A Friend Falls in Afghanistan.

• Author: Yee, Amy
• Position: Paula Loyd dies and Afghanistan conflict - Cover story - Essay

One day last November, an Afghan man chatted with my friend Paula Loyd about the price of fuel in his village, fifty miles from Kandahar. Paula, a thirty-six-year-old anthropologist who kept her long hair tucked under her field helmet, was taking notes. When she finished her conversation with Abdul Salam, thanked him, and turned to leave, the man doused Paula with a jug of gasoline and set her on fire.

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After the flames that engulfed Paula were snuffed out, Salam was quickly restrained by Don Ayala, a U.S. security contractor with Paula's team. When Ayala learned that Paula was badly burned, he shot Salam in the head, killing him instantly.

Those are the bare facts. They need little adornment to convey the brutal tragedy that transpired that day in Afghanistan. But how to come to terms with what happened is a far more difficult matter.

Paula was immediately flown to a hospital in Texas. For two months, she fought for her life even as burns covered 60 percent of her body. Reports from her family told of good progress and a fierce will to live. So it was a shock when I learned that Paula died in early January.

I 've thought often about this triangle of tragedy that took place in Afghanistan. Everyone knows the human cost of war is a sad and sobering thing. Then you turn the page and move on to the next newspaper headline. But when a death becomes more than a number, grief and disbelief seep deep into your marrow.

I met Paula on an autumn day during tryouts for the college crew team. She was a couple years older than me. I was a coxswain and was supposed to simultaneously boss people around and encourage them. Over the course of the year, we ran along the Charles River in Boston with the crew team, ate waffles for breakfast in the dining hall, and drove to South Carolina for spring training in a van stuffed with tall young women and a couple short ones. She wore Teva sandals and had a loping gait as she ran. I wondered if her long hair, which hung down her back in a ponytail, was ever a nuisance during our grueling runs or when she pulled her oar through the water. Paula was egalitarian, principled, and--mundane as it may sound--just really nice.

Why not write about Abdul Salam? Well, I did not know Salam, but I think if I did--if I really knew him--I would write about him and his tragedy, too. Somehow we need to understand how a person's heart could turn so dark that he would believe setting an unarmed woman on fire...