Eight members of the 3-61 would die in battle nearby at Combat Outpost Keating two weeks later in one of the most costly engagements of the Afghanistan War. What Sean T. Ambriz was about to face was a prelude.

More than four years after zipping down a steel cable to provide medical care to a chopped-up platoon of soldiers, Master Sgt. Roger Sparks still labors to make sense of that day in November 2010 when four men died in his arms.

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Frank Troiano had two injured men with him, was taking fire from insurgents with a superior position and was trying to get out of a village in Afghanistan’s Tagab district.

The storm had deposited 37 inches of rain, felled trees and caused power outages on the tiny Pacific island. Now, they watched in horror as the floodwaters swirled around them, overtaking the building and rising quickly inside.

When a man detonated a suicide vest at the morning bazaar in Khost, Afghanistan, more than two years ago, Staff Sgt. Andrew Braxton and Sgt. Benjamin Bullard were unscathed. Their fellow North Carolina National Guard soldiers were not as lucky.

The target was an expert bomb maker, suspected of killing numerous U.S. and NATO troops in western Afghanistan. As Staff Sgt. Andrew Seif and Sgt. Justin Hansen closed in on the enemy during a secret raid, the two Marines maneuvered to prevent the suspect’s escape.

The eastern Afghan mountains and starry night sky were a ghostly orange in the lenses of Master Sgt. Thomas Case’s night-vision goggles.

When the bomb exploded, Navy Chief Petty Officer Justin Wilson didn’t run away. He ran toward it.

On most days, a combat photographer’s main responsibility is to shoot images. However, during a patrol in Iraq on Aug. 13, 2006, then-Petty Officer 1st Class Jackey Bratt was forced to put down her camera and pick up her weapon to defend fellow servicemembers and Iraqi soldiers from an insurgent attack.

Jeff Hall was in his backyard, holding a 9mm pistol to his head trying to find the courage to pull the trigger. That was in 2008, after two deployments to Iraq that left him physically and mentally wounded.