The trauma team was waiting as Baxter rounded the corner behind the deputy’s car into the ER loading bay. They loaded the girl onto a gurney and put her on 100% oxygen immediately as they wheeled her into the Emergency Room. Baxter watched as they worked. The girl was fading fast, but still alive. He couldn’t believe it. She had been buried alive in a shallow grave. It was only luck that he had found her. Luck and the nagging voice of his father to always pay attention to the details.

Joe Carpenter

Hawg Highway

Bamiyan Charikar Highway

Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan

July 2013 1800L

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The six-vehicle convoy drove steadily down the newly paved valley highway. The four MRAPs and two HUMVEEs were seemingly the only vehicles within miles as the mountain peaks on either side cast their shadows onto the hot asphalt, shielding them from the hot desert sun they had been exposed to all day.

The dull droning of the all-terrain tires on the barely paved asphalt was almost relaxing to Tech Sgt Joe Carpenter. If it weren’t for the fifty pounds of gear and lack of airflow through the up-armored HUMVEE he was riding shotgun in, it might have made for a nice environment to take a nap.

A nap sounded great to Carpenter as he stared listlessly at the MRAP in the convoy ahead of them. He had gone outside the wire early that morning with an International Security Assistance Force composed mostly of U.S. Army and a few Afghan National Army soldiers. They had spent most of the day in the Bamiyan Province, assisting the local police with security and giving the ANA soldiers more on-the-job training before the upcoming troop drawdown.

It was Carpenter’s second time in Afghanistan, although it was his first in an Air Force uniform. He had hiked those same mountain peaks as an Army Ranger six years prior, going door to door to find and capture or kill Taliban fighters. The irony that he was back in the same part of the country with the Army had not escaped him.

“I fucking hate this time of day,” SSGT Gomez said, breaking the silence. Gomez was a native Texan who had been in the Army since he was just out of high school. He had told Carpenter that it was the only thing keeping him off the streets of El Paso and gangs.

“At least we’re heading back,” Carpenter offered. “It’s only another hour or so to Bagram.”

“I don’t care about being out. I love being out. It’s this shadow valley shit I hate. It’s too bright for NVGs, but there are too many fucking shadows out there to see assholes sneaking across ridges. We’re just targets on this highway. It’s fucking stupid,” Gomez replied. They were the only two in the vehicle, driving closely behind the lead MRAP- the Army’s Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored fighting vehicle designed to withstand IED attacks and ambushes.

“I hear ya man. But it’s been pretty quiet out here the last four months,” Carpenter replied, shrugging under his body armor.