
When we're free of immediate danger, we send someone back to base to retrieve an ATV so that we have a forward scouting element. But everyone works together to keep our war bus on track-my teammates give turn instructions, read the map, and scan the road for more mines. For the rest of the mission I have to drive lopsided, constantly counter-steering just to keep the truck on the gravel road.

The wheels don't deflate enough to go flat, but the suspension slumps to the left. Green tracers track the truck, eventually pricking some of my tires. We clump into the fragile HEMTT, burning diesel to get off the exposed ridge.
