Carter was no medic.
Yet here he was, trapped on a cliff and pressed into medical duty. Behr was seriously wounded. So was Morales. And Shurer was nowhere in sight. Unknown to Carter, Walton was a paramedic. But the captain was so tied up on the radio helping Rhyner with the air strikes he didn’t have time to take care of the wounded.
The wounds were horrific. Morales’s thigh and ankle were ripped open. Behr’s uniform was bathed in blood. Carter had been administering first aid to the two wounded soldiers. It was a less than ideal scenario. Although Carter had some first-aid training, he was rusty, and this wasn’t the time or place for on-the-job training. Plus, he had never administered first aid to a seriously wounded soldier. And it was important for a medic to treat a wounded soldier right away and get him to a hospital as quickly as possible. Studies showed that the quicker a medic can treat and stabilize a seriously wounded soldier on the battlefield—and get him to the hospital—the more likely the soldier was to survive.
In this case, the clock had been ticking.
Carter had no idea how long they had been trapped. The fire was continuous. Under these conditions, you lost all concept of time. How long had they been under attack? One hour? Maybe. Carter wasn’t sure and he was worried. They had to get help for the wounded soldiers. And the only way to do that was to find a way off the mountain before everyone was killed.
He knew Walton was trying to find a solution. He’d overheard him on the radio with Bagram. From what he could tell, they were trying to set up more air strikes. Bombs kept falling, but they hadn’t stopped the insurgents. From the helicopter traffic, he heard that almost every building had fifteen to twenty HIG fighters on rooftops with guns bristling out of windows. The buildings were built with flat roofs and made of rocks and mud. Many of the buildings in the compound sat on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the valley. The enemy had the vantage points. We’re fucked, he thought.
Carter knew they were in a precarious situation. They were cut off from the other ODAs and most of the commandos. They were alone, and the insurgents probably sensed that they were close to inflicting major damage on an elite Army unit. If that happened, HIG commanders could use it as a recruiting tool.
The pilots needed to be precise. One wrong coordinate and a bomb could explode on their position. They had to be careful.
But without air support, they were doomed.