"You start thinking about life," he said, "but it's already too late for that. So you just keep going."

An insurgent's bomb had exploded beneath the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, spewing a black stream of smoke into the skies of Baqubah, Iraq, where Waiters' unit had been on patrol the morning of April 5, 2007.

"My group was cleaning a real bad neighborhood. They were blowing a lot of American soldiers up in that area," recalled Waiters, a medic with the 2nd Infantry Division, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment.

His unit had patrolled for more than 24 hours when the explosion shook the ground.