| Summary/Abstract |
It was October 2009, just days after a brazen Taliban attack on a remote American military base in eastern Afghanistan killed eight of the 53 members of his unit and wounded 27 others. The trim 29-year-old had hauled ammunition to pinned-down U.S. troops and killed close to a half-dozen Taliban fighters. His acts of bravery helped keep the tiny base from being completely overrun and later earned him the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest commendation. Carter didn't feel like a hero, however. Alone at night, tossing and turning in his bed, he couldn't escape the sounds of that fateful firefight and the sight of Spc. Stephan Mace -- immobilized after his legs had been blown away -- begging for help, tears streaming down his dirt-covered face. Carter had raced across the battlefield and treated the 21-year-old's wounds, but, ultimately, Mace died during surgery just hours later. Carter felt that he had failed his comrade; if only he'd moved faster, he thought, Mace would have lived. And though Carter's platoon sergeant encouraged him to feel proud about having helped save other troops, "I couldn't really hear him," he said during a recent speech in Maryland. "I was more focused on getting to my bunk, burying my head into a pillow, and not existing. I wanted to find a deep hole and just disappear."
|