Ford was the first to wake up in the recovery room in Bagram. The first thing he did was look at his arm. His heart raced for a moment—until he saw that it was intact. The doctors had saved it. His biggest fear after being shot was that they would amputate it.
The nurses had him help wake up Morales and Walding. He called from his bed to Walding, who was still asleep.
“If he hears familiar voices, he will come out of it quicker,” the nurses told Ford.
“Hey, John. How are you doing? You okay, buddy?” he asked.
“I’m all right,” Walding mumbled.
“Okay, cool.”
The nurses asked him to do the same for Morales, who wasn’t up yet.
“Hey, Luis, hey, Luis,” he said.
“Try it a little louder,” one of the nurses said.
At this point, Ford was almost screaming. “Hey, Luis! Don’t think because you got shot you’re not going to have to mow my lawn when you get home!”
It was a running joke with the team, since Morales was part Latino. They always kidded him about being the hired help—an illegal immigrant who just sneaked across the border. Behr got up next, but he was cranky. He was still in a lot of pain and didn’t say much.
They stayed up most of the night bullshitting and cracking jokes—just like they were back in the team room. The nurses joined in, and it felt like a party.
“Hey, you guys going to share a pair of boots now?” Ford joked.
“Hey, Scott, can you wipe your own ass?” Morales shot back.
During the night, Lieutenant Colonel Lynn Ashley visited the hospital with Colonel Christopher Haas and Sergeant Major Terry Peters. They told the men how proud they were. They fought hard. They were heroes.
Then Ford broke away for a moment and called his girlfriend. It was the middle of the night in Bagram, but she was in a Target in the Washington, D.C., area. It was early afternoon on April 7, 2008.
He told her what happened. He didn’t tell her many of the details. Just that they ran into “bad shit.” And that fellow soldiers were wounded. He told her he was shot, but that he would recover. That he would be coming home soon.
“I’m safe. It’s going to be okay,” he said.
But it would take a long time for Ford to actually believe it.