It was near dusk in Kandahar Province when an Afghan schoolteacher snapped.

The Taliban had previously accused him of being an informant for the American military, pulled his teeth out, bloodied his face and threatened to kill his family. He exacted revenge on Aug. 25, 2011.

Atop a hill in southern Afghanistan, the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army received a call that someone -- the teacher, as it turned out, who was indeed an informant -- had opened fire on a group of approximately 25 Taliban militants meeting inside a mosque in a nearby town. A handful were gravely wounded in the spree, and the Taliban began evacuating the others by taxi. Lieutenant Alejandro Villanueva, a 23-year-old former Army football player and rifle platoon leader of the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, gathered his troops to act on the call.

Villanueva's unit was part of a quick reaction response force charged with protecting Afghan civilians. About two dozen soldiers pulled on night optical goggles and ran down a rocky road to an intersection where the mosque and a school were located, intending to kill or capture the remaining Taliban militants.

They found nothing. Surprised, Villanueva called an Afghan elder forward and asked where everyone went. As the elder began to explain, Villanueva and his troops were ambushed by as many as eight Taliban militants in a spray of bullets.

Spc. Martin Piggott was shot in the kneecap. Sgt. Roy Dutton was shot in the back of the leg. Army Pvt. 1st Class Jesse Dietrich was shot near the armpit.

Under heavy fire, Villanueva pulled the wounded Dietrich down an alley and into a second mosque, where a medic took over. Villanueva returned to fight, but when he came back to check on the injured soldiers, the medic told him they needed to move the wounded to a safer location. Carrying Piggott on his shoulders, Villanueva took the three to a nearby school, where they waited for a helicopter that would transport the wounded to the city of Kandahar.

"Help me, sir," Dietrich cried to Villanueva.

"He was pretty scared," Villanueva said. "He kept asking for help."

By the time Villanueva lifted Dietrich onto the helicopter, his eyes were purple. He died a short time later.

"As the platoon leader, I feel responsible for everything my platoon does or fails to do," Villanueva said. "I failed to keep Jesse Dietrich safe, and you know, it was just tough. ... I keep thinking of other ways I would have done it, but it was a very tough mission and the enemy beat us that day. It was just a really bad night."

Villanueva was later awarded the Bronze Star Medal for valor. He should be proud of the medal, but he is not, in part because Dietrich is dead.

'Giant amigo'

Almost three years later on the other side of the world, the 6-foot-9, 277-pound Villanueva signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, who envision him as a defensive end in coordinator Bill Davis' 3-4 scheme. Villanueva is a military man first, but he is chasing his dream of playing in the National Football League by using leave time from the Army.

Villanueva is a mountain of a man, chiseled from his time as a member of the elite Army Rangers, with whom he served in two of his three tours in Afghanistan. He played four seasons at West Point, becoming the team's leading receiver as a senior.

But long before all that, he was a gangly 15-year-old rocking a mullet and capri pants.

Joe Puttmann remembers the first time he saw the boy who would become his "giant amigo." Puttmann and Villanueva were Americans attending SHAPE High School, an academy run by the U.S. Department of Defense in Casteau, Belgium.

Villanueva played rugby but got recruited to play football, a sport he knew nothing about. His learning curve was steep. In one of his early games, the opposing team was in victory formation and the referee was late blowing the whistle to end the play. Villanueva had been coached to play through the whistle, so he hammered the quarterback -- and was ejected.

Puttmann's father worked with Villanueva's father at NATO, and their families became good friends.

The next year, Puttmann went off to prep school in New Jersey. He had been recruited to play football at Army, and he put Villanueva, then a senior, on the coaches' radar.

Puttmann and Villanueva kept in touch, and during that school year, Villanueva told Puttmann he was also interested in attending West Point.

"He's super smart," said Puttmann, who played defensive back at Army alongside Villanueva, "and the joke was always that my dad catfished his dad into sending Alejandro there so I wouldn't fail."

Villanueva's parents, Ignacio Villanueva and Matilda Martin, are natives of Spain, as are Villanueva's two sisters and brother. Alejandro Villanueva was born in Meridian, Mississippi, when his father was stationed there while serving in the Spanish Navy.

Unlike many cadets entering West Point, Villanueva did not need a year of prep school because his grades were exemplary. As a freshman in 2006, he was a backup defensive end and played primarily on special teams. Early in his sophomore season, offensive line coach John Tice lobbied to have Villanueva play offensive tackle. Tice once saw Villanueva walk 30 yards on his hands and knew the caliber of athlete Villanueva was.

Villanueva made the move to left tackle later that year and became the starter at that position as a junior in the Black Knights' triple-option offense.

"The transition from defense to offense and learning the offense was never an issue," Tice said. "The mental errors were at a minimum."

Before Villanueva's senior season in 2009, new head coach Rich Ellerson moved Villanueva to wide receiver, and he led the team with 34 receptions for 522 yards and five touchdowns while serving as the team's offensive captain.

Tice, who played and coached in the NFL for 17 seasons, said Villanueva would "fit in well [with the Eagles] given his adaptability and work ethic."

"He's a leader," Tice said. "There are all kinds of leaders in the business world and sports world, but the ultimate leadership has to be leading soldiers in combat. If you can handle that, you can handle anything."

As a senior wide receiver at Army, Villanueva was offensive captain. Courtesy U.S. Military Academy

'It's not fake bullets'

To enlisted soldiers in the military, new lieutenants from West Point have a reputation for being "ring knockers." They think because they were trained at the Army's flagship institution, they can knock on any door with their graduation ring and automatically command status.

But when Villanueva arrived in Afghanistan and took over a 38-person unit, he wasn't like that. He was willing to listen. Villanueva relied heavily on 32-year-old Jeremy Simon, an experienced squad leader.

They were based in an agricultural area of Kandahar Province where Afghans grow grapes, pomegranates, watermelon, poppies and marijuana. Villanueva's comrades called him "Lieutenant V" or simply "V." The locals, who initially were afraid of Villanueva's towering physique, referred to him as "the giant."

"They definitely knew when he was coming," Simon said. "You'd hear them on our radios talking about him."

When American troops first arrived, Simon said, residents in the nearby town were welcoming. The Americans rooted out a Taliban cell, but another cell moved in, and attitudes changed because civilians were fearful of Taliban retaliation if they cooperated with U.S. troops.

They had reason to worry. Taliban militants pulled a 14-year-old local boy out of his house, wrongly accused him of being an informant and killed him. Likewise, they threatened to kill anyone who talked to the Americans.