On the night of March 27 at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the alarm went off with a harsh mechanical screech. A voice announced "incoming" three times, and "Alarm Red" was called.
Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Sgt. Xavier Jones, and Spc. Nicholas Cabo of the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment ran for Bunker 100. They'd done this before. Their unit had spent the Iran war under hundreds of drone and missile attacks.
"We're sitting there talking," Mitchell said, "and then all of a sudden, we didn't hear anything, no sound at all. Everything went black."
An Iranian ballistic missile had exploded yards from the bunker. The blast threw all three soldiers against the far wall and knocked them unconscious, and dust and debris filled the bunker.
Mitchell came to when another soldier, Spc. Alma, woke him. Cabo checked himself over and found his leg bleeding. "I think it was just the adrenaline," he said. "I just saw that my leg was a little bit bleeding, so I didn't really mind it."
Then they heard the screams. "We just heard screams and went to go help those guys," Cabo said.
One soldier's right leg was bleeding badly. Mitchell got a tourniquet on it. "That guy probably would have died because he was bleeding a lot from his right leg," Cabo said.
Mitchell had a concussion and was running on instinct. "I was on autopilot," he said. "I had no idea where I was, what I was doing." Even so, he tied the tourniquet well enough that a surgeon later assumed a paramedic had done it.
Mitchell also treated a soldier with a neck injury and kept a disoriented soldier calm until the bunker could be cleared. Cabo and Jones carried the wounded out on stretchers to the ambulance.
The warhead that went off near them carried about 250 kilograms of explosive. Other Iranian missiles that hit the base carried warheads of about 750 kilograms, three times as much.
"All it would have took was it being one of those," Mitchell said, "and we wouldn't have been here."
On October 1, at III Armored Corps headquarters at Fort Hood, Texas, all three received the Purple Heart. Their commander, Capt. Tyler Ritter, shared a message from one of the soldiers they saved: "Sir, your Soldiers saved my life. I thank God every day that these gentlemen survived. These Soldiers are my heroes."
Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, Fort Hood's commanding general, called their actions the "ultimate description of what we mean when we talk about warfighting, readiness, grit and taking care of our Soldiers."
The three soldiers were less interested in the medal. "I don't think any of us was like going for a Purple Heart," Jones said, "because it actually sucked."
They are three of the 865 American troops wounded in the Iran war, 649 of them Army or Army Reserve. The Army has awarded 184 Purple Hearts for the war so far. Twenty-one American troops have died while deployed, and the 11 killed by hostile fire all died in Iranian missile strikes.
Coming home has been a battle of its own.
Cabo went through three hospitals, in Germany, Virginia, and finally Fort Hood. One day outside a Sam's Club near a small airfield, a small plane flew overhead, and his body reacted as if it were a drone. "Oh crap," he remembers thinking, "it's just in my head."
Jones went back to work within weeks, and it didn't feel right. "It just was … it felt different," he said. "Like it felt non-serious." He has mostly stopped going out. "I'm trying to get back to reality," he said, "trying to get anxiety back down, trying to reintegrate."
All three have struggled with sleep. None of them regrets serving. "I mean," Jones said, "we raised our right hand for a reason."
Mitchell is using what happened to him to tell other soldiers what the Army culture usually won't. "Don't go to sick call," he said, describing the old attitude. "You'll be seen as a problem child." His advice is the opposite: "These are real issues, and they need to be addressed. So be honest with the medical staff and get the help you need."
Soldiers at Fort Hood can walk into the Behavioral Health clinics at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, at 254-553-3624 or 254-553-8711. Any veteran or service member can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and pressing 1.
Mitchell summed up that night in one sentence: "We did our job to the best of our ability, and we almost paid the ultimate price."