I had yelled goodbye to Walt just before the mission, and some hours later when a bomb tore through the bottom of his Stryker vehicle, every man in it--including Walt--was wounded.

Lying in the hospital, still in Iraq, Walt Gaya was in the United States Army, but he was not an American. Not on paper, anyway: Walt was born in Argentina. He survived the blast, but his new wounds would preclude his flight from Mosul to Baghdad in time to participate in a swearing-in ceremony that would have been his official welcome as a new American.

Sergeant Mark Bush, who was also wounded in the blast, told me that only angels could have saved them...