It was still dark in the north central North Dakota city of Minot in late January, when 31-year-old Romesha climbed into his car for the 90-minute commute to his job as a field safety specialist for an oil field construction firm.

He had left the Army in 2011.

It was time. He had spent years away from his wife and three children. He had missed so many moments.

The radio kept him companion on this long daily drive. Sports scores, conservative talk radio and occasionally some country music. Every now and then, a Johnny Cash song would bring him back.

For a few minutes, he was back in Afghanistan listening to Jones make up "quirky, little songs" that he and Scusa would sing to the unit.

Romesha doesn't concentrate on the bad stuff -- the death, the destruction.

"I still reflect on my time in Afghanistan. But when I'm doing that, I'm thinking about the quirky little songs that Jones used to play. I'm thinking of that Mountain Dew or that Dr Pepper. ... That was our drink forever," he said.

"I'm thinking of the days in the gym. I'm thinking of the constant teasing going back and forth."

He's thinking, he says, about the men he served with.

But it is clear the memories -- the fight, the losses -- remain with him.

It remains with all those who survived that October day.

Many have been waging battles with post-traumatic stress disorder, including Faulkner who turned to drugs to try to forget and later died from an overdose.

To many of the men of Bravo Troop, Faulkner was the ninth victim of the battle for COP Keating.

The U.S. military closed the outpost on October 6, 2009, virtually destroying what remained so it could not offer comfort or haven to insurgents.

A few months later, a U.S. military investigation found measures that were taken to protect the outpost were lax, and that critical intelligence and reconnaissance assistance had been diverted from the base.

Medal of Honor

Word about the Medal of Honor came in January in the form of a call to Romesha's cell phone.

It was from a blocked number.

He was working with a pipeline crew in North Dakota when he answered, and a secretary on the other end of the line asked if she was speaking with Clint Romesha.

"Then she told me that President Obama would like to talk to you," he said.