But 3,000 miles would be nothing in light of a recent connection to her UNM past that Brandt made. During the summer of 2003, Maggie spent three months in Bagram, Afghanistan, working at the 452nd Combat Support Hospital. One of her main tasks was to help local victims of land mine explosions. She credits the training she received as a resident at UNM with providing her many of the skills she used while there. Because of the proliferation of landmine victims, the hospital was in desperate need of an ophthalmologist. Finally, one arrived. Maggie's colleagues introduced her to the doctor, a colonel in the Army.

Maggie describes the encounter with amusement: "I saluted him because he was my superior, and said, 'How are you, sir?' And then he said, 'Hey, I know you!'" It turned out that the new doctor was Mark Torres, '90 MD, a friend from UNM Medical School. The two hadn't seen each other since Brandt's med school graduation party in 1990. While it seems an unlikely place for two UNM alumni to meet up, Afghanistan's high desert environment is not so different from New Mexico's, Maggie says.

Mark's arrival was not only felicitous for the renewal of an old friendship. Maggie describes how he was able to reconstruct the eye of a 10-year-old landmine victim. The boy lost one eye, but Mark was able to save the other, restoring the child's sight.

At the end of her 90-day rotation, Brandt returned to Michigan. While she says that it's a good place for her and her husband at the moment, she hopes one day to return to the Land of Enchantment. Until then, she wears a silver and turquoise nametag at the hospital and does her best to educate her friends and colleagues in Ann Arbor about the virtues of green chile!