SANTA CRUZ, California — Laid out on the hospital bed across from him at Joint Base Balad, the man with the destroyed face could easily have been Jake Scallan himself. They did the same job, two years after the Iraq War’s troop surge and two years before its official end. Both manned .50-caliber M2 turret guns on security patrols that drove around the base’s perimeter. But Scallan, who had been fighting pneumonia already, fell ill that 2009 night.

He vomited on patrol in his gunner’s turret. His nose began to bleed. He eventually became useless for the night’s mission. Scallan’s squad took him back to the base’s emergency room. Doctors pumped fluids into him and his condition stabilized, then a commotion arose in the ward.

“We’ve got an emergency coming in,” a doctor told Scallan. “No one’s going to be able to pay much attention to you for a little bit.”

The other turret gunner was wheeled in and loaded onto a bed. On patrol with his own squad, he’d been shot by an “explosively formed penetrator” -- a particularly lethal type of improvised device. A copper slug had pummeled straight into his face.

Medical staff did what they could, but the other gunner died within minutes. The first doctor to realize he was dead screamed. He threw his tobacco pipe and stormed out of the room. The dead gunner’s body was cleaned up, at least some. A quick fallen-hero ceremony was performed right there.

Scallan watched it all from his bed feet away. Then it was back to work for everyone.