Far from the familiarity of UC Berkeley's Witter Rugby Field in Strawberry Canyon, a star rugby player turned U.S. Marine officer is in the middle of a fight.
Explosions fill the air in Barang, Afghanistan, as he leads his men up the dusty rural path surrounded by sprawling pastures of red poppies.
One of his men steps on a metal plate enmeshed in the dust and dry grass beneath their feet, and the IED's explosion blows off both of his fellow Marine's legs.
Sandwiched between blood-colored flower fields and evanescent insurgent hideouts, Captain Garrett Cross didn't know whether he would make it out of the Afghan desert alive.