The Medics
Kristina Hilstad Pennington
Sergeant Kristina Hilstad, brash and indomitable, was among the first women in US military history to take on such a frontline combat role. Now a nurse and single mom in Huntington, West Virginia she wrestles with her PTSD, a persistent sense of alienation from those around her, and chronic physical pain. But she is more determined than ever to succeed, turning the discipline and stamina she learned in the army to the task of raising her family.
Robert Brady
First Sergeant Robert Brady, preternaturally calm and cheerful, was the team’s lead medic in Iraq. He has since become an EMT in Clarkesville, Tennessee. From the back of his ambulance, he wants to save the world, but those plans are jeopardized by his deteriorating health — possibly the result of nerve agent exposure in Iraq, which has already struck down his best friend with a terrifying fatal disease. Facing the same fate, Brady must also come to terms with his daughter’s decision to follow in his footsteps and become an army medic, knowing she will, like him, be forever changed by the experience.
Philip Belmont
Staff Sergeant Phil Belmont, a tough, sharp-witted federal agent in Boston, seems to have successfully moved on from the trauma of two combat deployments and the death of his best friend in a bomb blast. His outward stability, however, masks unresolved anger about the costs of war, and an unshakeable sense of guilt for his failure to save the life of a nine-year-old Iraqi girl who had been shot in the head. On the eve of his own daughter’s ninth birthday, these storms from his past threaten to shatter the normalcy he’s so carefully constructed, with profound repercussions for the future of his young family.
