AFGHANISTAN. Korengal Valley, Kunar. 2007. A soldier is treated after being shot in the chest in an ambush. A few days before, his unit,
the 173rd Airborne Brigade, had begun its second deployment to Afghanistan. He was hit at
dusk on one of his first patrols in the Korengal Valley. A second soldier, Timothy Vimoto, was
killed in the ambush. In the background his buddies wait with the blanket-covered body for a
medevac helicopter.
Vimoto, nineteen, was the son of the top ranking enlisted man in the same unit. Father and son
had deployed to Afghanistan together. During the flight to the hospital the wounded man kept
trying to look at the bundle next to him, but the flight medic forced him back down. As soon as
the helicopter landed, the casualties were carried out, and blood poured onto the tarmac. The
medic hosed down the chopper’s floor as the rest of the crew grabbed coffee for the flight back
to base.