Sgt. Kriesel, the eternal optimist, had lost faith.

He tried to get up, but it was useless. The bones of his lower left arm were broken; the arm flapped like a door off its hinge. Kriesel, who had trained to be a paramedic, was clear-minded enough to brace his arm to his chest, hoping to avoid nerve damage.

His right biceps had burst; they were peppered with shrapnel. A bracelet in honor of a fallen soldier sliced his right wrist down to the bone.

Kriesel closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see more.

“Help me! I need help,” Kriesel cried.

“Stay still,” said Sgt. Adam Gallant, who had jumped out of the Bradley ahead of him and had run back. Gallant did a quick assessment. One soldier was dead, another trapped and likely gone. Two others were walking. Kriesel was top priority.

“Kries,” he said, “I’m not going to lie to you, man. Your legs are real bad.”

But he tried to comfort him, too.

“You’re going to be OK,” he said. “We’re going to take care of you.”

Gallant and another soldier wrapped tourniquets on Kriesel’s legs. They propped him up on stacked boxes of MREs so blood would flow to his organs. No one knew it then, but beneath his armor the force of the 200-pound bomb had ripped open his abdomen, and his intestines were exposed.

Kriesel closed his eyes. It was almost like the movies: His life really was flashing before his eyes. He thought of Little League back in Minnesota, his elementary school days...

Then he felt someone shaking his shoulder.

“Keep your eyes open,” he heard. He didn’t want to.

He thought of his wife, Katie.

His gunner sat by his side to keep him awake. But the blast had left him with a concussion, and he kept asking Kriesel the same questions: