Behr knew he was in deep shit. Shurer had finally arrived, but Behr was struggling to maintain consciousness. Helpless, he thought. I’m fucking helpless.
And he was feeling guilty.
Not only was he unable to contribute to the ongoing firefight, he was drawing somebody else to his aid. Fellow soldiers were trying to protect him at great risk to their own safety. He knew Morales had probably been shot because of him. He felt like a burden. You’re not supposed to get shot. You’re just dragging other people down.
Now Behr’s memory was becoming cloudy. He couldn’t even recall the soldiers who’d moved him to the new spot on the ridge. He opened his eyes, but everything seemed blurry. He noticed his only protection was a nearby rock wall. That was it. But it didn’t seem to be providing much cover at all. Not with the bullets impacting near his body.
Lying in the rock-hard dirt with half his uniform cut off, Behr was too weak to do anything. While his arm hurt, it was his pelvis that worried him. It was throbbing, and when the pain welled up, he would bite down hard on his lip. Someone on the team had removed his body armor to make it easier to exert pressure on his pelvis to stop the bleeding. The reality was that Behr was slipping into shock. If that happened, his body would start shutting down.
In the minutes after Behr was shot, his adrenaline had kicked in, and this helped keep him alert. But now he was drowsy. He blamed this, in part, on the morphine. Each Special Forces soldier carried a morphine-filled needle he could inject if he was wounded in combat. Someone on the team had injected Behr. While the drug relieved some of his excruciating pain, it left him disoriented. He had lost all concept of time. He was unsure how long he had been in this spot, or how long the battle had been raging.
He only knew that Shurer was there beside him. He noticed the serious look on the medic’s face. Not a good sign, Behr thought.
Shurer was on top of Behr, pulling gauze and other material out of his kit, starting an IV, and then putting pressure on the wound. While he worked, Behr glimpsed a building on the other side of the valley. He spotted flashes of muzzle fire coming from it.
We need to eliminate that building, he thought.
He gathered all his strength and pointed at the building. But no one saw him. He wanted to reach for his radio and call in air strikes. But Walton had his radio, and the captain was busy using it. Even over the deafening noise, Behr could hear planes streaking toward the area. At least it sounded like planes. He couldn’t be sure of anything.