Army of volunteers

Architects, businessmen, paramedics, moms, and dads by day, historic Tennessee National Guard unit paid the ultimate price in Iraq by night. This Memorial Day, we remember | Lynn Vincent

The blast blew the Humvee doors off, launched its outsized engine block skyward like a toy, and catapulted a flaming man out of the gun turret into the ink-black night.

Less than a mile away, inside Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bernstein near Tuz, Iraq, radio traffic exploded: "Eliminator Five Alpha attacked by IED! Eliminator Five Alpha attacked by IED!"

Commanding a Humvee gun-truck and with two Bradley Fighting Vehicles in trail, Sergeant First Class James Sanders, 42, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team's 2nd Platoon ripped through the FOB's front gate. He could see a yellow-orange fireball lighting the horizon 1,400 meters away and hear machine-gun fire chattering across the distance.

SFC Sanders' squad closed the gap in less than two minutes. His driver, Specialist Clayton Crowell, braked hard and skidded to a stop behind the ruined Humvee, now an inferno. Two hundred fifty meters further on, another Hummer, commanded by Staff Sgt. Luis Aponte, was already on the scene, spraying bullets in arcs, securing the road ahead. Between the able Humvees, the burning gun-truck began to crack and zing as the thousand M240 rounds inside cooked off.