Risk Management Magazine

The crew was heading back to the motor pool after a long training day, and packed snow covered the winding tank trail. As the Stryker — a specialized variant carrying a heavy 30 mm cannon — began descending a familiar steep grade with a sharp, left-hand curve, the driver felt a slight, almost imperceptible loss of traction.

Surviving a deployment to a combat zone can leave a Soldier feeling invincible. That false sense of invincibility can quickly lead to disaster when facing a different kind of threat back home.

A sudden, sharp knock shattered the stillness of my hooch at Al-Asad Airbase, Iraq, hours after our Thanksgiving 2023 holiday meals had been cleared away. I flung open the door to find my standardization pilot (SP) standing in the dark, his face completely deadpan. "We’re scattering," he said.