on leave, who had survived almost six tours since September 11, 2001.