Chapter 3 - The Night Itself
She remembered it in pieces.
She remembered the sound first. The sound was always the first thing. The VBIED hit the checkpoint at 01:47 and the sound rolled across Saber in a long flat blast that shook the ceiling tiles in the medical operations cell and knocked a photograph off the wall. Tessa had been sitting at the radio console in the medical operations cell with a cold cup of coffee and a stack of paperwork and a half-eaten sandwich. She had been awake for nineteen hours. She had been about to go to bed.
She did not go to bed.
She remembered the radio traffic. She remembered the Sergeant First Class at the checkpoint — his name was Donald Pryor and he was from Biloxi and he was thirty-nine years old — saying, "Saber, Saber, we have multiple casualties, we have multiple casualties, we need medics, we need medics now." She remembered answering. She remembered saying, "Pryor, this is Major Ford, how many casualties?" and Pryor saying, "At least eleven, ma'am, at least eleven, we have a vehicle in the wire, we have—" and then the radio cut out.
She remembered calling the battalion surgeon and getting no answer. She remembered calling the aid station and getting a medic who was nineteen years old and was crying. She remembered telling that medic — his name was Private First Class Rodrigo Alvarez and he had been in country for six weeks — to do what he had been trained to do, and to keep the radio with him, and to give her a count every five minutes.
She remembered calling Bagram.
She remembered the voice on the other end of the line: a woman's voice, calm, professional, saying, "This is Colonel Grant."
She remembered saying, "Colonel, this is Major Ford at Saber. I have eleven casualties and no surgeon. I need to move all eleven to your facility."
She remembered Grant saying, "Then move all eleven."
She remembered Grant saying, "Do you have an authorization?"
She remembered saying, "I'm writing it down now."
She remembered Grant saying, "Do you have a manifest?"
She remembered saying, "I'll have a manifest to you in thirty minutes."
She remembered the sound of the second blast.
The second blast was not a VBIED. It was a mortar round, walking in from the hills, and it hit the motor pool parking lot where the two evacuation vehicles were staged and where Tessa was standing with a clipboard and a flashlight, and it took both vehicles and four soldiers and both of her legs.
She remembered being on the ground.
She remembered being on the ground and looking up at the sky and thinking, in a very clear, very calm voice, I am not going to be able to write the manifest.
She remembered someone dragging her. She remembered someone saying her name. She remembered the nineteen-year-old medic, Alvarez, appearing out of the smoke with a bag of IV fluid and a tourniquet and hands that were not shaking anymore.
She remembered saying, "Alvarez. The manifest."
She remembered him saying, "Ma'am, you're bleeding out."
She remembered saying, "The manifest. Give me the radio."
He had given her the radio.
She had called Bagram.
She had said, "Colonel, this is Ford. My vehicles are gone. My legs are gone. I need you to send me three birds and I need you to send them to the north pad because the motor pool is hot."
She had said, "The casualties are eleven. Nine are walking. One is critical. One is me."
She had said, "I'm going to hand the radio to Alvarez now. He is going to give you the names. You are going to write them down. You are going to move all eleven of us to Bagram, and you are going to log the manifest under my authority, because I am the medical operations officer at Saber and I am the officer of record."
She had heard Grant's voice on the line, steady, saying, "Major, I have you. I have the manifest. I have your authority. Hand the radio to Alvarez."
She had handed the radio to Alvarez.
She had closed her eyes.
She had woken up in Landstuhl, in Germany, three days later, with no legs and a metal plate in her pelvis and a chaplain sitting next to her bed.
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And she had said, before she said anything else, before she asked where she was or what had happened or how long she had been out, she had said: "Did the manifest go through?"
And the chaplain had said, "Ma'am, I don't know what that means."
