While I was reporting in Afghanistan, I spent time with the soldiers in the command outposts. It's a place where you shower with bottled water warmed by the sun, eat lots of boxed mashed potatoes and wipe debris off every inch of equipment in your tent after a helicopter swirls dust into every corner.

In these sparse surroundings, I traveled with a group of warriors from Wisconsin who have the most dangerous job in Afghanistan -- looking for and disarming roadside bombs. Their commander is Sgt. First Class Chet Millard, a 32-year-old prison guard with four kids and a wife back home.

Yeah, he's been to Afghanistan before -- heck yeah. He's a reservist. But between his dry wit, hard-driving ways and his gritty grin, he could pull his guys through a 36-hour stretch without any hot meals or bathroom while as they bear the burdens of the bombs they found -- or worse yet, the ones they missed.

The roads where they were asked to work were so dangerous the soldiers knew as soon as they faded from their rearview mirrors, the improvised-explosive devices, or IED's, would quickly return.

They live with that.

As I returned to the Norman Rockwell-like serenity of D.C., surrounded by so many familiar, caring people, I slipped my Time magazine from the mailbox. As I took a quick peek at the cover, my heart froze.

I dropped the magazine like a hot coal.

When I picked it up again, I took the image in and looked closely at the cover at a familiar face -- Millard.

Frustratingly, there's only a date and a caption -- there's no article about him.

He's lying down on a stretcher, waiting for a medical helicopter, with that cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His eyes are closed. Is he alive? Is he dead?

He's so wiley and cunning. But roadside bombs are so unpredictable -- that's the point. And no soldier thinks he or she is going to get hit -- everyone takes precautions not to get hit. Here's the tragic reality -- you get into a routine and stop paying close attention. Then in an instant everything changes and it doesn't matter who you are or what your rank is or how great you'd be in a firefight.

I'm happy to report that Millard lived. In fact he's already been returned to duty. I don't know much more -- only that he had to be taken for care on Sept. 8. I don't know the nature of the injury and a public information officer won't give me the details. But I'll get them. And I'm sure there will be quite a story, one that Millard is perhaps already telling to 'the guys' as they suit up and go out again on those dangerous roads.

• When you know the man on the cover of TIME...