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LEVEL CROSS — The explosion knocked Staff Sgt. Ben Seekell straight into the air.

He landed on his chest. His ears were ringing. His left leg was missing.

He had also dropped a leash he was holding and the first thing he asked was, “Where’s my dog?”

Charlie, his German shepherd, got some shrapnel in his hind quarters and his ear drums blown out.

But the two survived. On Sunday they were together again, though this time on a different kind of patrol.

Seekell and Charlie were among the 14 members of the 4th Fighter Wing Security Forces Squadron who showed up in Level Cross to take part in the Ruck March to Remember, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The 15-leg, 2,181-mile journey, which started at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on July 12, will end at ground zero in New York on Sept. 11. The squadron, based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, will cover 148 miles on the relay-like march. Though Seekell, who now has a prosthetic leg, won’t be covering the entire route, he said he was happy to take part.

“My unit, they heard I was doing pretty good up at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) and gave me a call,” he said Sunday morning outside the Level Cross Volunteer Fire Department. “They told me they wanted me to come here and start it off, even if I was only going a short distance. It sounded like an awesome idea. I loved coming out to support my unit. And even if I don’t go very far, it’s still good to be on my feet and back with my unit.”

A native of Charlestown, R.I., the 26-year-old Seekell is the father of three and has served in the Air Force for seven years. He’s an MP by training, but a few years ago he cross-trained to work with military canines. He describes his work with Charlie as “the best job I’ve ever had and the best job I think I ever will have.”

“Charlie and him are extremely close,” Seekell’s wife Meagan said. “When Ben walks into the room, Charlie starts pacing and getting really excited. The guys at the kennel were really good about bringing Charlie to visit Ben when he was at the hospital.”

Seekell and his canine charge were on patrol near Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, early on the morning of May 8, when he heard an explosion.

“It was probably about 30 meters away,” he said. “We all hit the deck, went for whatever cover we could find. We didn’t know what happened, if somebody had thrown a grenade, or if it was rockets or mortars. All I could hear was people screaming.”

It turned out that a fellow airman had stepped on a land mine. The team devised a plan to get back to the base. Seekell, along with a spotter and navigator, separated from the rest of the patrol, not wanting to go back the way that they came. When they got close to the base perimeter, they came to a little ravine. The navigator and spotter went into it with no problem. Seekell then went down, took three or four steps and “the ground underneath just exploded.”

“I didn’t feel any pain really, just a lot of pressure in both of my legs,” he said. “I was afraid I had lost both of them, but I rolled over, saw I had my right leg, was like 'sweet.’ But then I looked over at my left and saw it was just a mess.”

He then looked to see if Charlie was around.

“It was funny, that was my first concern, whether the dog was OK,” he said. “They hollered out to me that they had him. He was good to go. So I was like, 'all right the dog is good, so how bad am I bleeding?’”

Seekell was flown to Germany and both he and Charlie received a Purple Heart.

He has spent about three months in rehab at Walter Reed in Washington and is still receiving therapy. He still walks with a bit of a limp, and says he expects to go through another six weeks of surgeries before he’s fully rehabilitated. Thus far he’s had five surgeries.

On Sunday, Charlie was in an air-conditioned SUV for the march to begin. When he jumped out, he went right over to Seekell, stood up on his hind legs and tried putting his front paws on the airman.

Nearby, Maj. James Alves huddled with the other airmen and told them to keep in mind the nearly 3,000 people who died on Sept. 11, as well those who have died in the global war on terror. About noon, the 440th Security Forces Squadron out of Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville arrived to hand off a guidon, or flag, with the Latin phrase Defensor Fortis emblazoned on it. It is that guidon which will be taken to ground zero.

The airmen will march, over a period of about four days (stopping at campsites along the way), into Amherst, Va., where they will hand off the guidon to a unit from Langley Air Force Base.

After he’s through with therapy, Seekell said he plans to return to work at Seymour Johnson with Charlie by his side.

“We’ve been together for two years,” he said. “He’s made a full recovery, and we want to get back out there. ... This is not going to stop us in any way, shape or form.”

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com