Risk Management Magazine

It was the end of a long Friday evening out with some friends. After a night of partying, my normal routine was to come home and cook something before hitting the sack. This night was no different, and after putting some food on the stove, I decided to lie down for a minute until it was done cooking.

After taking care of some routine tasks around the office and meeting with the departing section leader, I gathered my notes and headed outside to hold morning formation. The day was going smoothly and time seemed to fly by. That was about to change.

It was a warm Sunday in Iraq, and I was at a combat outpost in the far west as the officer in charge of a detachment of construction engineers.