THE RESCUE

Aponte's windpipe was open and he was breathing. But blood gushed from a gash along his hairline, and from a wound by his right ear. His eyes flicked rapidly side to side, which medic Kyla Cannon took as a sign of neurological damage.

Cannon spoke to him as she worked, to see what sense he could make of his surroundings. What color is the sky? What did you have for breakfast today?

"Cannon, help me help me," Aponte said. "You're my angel."

She wadded gauze and applied a pressure bandage to Aponte's head to control the bleeding. She inserted an IV line into his left forearm and gave him a saline drip to fight shock. She treated the burn on his hand.

One of the tractor-trailer drivers pulled his rig forward to shield them from ammunition firing off the burning Humvee.

A patrol from another unit arrived and helped set up a defensive perimeter.

Sgt. Luke Walker, the team leader in the rear escort Humvee, argued over the radio with a relay operator who didn't seem to understand that a member of the 115th was hurt and bleeding.

"You get that [expletive] copter here now!" Walker screamed into the radio. "Or I'm gonna come there personally, and kill you. We've got two body bags to fill and there's gonna be three if you don't get that copter here NOW!"

Walker waited with a red smoke grenade to signal the evacuation helicopter. The wait felt eternal. He had no confidence in the relay operator, so when two Chinook helicopters passed overhead -- massive transports with two rotors each -- Walker sent up the red smoke to signal that they had somebody wounded, and needed help.

The Chinooks circled two or three times, and then flew off.

Two minutes later, a medevac helicopter swooped in and put down on the highway. Rescuers loaded Aponte on a litter and took him away.

As the helicopter disappeared, the scene fell quiet.

The soldiers who had carried Aponte wore his handprints on their uniforms, in blood.