"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye," he said when he walked up. Melendrez looked at him like he was insane. But instead of laughing, all the medics nodded, because they knew it wasn't a joke. There has been an epidemic of blindings in Iraq. Roadside bombs blow in the windows of the vehicles, destroying soldiers' eyes. Mortars send out shrapnel that has the same effect. It happens all the time. Bose has a horror of death and he was careful, he was the smart one. The medics who worked with him were fine with Bose all dressed up for his walk across the base, it made sense that he was careful. They needed him.

Melendrez told me about Bose's soldiering before the Badiat mission "He's really smart, but he's so dumb about the Army." The platoon commander explained to me that everyone is supposed to qualify on at least one weapons system. "I think he went out with the M16 and finally qualified after seven attempts. They might have said, 'Ok, he passed.' "I told Bose that I heard he couldn't shoot. He thought it was incredibly funny, and he laughed. "Yeah, you know, if I have to start fighting, we're going to be in a lot of trouble." If it bugged Melendrez, who loves the Army, but it didn't bother anyone else.

Later, I asked Bose what upset him the most about practicing medicine in a war zone. "Pronouncing people dead is the most disturbing because they came here just like I did, waved goodbye to someone, expected to be back and then they don't come back. The blood and guts is ok, I can deal with that, but there is a level of attachment with a patient that is not there in the States. It hits closer to home here. My patients are people in this unit, the people I ate breakfast with that morning and now they're injured. That has happened. But you just detach and do your job, just detach and do your job."

To commission a new reporting project in Iraq or a feature about Dr. Bose's work in the United States, click here.