In October 2013, I commanded Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, on a route-clearance mission in Zabul Province, Afghanistan. The route ran 60 miles. It took nearly 10 days because the Taliban had seeded the road with hundreds of victim-operated bombs and laid ambushes along its length.

We found and destroyed nearly 50 of those bombs, largely because of an Afghan Explosive Ordnance Disposal team embedded with my company. They had no robots or next-generation technology. They used grappling hooks to unearth charges and triggers, then destroyed the bombs by placing explosives directly, by hand. On one horrible day, three of them were hit doing this work. Their platoon leader did not die instantly. I called in his medical evacuation flight, but I couldn’t save him.