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Boelk, on his first combat patrol as the radio operator, was a few meters behind, scrambling to catch up to his lieutenant. The largest man in the platoon, his squad nicknamed him “Baloo,” after the gentle bear in
The Jungle Book
. Less than a foot away from where a dozen other Marines had walked, Boelk slipped on the bank. An explosion hurled his body into the canal, killing him instantly.
    West felt a truck hit him. The force threw him thirty feet backward. He landed with his back against a tree, his leg lying next to him.
    The shock wave drove Lantznester’s face into the dirt. For several seconds, he couldn’t hear or focus his eyes. When his vision cleared, he crawled to West, ripped off his shredded armor, and cinched two tourniquets around the gushing stump.
    “Tell everyone not to move,” West said. “We gotta …”
    West tried to raise his right hand, but it too had been mangled. His face was twisted at an odd angle, a chunk of shrapnel jutting from his left eye.
    “You’re okay, sir,” Lantz said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
    West felt no pain, only frustration.
    “Shut the fuck up, Lantz. Nothing’s okay.”
    The blast had scythed down the command group. Burning metal had smashed into LCpl. Zach White’s face, breaking his jaw. Other shards snapped the arm of the corpsman, HM3 Stephen Librando. Two other Marines were holding their torn faces, while a third lay dazed with a concussion.
    With the explosion echoing in their ears, no one could hear. An engineer scraped the ground around the blast area, found another IED within arm’s length of Lantz, and snipped the wires. Lantz continued to look after West.
    Sergeant Dy, a few feet away, felt like he had been hurled underwater. Everything looked white and faded out, with pieces of corn and dirt swirling and bobbing. With both radios blown, Dy fired off red signal flares.
    Staff Sgt. Matt Cartier, the platoon sergeant, made his way up from the rear, staying inside the gobs of shaving cream. He organized first aid and used his radio to call in the disaster. Back at Inkerman, Gunny Carlisle ran to the nearest vehicle, hopped in, and told the startled driver to get up the road. Within minutes, the armored vehicle had skidded to a stop near the red smoke signal marking the casualties out in the field. Carlisle ran down the path, took one look at West’s pale face, hoisted him over his shoulder, and lumbered back to the MRAP. Sergeant Cartier directed the movement of the other litters, and within half an hour all the casualties had been flown out of Inkerman.
    The next day, David Boelk, a retired Air Force master sergeant, was sitting at his desk in Washington, D.C. He read of a massive explosion that had killed and wounded several Marines in Sangin. He thought, “Wow, my son’s unit, somebody died, that really hits close to home.” His office phone rang a few minutes later; then two somber Marines were at his house.
    LCpl. James Boelk, twenty-four, left behind his parents, five sisters, and a brother. Matt Cartier, the platoon sergeant, had a soft spot for Boelk, who immediately did everything he was told, with a loopy grin on his face. He was the sort of Marine every sergeant liked to have in his unit—obedient, eager, and good-natured.

    Elsewhere in the battalion, an IED explosion killed Sgt. Ian Tawney, twenty-five, of Oregon. His wife, Ashley, was expecting a baby girl in January. Tawney was the top student in squad leader school and graduated as the classhonor man. 3/5 had lost ten Marines and more than thirty-five wounded. At Camp Bastion, the main coalition base in southern Afghanistan, the Personnel Retrieval and Processing Company prepared each body for transit to the States.
    “If it was a Marine [body] coming in,” Sgt. Thor Holm wrote to me, “we assumed he was coming from 3/5. We tried to take care of him for his buddies. We ironed every flag.”
    Lieutenant Colonel Morris sent a long email to the families of those serving