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Supply specialist sounds like a safe job. Spc. Brandi Stanford’s family imagined her sitting at a desk, ordering ammo, taking inventory of boots.

But the Army supply specialist also participated in some of the most dangerous missions in Afghanistan. Sure, Stanford ordered supplies – from socks to sofas – but once the goods were in Afghanistan, she made sure they got to their final destination.

So the 24-year-old Victoria native became a working passenger on convoys rolling across the country. Her job was to look for signs of old Soviet land mines or newer, improvised bombs.

“You look for carcasses on the side of the road, you look for red rocks,” Stanford said, sitting at her grandmother’s dining room table recently. White painted rocks mean mines are near, but red rocks mark spots where mines were found.

“That’s what the locals looked out for, so we picked up on that,” Stanford said.

Stanford, whose 15-month tour in Afghanistan ended last month is now stationed in Germany and returned to Victoria on a 10-day leave, which ended Thursday. And it was only last week that she was able to share with family her experiences and participation in dangerous missions while in Afghanistan.

“I wanted to slap her,” said 23-year-old Deserai Gray, Stanford’s sister.

Soldiers don’t want to worry anyone back home, Stanford said, so they rarely share harrowing deployment details. She didn’t tell her family, at least not right away, about the time her convoy was attacked toward the end of the her deployment.

“While you’re at the moment of actually getting fired at, you’re thinking ‘Where are my guys at?’” Stanford thought of nothing, she said, except tactics and how they would get another woman’s wounds to stop bleeding. “That was the worst part.”

Although women still aren’t officially allowed in the front lines of combat, their work in the military is increasingly dangerous. Stanford worked at forward operating bases in Jalalabad and Bagram. She moved supplies – including a $7 million reconnaissance balloon and a sofa for a colonel – throughout volatile regions.

And as challenging as the Army is for any soldier, gender builds more obstacles for women, Stanford said.

“There are a lot of males who don’t want women in the Army. They say there should be an M.O.S. for strippers,” Stanford said, referring to military job descriptions.

But Stanford worked hard to earn all of her peers’ respect, she said. She lifted what men lifted, ran as fast as they did.

“I became one of the guys because I pulled my weight,” she said. “You have to stay on point.”

Stanford is all-business when she talks about her job.

Her father, Andy Stanford, admires his daughter. He never guessed the girl who won country dancing competitions with him would grow into a soldier.

“I thought it was really good for her,” he said. “It makes her stronger.”

Sitting away from family members gathered at his mother’s house, Andy Stanford absorbed his daughter’s stories.

“We’re really proud of you,” the 43-year-old Houston man said.

“It’s just a job,” said his daughter.

“That’s a job that has dire consequences,” he said.

“I like my job,” she said.