Most of the roads in Afghanistan are dirt, and there are few bridges. We all drove through many shallow rivers throughout the deployment. Nobody thought that much about it. That March, Clabaugh’s convoy approached a swollen river, with several small side creeks running beside it. They radioed the rest of the convoy to pay attention and follow their route exactly.

After struggling through several streams, Clabaugh’s driver, Sgt. Bryers, almost had the Humvee stuck. They needed to power through the next part if they were to escape the mud.

“Let her buck!” Clabaugh shouted. The Humvee drove 6 feet out into the river. Then it plunged 6 feet straight down. The water was right up to the roof, gushing in, rising 3 inches a second. “Get the f*** out!” Clabaugh continued.

All four seats were occupied, and a gunner stood in the middle. All had to flee through the gunner’s roof hatch. Clabaugh’s top concern was for his men. In full gear, including heavy body armor, they faced a real drowning risk.

Sgt. Cain, in the back seat, refused to exit before Clabaugh. No time to argue. Clabaugh hurried topside and then pulled Cain out.

The freezing water was blazing fast. The Humvee had been perpendicular to the flow. “In … a few hours, the current had pushed that motherf***er so the nose was facing downstream,” Clabaugh told me.

He and the four others jumped to shore. Now they faced another problem. They couldn’t leave the Humvee and equipment behind. They were stuck in an open area, tempting targets for the Taliban.

Clabaugh called back to base on a satellite telephone, asking for help and notifying command of their position.

“Why are you giving a grid location on an unsecure line?” an officer asked.

“Because our tac radios are underwater,” Clabaugh answered.

Command would send the quick reaction force with a truck to pull out the Humvee. It was 10 a.m.

Talking about it with Sgt. Clabaugh, even 21 years later, I could hear a deep concern for his men in his voice.

He began working to establish a security perimeter. While setting that up, he heard a four-second burst from an M249 SAW machine gun. There was no enemy. It was the aged and often panicked Sgt. 1st Class Feldsrum, test-firing the SAW.

Nobody in the Army test-fired weapons, least of all when doing so could compromise a unit’s position.

“You will not fire that f***ing thing unless there’s a need!” Clabaugh shouted.

QRF arrived at 5 in the evening, with Afghan National Army troops. In the morning, they extracted the sunken vehicle and towed it back to base.

LIFE IN UNIFORM: KEEPING CALM AND CARRYING ON IN AFGHANISTAN

“I always think about it,” Clabaugh told me. “If something would have actually happened that day, and people would have lost their lives, I don’t know how I’d live with it.”

Yeah, the Humvee and the mission sank fast. A lot of good men were in danger. But Clabaugh reacted instantly, taking the necessary leadership actions to bring everyone home safely. A potential disaster was turned into a successful failure by Staff Sgt. Tyler Clabaugh and some other fantastic soldiers.

Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan. *Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.