Risk Management Magazine

It was the last month of our deployment and things were pretty routine. My back-seater and I were sitting in our Apache on Mustang ramp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, preparing for an air assault. We were on the auxiliary power unit, ensuring all our systems were functioning, when something caught my eye.

After returning home from a year in Afghanistan, I couldn’t wait to take a nice, relaxing trip with family and friends. So, two weeks after redeployment/reintegration, we packed our bags, coolers and paddleboards and headed for the beach. There, we’d join three other families already enjoying the beautiful weather. Little did I know that this trip would be anything but relaxing.

The structure wasn’t exactly what comes to mind when picturing a bridge; it was more of a low water crossing. If not for the previous days’ rain, crossing this bridge would have been simple. Now, it was flooded.