‘The Largest Moon I’d Ever Seen’

Troy Carter, Army, 2001-2006

It was a fall night in 2003, and we were patrolling in the Kunar Valley near Pakistan, supporting a task force looking for Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders. We were assigned to an overwatch position on the ridge above a target village, and a Chinook helicopter ferried our platoon up a few thousand feet, dropping us just below the ridgeline on a tall mountain overlooking the valley. As the assault kicks off, we could see the task-force guys going in with gunships circling above them. But that’s when I noticed the largest full moon I’d ever seen, rising across the valley. And it was blood-red, like you’d see in a lunar eclipse. I will never forget it. When you’re like 21 years old and you see that, you’re like: “How did I even get here?” It was beautiful.

‘Shooting Stars That You Couldn’t See With the Naked Eye’

Raupya Shah, Air Force, 2005-2012

In 2007, I was on my first deployment as a C-130 Hercules navigator, and it was my second time flying into a combat zone. Part of my job was to stand over the co-pilot’s shoulder and look out a window — trying to spot any incoming fire from the ground. I put on my flak jacket and a helmet with a pair of night-vision goggles mounted on the front. I was nervous and trying not to screw up, running our checklist for landing. I remember looking out the window, seeing the lights of Bagram in the distance and thinking, Crap, that’s amazing. It was a clear, moonless night, and the goggles amplified the light of the stars to an amazing degree. I saw shooting stars that you couldn’t see with the naked eye. It was a bizarre feeling — you feel like an intruder. It was quiet and completely deserted, isolated, as if I were the only thing happening out there. It does take your breath away. I don’t think I said anything.

‘I Could Actually Hear the Aurora Borealis’

Dale Lankford, Coast Guard, 1983-1987

I was on an icebreaker based in Seattle. And on my second patrol, we went up to the western Arctic. About 40 miles north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, we were parked in the ice for a bit. As a boatswain’s mate I was making my hourly rounds, and as I got up to the flight deck, I looked up and could see the Northern Lights starting to materialize. They probably formed in just a couple of minutes, and looked like layers of wavy curtains or drapes — just like three or four layers. The colors were anything from green to yellow to orange, undulating in the curtains and moving up and down in the curtains too. As the curtains went directly overhead, it looked like a starburst — like you’d see in a sci-fi movie — the colors were spraying out in every direction. Because the ship was shut down, it was dead quiet, and I realized I could actually hear the aurora borealis. It sounded like a light wind. As the lights passed us, they continued moving and went back to the wavy-curtain form. Then they kind of dissipated and went out the same way they came in. It was kind of like a religious experience, seeing it for the first time. For about 10 or 15 minutes, I was alone there. After I told my buddies inside what had happened, they started making announcements over the ship’s loudspeakers whenever a watch-stander spotted the Northern Lights, then everyone would run outside to look at them too.