SGT Dock's Holiday

Epilogue

2008-12-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

The Post-Deployment Baby (and our first!): Harley James Thompson, born 11:43a on 12/08/08 @ 9.2lbs/21.7in!

The End

2008-03-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry to end with no really exciting conclusion. I could have kept you informed about my post-deployment goings-ons... But I just felt that it would not be about SGT Dock's Holiday anymore. The Holiday is over. Now back to the grind of my real life.

As an Active-Duty soldier, my life revolved around the Army. That was "The Grind". As a National Guardster, my real life is the existence beyond the ACU-Digital-Camo world. It is not meant to be a slight to anyone who serves. I've never believed for a minute that one person's struggle is more or less important because of your branch of service or military-occupational-skill. Every cog in the war-machine is vital. But now I'm out. Now the real life is the boring day-to-day exchanges with my wife or with the people I deal with as a Paramedic.

Almost 3/4ths of a year back and there are only a few things worth noting:

Our kittens all found homes. Our cat is doing well... even with the addition of a 100lbs Rottweiler. We own a modest home in Saint Paul. And last, but not least, we celebrated our 2nd actual (although, 1st real) wedding anniversary by returning back to New Orleans. (See http://sgtdock.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html ). It was nice to see that our tree has continued to thrive and looks healthier than it's 6-Months-Post-Katrina state. I'm optimistic that it will be a metaphor for our marriage.

Thanks to anyone who has read my ramblings.

Wes "Doc" Thompson

NREMT-Paramedic

Houseguests

2007-07-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

A while before I left Iraq, I recieved an e-mail from The Wife that said that I needed to call her "as soon as possible". I did not like the sound of this as you could well imagine. But I called that day and found out that my wife had been driving home listening to NPR talk about homeless pets. OK, no big deal. Then when she got home to our apartment, she had a cat run right out to her from under the dumpster. The urgency for her was to figure out if I'd let her keep the cat (see, I usually get pretty itchy around most felines, so this was not a unusual concern).

I had no problem as long as the cat was healthy and homeless. She took the cat to the vet to check for the micro-chip ID and it was confirmed that the cat was homeless. The cat seemed to be doing very well.

When I came home from the De-mobilization, I was greeted by a very friendly meow and no itching. The Wife was still concerned that I would not let her keep the cat. I am a "dog-person" and while I do not hate cats, I generally would pick one over the other. But the cat seemed attached and I was not having the normal allergic itch.

Then the cat seemed to be gaining weight. (Keep in mind that I've only been here for a week as I post this.) So The Wife put the cat on diet food; she still grew. "Why is she still gaining weight?", The Wife pondered. "Maybe it's a parasite... Or maybe she is pregnant.", I quipped.

Sure enough.

Pregnant.

This morning she started popping out kittens at 7am and stopped after the fifth around 10.

Home.

2007-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Home now. More to follow soon.

SGT Dock Unmasked!

2007-07-01T14:57:00.001-07:00

SGT Rose & I after one of my last patients.

This was one of those situations that drove me nuts. An Iraqi had come in hit by gunfire twice in a drive-by. The bullets had created a 1cm-wide x 10cm long furrow across the top/center of his head. The skull had been pushed into his brain and I could see the brain matter easily. He was only reactive to the pain of moving him. I was able to put in an airway adjunct without much reaction (which was a pretty bad sign). I had Rose helping me out and he asked me if we wanted to wait for the transport ambulance or if we should just cart him to the hospital in ours.

This is where/why I became irate.

A little history: Political in-fighting and the need to justify jobs led to the creation of an ambulance service on post. This was great in many ways and dreadful in a few. I was not allowed to transport my own patients anymore. I was given direction by my medical-director to take patients to the hospital if they would not survive the 5-10 minute arrival of the 911-service. My medical-director issued this order verbally and it was generally not recognized by the officer-staff of the Cav-Troop for which I worked.

I decided to transport this patient with exposed brain-matter and tanking vital signs to the hospital. The Officer In Charge ordered my driver to stop and await the 911-ambulance. My driver was confused and did not follow my orders to him to continue on. So our ambulance came to a rest and the 911 ambulance pulled in behind me. We wasted 5 minutes of this guys life transporting a patient from an equipped ambulance with one medic to another similarly equipped ambulance with another medic. What was the point?

The patient made it to the ER and survived the first few hours. (I was informed that his condition deteriorated after the OR.) If he had deep vascular injuries, as opposed to the single gunshot to the arm and the gash across his head (which did not bleed much), there is no doubt in my mind that the OIC would have cost that guy his life.

When I confronted the OIC, he shrugged it off and said, "I have my orders".

Let me make this clear to anyone who might have any confusion. This guy knows Tanks.... He is a Cavalry officer. He gets his orders from another Cavalry officer. When someone comes in injured or ill, I give don't give a damn about his orders.

ugh. I hate bureaucracies.

Boredom Strikes Again.

2007-06-12T13:06:00.001-07:00

This Christopher Walken Creepy-Mask was the latest (and last; nudge) "random-act-of-boredom" that I've been able to work up.

Revelations

2007-05-19T12:22:00.001-07:00

I was just about to get off of my 12-hour shift when the call came out that we had an injured Iraqi. I drove my ambulance up and was met by a small truck with a teenage male slumped over in the passenger seat. This kid got shot in a drive-by on the field where he was farming. (There has been a lot of tension between the Sunni and Shia in the area, as of late.)

I started my assessment and found only this entrance wound in the right flank. I was really worried that the lung had been punctured, but there was equal movement and clear lung sounds. I put an Asherman Chest seal over the hole anyway and then I stabilized it in place with an emergency dressing. When I tightened the the dressing, blood gushed out in an impressive spurt.

I'd like to think that I did not show any surprise, but I know for a fact that I got wide-eyed when I saw that happen.

The kid was rushed the hospital. It turned out that his kidney and liver had the most damage. I wish I'd been able to see him through to the OR. It was the end of my shift, though, so I decided to get a move-on. I grabbed some litters to replace the one I used and to plus up the gate. I was getting pretty tired and was going to drop off the litters later, but I decided against it and drove right back.

I came back to the gate to find Doc Luscious driving our other ambulance with his aid bag still on the hood. This was not a good sign. So I followed and found four more Iraqi males with serious gunshot wounds! We both took a patient each and had our most qualified CLS start treating the others while we waited for more medical backup. I had an Iraqi adult with a gunshot that entered at the bottom of one of his lungs. I sealed up the hole as best I could and then I got to do one of the funnest things I've done this deployment... A needle-chest decompression (I stuck a 14-gauge needle into his chest to equalize the pressure). I actually heard the "hiss" of air. I was so excited!

About this time we had all of our support show up and start to move all of the patients to the hospital. I backed off of my patient as more medics arrived and then I started to direct the patient flow to the ambulances. It was (and is) a truly strange feeling. It gave me a sense of value to be in charge of the situation and not drop the ball.

For most of the deployment I've sat idle; growing more and more disenchanted with my small cog in the big machine of this war. Only in the chaos of our mass-casualty situations have I found peace. After all was said and done, I was talking to Luscious and we were both confirming each other's feelings on the matter... It sounds awful, but we are not happy at work any more unless someone is in need of medical attention. We pray for work and tell ourselves that we don't want harm to come to anyone, but it is a lie.

We are getting bloodthirsty for patients with trauma... Or maybe we always were and now we are just admitting it to each other.

Hard at Work!!

2007-03-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

Yes. Your tax dollars-hard at work.

(Note: I'm actually not even talking to anyone)

How to Make Your Own Mask

2007-03-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

For the Creepy Mask, you'll need:

Look through some magazines for a creepy interview picture. The picture needn't be life size. (A smaller Lincoln face was tested prior to Gore with an equally-creepy success.) These can be acquired from most "men's interests" magazines like this copy of FHM.
Find yourself some pipe cleaners for the appropriate shape. Then you'll need some tape. Like my handy medical... er.. Duct tape. A knife can come in handy for poking out eye-holes and cutting the tape. Last, you'll need a rubber band.

What to do:

Tape the pipe cleaners to the back of your mask with a little bit of slack. That way they bend without too much tension on the mask.

One pipe cleaner at the eyebrow level and another near the mouth would probably work well.

Cut the rubber band so that it makes one strand. Attach the rubber band to the pipe cleaners with simple knots.

Poke some eye holes and mask up!

Accidental Discharge

2007-02-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

I've been stuck as the RTO for the remainder of my extended deployment. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard our entrance point call up that there was an injured Iraqi coming towards our gate. I threw on my gear and hopped into my ambulance. I drove up on an Iraqi pick-up truck and my guys had already moved the patient out of the truck to get him in the ambulance.

The Iraqi Policeman had been shot in the upper right back. There were two small punctures and no exit wound. After I cut off his shirt, I found that his collar bone had been pushed forward. I was worried that his lung had been punctured and that he was going to go down fast. He had stable vitals but he was in immense pain so I decided to give him so morphine.

----
My morphine comes in a 10mg auto-injector with a safety cap and the whole thing is in a plastic wrapper. I was issued three and I'd taped them together so that I would not lose any.
----

I pulled out my pack and pulled the top off of one of the wrappers. I struggled to pull the injector out of the wrapping. I'd taped them together too tightly. So I started pushing the injector up through the bottom.

Can you see where this is going?

I pulled some more and got the safety cap. My left index finger was still pushing on the injector trigger. A long needle pushed its way into the fleshy part of my fingertip and shot a bit of morphine in. I felt a sharp jolt of pain so I quickly pulled out the needle. The injector continued to spray up the wall of the ambulance wall. My finger swelled and went numb... for five hours.

I was able to remove the next auto-injector pretty easily and give it to the Iraqi. A supporting unit showed up and took the patient to the CSH.
----

I had to go to the aid station at the end of shift and fill out my own paperwork. This covers me if I have to do another urine-analysis/drug test.

The funniest part of the whole story is that I had given one of my Joes a really hard time for doing something similar. He had pulled the safety then accidentally dropped the injector. He picked up the injector and pushed the tip into the soft fleshy side of the patient. He then felt the sting in his thumb because he had the injector upside down. He said, "it felt like I hit the bone".

I dogged him about it for about a week.

That's karma, I guess.

Rally Moustache

2007-01-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a little about myself. I have never been able to grow a very good amount of facial hair. I have patches of hair that grow in uneven volumes. (I'm 28 and) I always figured that by my mid twenties I'd have the ability to grow a moustache that was somewhat respectable. So I tried to grow one as we were nearing the end of our deployment and I'd give it a good measure of time to mature from it's pupa-stage to a beautiful moustache. I took a picture of the "Rally 'stache", as Troy Fields (at http://www.medicevolved.net/) had termed it, and I e-mailed it to the home front.

The responses were less than encouraging.

"I'm telling you this because you are my friend and I care about you:
You look like a child molester with that stash." -Tim

"wow....i'm speechless......it's......it's.......wow......" -Jake

and

"I have no words to express how awful that looks. Can't you do something about that?
You're my husband so I have to I love you, but there was not mention of moustaches anywhere in the marriage contract." -The Wife

I did get one positive comment.

"You my friend.. have become so army it is silly... somehow though...
.... it suits you? You are now Mr. MUSTA moustacheoooooooooooooooooooooooooH!" -Cordell

which was followed a week later by:

"actually i didn't like the must all that much either.. i
just thought it was an army thing."

This was to be expected. What I was not ready for was the response from Delobi (at Delobi's Blog Machine City ):

"Dude...what the F#$%.

What is it with Army people going to Iraq that makes them grow
butt-ugly porn mustaches? Is it something in the sand? Something in the bottled
water?

Seriously.

LOL...maybe this is your secret ploy to make your wife miss you less?
She'll be saying, 'thank god he's not around ME with that nasty-ass
face
hair!' "

I was not ready for this harsh indictment of The Rally 'Stache. But moreover it caused me to ponder for half-a-minute about why I'm only one individual in a group of people who have spawned moustaches over here. Then it hit me.

In the civilian world there would be no way for me to grow that 'Stache and show up to work. I would be ridiculed by my co-workers and I'd be told that my appearance was unsatisfactory. Patients in the back of my civilian ambulance would not share their medical history with someone who looks like they belong in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". In The Army, you are allowed to grow these little babies as long as the 'Stache stays within the borders of you upper-lip. And since there are several people trying to accomplish a Rally 'Stache or even just a plain moustache, your silly-pre-pubescent look is tolerated.

I grew my Rally 'Stache in great anticipation of our trip home. I grew it out for 6 weeks when I found out that we were getting extended... then, like Troy Fields, I shaved it off.

Rest in Peace moustache.

2007-01-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

A Convoy Gone Awry

2007-01-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

This is a true story of the most worthwhile thing that I have done up to date. I held off on telling the story because I was not sure how the patient would like having all of this disclosed. Recently, I found out (through Stars and Stripes) that he is not too concerned with keeping this story quiet. It was not written very well, it is in more of a report type format, so bear with me:

On our way up to FOB Spicket, we were about 15Km out when (at approx. @!))) our scout truck saw a unit conducting a cordon, so he told us to halt. SGT Lay-town said, “Hey, slow your roll. I’m going to go up and see what these assholes are up to.” The next thing I heard was the unmistakable sound of a .50 cal shooting. Then I heard, “We need doc up here now!!” A .50 cal tracer round landed to the right of our truck and we sped off to the left side of the convoy and up to the scout truck.

I found SGT Lay-town (the TC) and SPC Mac (the driver) outside of their truck yelling and screaming. I was told that SPC Carlsbad had been shot. I opened the driver’s side passenger door and found a very pale Carlsbad slumped over with his head closest to me. I said, “Hey Carlsbad!” Carlsbad looked up and I was very relieved that he was not dead. “Carlsbad, what happened?” “I got shot”, he replied. He told me that he had been hit in the left leg and that nothing else was hit. I cut him out of his gunner’s seat and got some help extricating him out of the vehicle. A medic with the (Unit X) assisted me with everything. Carlsbad had sustained a small (7.62mm sized) puncture about 2 inches above the kneecap and another about two inches below. There were no exit wounds. The kneecap itself had three lateral slits about 2 ½ inches in length across it.

We bandaged the leg above and below the wound with kerlex and an ace wrap. The two puncture wounds stopped bleeding, but the knee still kept bleeding. I gave SPC Carlsbad a shot of morphine for the pain and we put a pressure dressing on the knee cap. Medevac was called at @!)% and the elements of units in the area started to paint a picture of what went wrong.

Unit X had taken over missions that night. This particular unit was on their very first mission. The tail vehicle gunner saw our scout truck approach and give the theatre-wide handshake. The gunner (or possibly another soldier in their convoy) saw the flashes of light (with his night vision goggles on) and called up gunshots. The tail gunner shot at the HMMWV with his .50 cal with about 6-14 shots.

SPC Carlsbad's bleeding would not cease. I initiated an IV of normal saline and filled out the field medical card. Thankfully, Carlsbad stayed in very good condition throughout the time he was waiting. Medevac arrived at $!$). We continued our mission to FOB Spicket by towing the scout vehicle with our truck. We arrived at FOB Spicket around @#)) and started the long process of filling out sworn statements and interviewing with JAG officials.

The investigation into “attempted fratricide” had reached the level of a four-star general, according to our convoy commander. We filled out our statements and concluded interviews by about )%#). We were ordered to stay at FOB Spicket for the day and to pull back that night (8 Sep).

Our scout truck was left at FOB Spicket for a recovery element (whom we would pass on the way back to FOB Snakey).

(Disclaimer: Times are blurred out for OPSEC reasons and no HIPA rights have been violated as all of the health information was made public in the Jan 7th Edition of Stars and Stripes - Mideast Edition.)

Merry Christmas

2006-12-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

Consult your combat medic today....

2006-11-19T12:32:00.000-08:00

I was surprised today when one of my soldiers showed me this little shiner. He is now one of only a few documented cases of Leishmaniasis here on FOB snakey. (Ignore my radio antenna pointing at his elbow.) He's gonna have a really tough looking scar from this war. I think he'll have to lie to the patrons at the VFW about his ultra tough bug bite scar.

For those who are curious... I did a little looking around and found this text on the subject.
http://www.who.int/leishmaniasis/disease_epidemiology/en/index.html

Mass Casualties

2006-11-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

I cannot speculate on what exactly caused the incident. I will tell you that 13 bodies came in at once.

I was sitting in the sparrow’s nest at the gate with one of the designated marksmen toying with my new camera when the call came over the radio that I was needed up to the front. I ran down two flights of stairs and into my ambulance. As I was pulling up the lane to the front of our gate I could see two gun trucks escorting two pickup trucks. In the beds of the pickup trucks were probably 4-9 Iraqi townspeople standing around.

I pulled my ambulance way off to the side and all of the people had exited the beds of the trucks. I could hear the townspeople wailing, but my attention was immediately diverted to what was remaining in the pickup trucks. 13 bodies were still in the beds of the two trucks; some of them not moving. I ran up and started to try and figure out what to do. I made a quick count. “I’ve got ten patients down here and some DOA.” I didn’t have a clue if I was right, but I knew that we needed more help. Soldiers from the gun trucks had started to help people out of the vehicle beds and on to the ground. One of the soldiers asked where the litters were. I started to tell people to pick a person and treat. I dumped my aid bag onto the ground in between the tailgates of the two trucks. “Take what you need and do what you can!” I ran over to a child and started to assess him for a second. A call came over the radio asking for the names and ages of the patients. A Lieutenant from the gun trucks, god bless him, said, “This is a triage situation right now!” I snapped my self away from the child.

I had fallen into that old medic trap of wanting to jump in and treat. But in a mass casualty event, the only medic on scene has to work as a command and control. I started to order more people to treat and tell me what they had. “I got a baby with bleeding from the head! Probably a fractured skull!” I looked for the best turn around for an ambulance. “Ok. Put them over there! Our worst go over there!” I could hear several people yelling, “Doc”, but it all seemed to sound like gibberish. I went to the next soldier. “I have this lady and she’s got shrapnel all over… I can’t even move her without her screaming in pain.” She got put on the stretcher face down and moved to the urgent pile. “Doc, this boy is going down fast!” I looked at him and he was covered in blood and shrapnel holes. I could hear the sirens of other emergency vehicles coming down the lane. “Do what you can.”

I went over to the first pickup truck where there were bodies, but no one really treating. There were five kids, all about 7 or less piled in like sandbags. They were all ashen. I could see a golf-ball sized hole in one’s back. Bone and meat were showing. Another had legs that were mush below the mid-femur. I moved in closer and could see the eyes of two of the other ones had glazed over. They were looking at each other in a sad puppy dog expression. I walked over to the right side of that truck bed and felt down for a carotid pulse. I don’t know why I did it. It was obvious that all of these kids had died. I looked right into the dark eyes of the small girl. I could see that there was blood on her clothes, but I could not tell where she had been hit. Her mouth was open as if she was stopped short in saying “ow”. Her eyes gave a sad wincing look of pain. Her lips and face had specks of dust that seemed to match her ashen appearance. Her lips were even on off-white. There was no pulse, no life.

The sound of sirens coming closer drew me out of my trance. I ran over and started guiding the emergency vehicles into place. I guided the ambulance to the set of 4 urgent patients. Two medics hopped out and started to move the litters by themselves. I grabbed the first people I could find and told them to start help in moving patients. I told one of the medics to back off the litters and direct patient flow. I ran over to the ambulance and started undoing the top berths. (The patient berths are where the litters slide into.) I helped in the ambulance with the loading of the four critical patients and then looked over at people trying to shove more patients into my ambulance. I told them to hold up and I had to ask, “How many patients were left?” “Just these three”, responded one of the guys. “OK, I guess I’ll take ‘em.” I had planned to stay just in case we had more patients, but I quickly changed my mind. We took a woman with a penetrating back wound, a boy with a penetrating wound to the arm and pain in one of his femurs, and a girl with a penetrating injury to the femur that had already been dressed.

On the way in, I felt kind of guilty. I’m pretty sure that the other ambulance had only one medic in back with 4 critical patients. My guilt was re-enforced when I saw his face at the hospital. I opened the doors on his ambulance and he was visibly frustrated. I dumped my three patients after his and I drove back to the gate. I sped so fast, that I almost flipped the ambulance on some loose rocks about ¾’s of the way back. My ambulance started to shift to the left and I did an awesome power-slide. Two officers saw the whole thing from about 100 feet away and threw their arms out at me.

They looked a little less than thrilled with me. So I did what anyone would do. I honked my horn twice, waved, and kept on towards the gate. No one else came in, but I was informed that there were 6 dead on arrival. The incident had hit a single family. The father had survived unscathed and he was taken to the hospital. He had lost his grandmother, wife, and many of his (and his extended family’s) children. I talked with everyone that I could about what they had done, and how things were. No one seemed really phased. (I guess, time will tell.)

The pickup trucks left while I was at the hospital and went to bury their dead. We could hear their gunfire at the cemetery. I guess there was a fear that they were going to organize and mob the gate. My fear is that there will be some serious mortar fire coming in for the next few days or a increase in IED’s.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

COS COMedy

2006-10-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

I came back from leave to a few changes in the system.

Essentially, we got a new boss. This boss has made it a crime to walk around at night without a reflective belt strapped around you. The idea being that you will be highly visible to all of the night traffic here. Well, I gotta tell you… My mom taught me to look both ways before crossing the street. I did not get hit for the first six months of the deployment and I am thinking that a big reason for this is: In the dark, I look like a five-foot-nine walking cinder block in my ACUs. Most people do not aim for the wall when they drive their vehicles. If they were drunk then I might be afraid, but alcohol is banned under the 1st general order here.

Our blogs are under surveillance and extreme scrutiny as someone posted pictures with an Iraqi flag being used as a cape. We were all counseled and our chain of command is being threatened with possible action.

One of our platoon sergeants was handcuffed and dragged down to the MP station because he did not fill out a sworn statement. The MP first sergeant apologized and did not intend for his guys to “pick him up” in this manner. The platoon sergeant stated that an apology really wasn’t going to fix the fact that his whole platoon was preparing for missions and got to watch him get arrested.

Almost all of the paperwork that I submitted had to be re-submitted because it was not in a format that the new bosses were satisfied with. This paperwork dates back to August. People often wonder why things in the Army take so long to happen. Why don’t they have the armor to go to war? Why aren’t they using the latest and greatest weapons? Well…. When two different bosses have different requirements in filling out a form that is STANDARD ACROSS THE ARMY, you might get a better idea.

I am not impressed.

RnR

2006-10-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

Rest and Relaxation Leave

I left Iraq for the last half of September. I got home and spent time with my wife doing a whole lot of nothing. It was so nice to not have to work on a timetable. The weather was cold and rainy, but it was nice after all of the heat and dust of Iraq.

There were a few things that we did that were noteworthy. We went to a Hatebreed show. I enjoyed myself and made a mental note to leave the wife at home next time I go to a hardcore show. (I don’t think she liked dealing with all of the drunks at The Rock.) We visited a few of my friends and ate all kinds of good food. I’m sure that I gained a few pounds in just the first week.

On the second week we made our way up to Bayfield, Wisconsin. We were supposed to go kayaking in Lake Superior, but the weather had been so cold that we decided to do it next summer. We drove all around the northern parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, stopping several times to take pictures of the fall colors. Up in Bayfield we took a boat tour around the Apostle Islands. We also went to Madeline Island and walked about. On our way back to the cities we stopped at St. Croix Falls and had a fun time.

The last few days seemed too short and everyone was starting to get snappy. I was not excited to come back and the wife certainly was not. Although… Part of me was anxious to get back and to get the last portion of my deployment over so that I could come back again. The wife always asks me things about our future and I’m stuck in this zone where I can only see about three months out. I can’t seriously talk to my wife about all of the things she wants to do with furniture or about what kind of a house I’m interested in living in when I don’t even know where I’m working next month. Nothing about this mess has any order to it and it’s finally starting to wear me down.

It is not that I came here trying to change the world. But as the deployment has come along, I have found less and less positive things to post about. It is not that I have lost the will to do my job, but my will to put up with the BS here is starting to drop. I am not trying to censor the readers of this blog from my feelings, but I hardly think that all you guys wanna hear from me is bitching.

My Time on The Roads

2006-09-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have not checked in with you for a while. I had a change in mission a while back and I have completed quite a few convoy patrols now. It is quite a different world out there. I expected to be shot at and blown up a lot more than I actually have been. Dont get me wrong, I am quite relieved at the lack of attention I have drawn from insurgents and the like. But it sounds so harrowing to listen to the adventures of other people in the local DFAC.

I, however, have spent at least a few hours in the back seat - asleep. I drive when I can, but mostly I just get a numb ass from sitting around in the back seat and handing sodas to everyone. I am essentially a combat stewardess. I'm not even graced with a real headset like the rest of the people in my truck. I have a handmike wedged in my kevlar helmet. Most people are glad to hear that the medic is only getting a sore ass. Within the last few runs I have got some treatment time, but I cannot report much on that. I can only say that: while our personnel have been EXTREMELY lucky... Our vehicles have not.

I was asked today if I will qualify for the combat medic badge after recent events. All I could say is that I would be a big ass dirtbag if I tried to get a badge for splinting some fingers together. People around here are really putting a lot of emphasis on badges and medals. (I realize I am rambling, but I figure you deserve something from me this month.) My team of medics have done more trama treatment that will not be recognized with any badge, medal, or coin. Yet, someone with a broken fringer might get a purple heart. I ask you does it really make much sense?

Also, I have heard that our brigade has turned back the combat medic badge requests of several medics who have treated people after IED blasts. The reason: they were not under fire during treatment. I understand that a navy corpsman running around with marines under fire might disagree with me about the worth of a badge earned for an IED blast. But I'd like to state that the regulations were revised (back in February of 2000) in a time when IEDs were unheard of. And I think that the medics who have treated people after an IED blast are facing a fare amount of danger in trying to do their job.

I should really stick to writing these posts out in advance. I just rambled on for a bit there. I'm gonna leave you with this list of things I've done on my runs.

I've eaten 25 turkey sandwiches.
I've (intentionaly) urinated (on the road and not in my pants) in a "hot zone" 3 times.
I've handed over 100 cans of soda and over 50 bottles of water out to the people in my truck.
I've treated twice.
I've handed out three band-aids.
I've handed out at least 25 Ibuprofen800's.
I've seen two false IED's up close... possibly TOO close for my liking.
I've prayed to god that the insurgents do not RPG/blow up a septic water truck in front of us (just once).
I've said, "whoa shit" about ten times while sitting in back... at least 4x that when driving.
I've seen an "enemy submarine" in the immediate area on the tracking system once... along with an enemy aircraft and a battleship.
I've been scolded by my crew for "intentionally missing a target of opportunity" (aka hitting wild dogs that run out in front of us with our HMMWV) twice.

The Latest Casualty in the War on Terror

2006-07-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

This little barn owl had a broken wing after sustaining a mortar attack near its hunting ground. The owl was spotted flopping about outside. I was able to walk out of our gate and pick it up. I brought it back in our ambulance, where it found a temporary home in the lower left cubby shelf. I took care of the owl for a day and a half, trying to give it food and water. It was not a big fan of anything I tried to feed it (sliced meats). On the night shift we set out mouse traps to try and catch something, but we caught nothing. Well, we caught something in one trap. It ran off with our trap and we have not seen it since.

There’s a veterinarian on post, but we could not find her until yesterday. When I finally caught up with the vet, the owl was starving, tired, and not looking so good. The vet looked around the break in the wing and showed me where the bone, that was proximal to the body, had poked through the skin and was thoroughly damaged. The other end of the bone stuck out under the wing. The vet told me that it was going to be impossible to rehabilitate the owl and that “if we were anywhere else, we could do something”. I agreed since I know the Raptor Center in the cities would’ve gladly taken the owl. The poor owl was euthanized yesterday afternoon. I have posthumously awarded it a purple heart, combat action badge, and the global war on terrorism medal.

A Bedtime Story

2006-07-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a bedtime story. Completely fictional, of course. One dark and boring night people were guarding a base from an angry enemy. At their gate, people drove in and out a lot at night. This was pretty normal. On one particular night the people who were guarding the gate noticed that a bunch of scouts who were going to come in (people on their own side) were taking a particular bit of attention to a field right in front of the gate. This did not make the guards weary at all. The people could have been “looking around like they always do”, one guard said.

At a little building that the guards called “the command post” there were a few more guards. They watched over everything and made sure that everybody was safe and doing what they were supposed to do. The command post noticed that their bosses above them were paying attention to the field like the scouts who just came in. This struck the command post guards as “odd, since there was only a fence post out there”. After 20 minutes of observation, fire spontaneously rained down from the sky. The field in front of the gate erupted into fire and flying dirt.

After a few minutes, the guards realized that the fire that rained down 300 meters in front of them was coming from behind them. The people that were on the same team were shooting mortars out dangerously close to them. After a bunch of screaming and yelling, the fire subsided. A force of vehicles came out to analyze the area. The guards asked them why they had almost been hit by mortar fire. “There was a fence post that looked like a mortar tube.” There was some nervous chuckling and then the vehicles went back into the base.

The guards turned their dangerous encounter into humor. The thing that gave them the most ammunition for their humorous endeavors was that the mortar strike was intended to destroy a fence post… And the fence post was still standing.

Now go to sleep. Don’t worry; we’ll be guarding you.

Start of a Summer Trend?

2006-06-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

The night started off like most other nights. As shift changed I was glad to see that I would be working with Bones at 3 Alpha. About an hour and a half into shift, there was a call that two vehicles were speeding towards the gate. All security was raised and weapons had rounds chambered. I, on the other hand, was throwing my aid bag in the ambulance. The way I interpreted the information was that we most likely had patients moving towards the gate. Sure enough, using binoculars people were able to discern that we had a few patients en route to the gate. I moved up and was met by two men carrying blankets. One of them was wearing a man-dress covered in blood that was from whatever was in the blanket.

I moved back the first blanket to see a 4-5 year-old boy and all I could notice was that his eyes seemed to be glazing over and he was taking very short breaths with long pauses in between. As I moved the blanket back more, I found that the legs had been mangled. I saw femur, muscle, strips of skin, and no feet. In the other blanket I found a 6-8 year-old girl who had superficial burns all over in patches and was missing a chunk out of one of her inner thighs. People were swarming and everyone was amped up. We loaded up and started for the cache hospital. My driver was very green to this kind of thing and needed to be coached while a Combat Lifesaver and I worked on the patients in back. I worked on the boy as the CLS worked on the girl. I have no pediatric equipment and any blood that these kids had was all over the blankets.

I examined the boy further to find that the legs were mush. The worst portion was a gaping slit that started from high on the left buttock and went towards the inside of the leg. As I picked up the legs to look around I saw feet dangling by the skin around where the Achilles tendon would be. As I tried to wrap what I could I saw the tibia of the right leg sticking out at me. The whole time there was no bleeding. I felt around for a pulse and could not be sure if I had one. We were now tossing and turning about as we made our last few turns. I felt hopeless. The girl was faring much better, but was by no means in good shape. We arrived at the CSH ("cash" hospital) ER and unloaded our patients. The teams worked on both patients but pronounced the boy dead within a few minutes.

One of the men whom had been sobbing quietly began to cry and writhe about. He was the father. He told interpreters that he had worked for Americans before and that he’d been threatened. Tonight the insurgents held to their word and RPG’d his house. One of his children was decapitated instantly and left on sight. The rest of his family was coming in, but they had to send a vehicle back to go get them. So we reset the ambulance and headed back to the gate.

The second group came in with two women (probably 20 & 30) and a 12-13 year-old girl. All of them had been peppered with shrapnel. None of them were critical, but they were all kind of dazed. I figured that each of them had been bleeding for the last two hours and that each one was in some stage of shock. Each had a decent strong pulse, but they all looked tired. There were small holes all over the legs and in the arms. The little girl had a good punch to the cheek and small punctures in her mid-back. The driver spoke up, “uh, hey there’s some guys in the way”. I looked down to see two MP vehicles trying to pull us over. We had taken the left lane so as to avoid the potholes that had plagued us on our first trip. Well, the MPs apparently did not see the big white squares and red crosses all over our vehicle. We have no lights or siren, so we just turn on the hazards and honk the horn.

We made it in to the CSH and unloaded again. At this point the CLS guy with me said that he needed to go outside. He had been getting increasingly motion sick in the back of the ambulance. He threw up a few minutes later. The driver would later take the ambulance back to gate and throw up after cleaning up the back. (It smelled of burned flesh for quite a few hours.) I remained un-phased. I was not sure if this was good or not.

When we returned to the gate, the unit who was working the area of the RPG attack brought in a 5 month old baby whom had not been injured. We transported it to the CSH to be with the father. He seemed content to see that she had not been harmed.

We returned to the gate with only a few hours left of shift. I got to catch some food and talk to everyone about how things went. People who weren’t even up at the gate were kind of weirded out by the whole thing. A lot of people were wondering how I could see stuff like that and not flip out or lose it. I started to wonder again, if I was not supposed to be doing ok. My feeling was that it was not my fault. I didn’t shoot his house. Everyone else seemed to think that made enough sense.

Busy Week

2006-06-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

I had a busy week this week.

It started off pretty normal. I was struggling to get more stuff I wanted for our work at The Gate. I actually made progress and got a lot of equipment in. The next step was finding spaces to put it. Unlike civilian ambulances, military ambulances have only rudimentary storage spaces (and suspensions). This means that with every bump in the road, I end up with equipment everywhere. The problem with oxygen masks or 2x2 gauze pads is that they cannot be easily fastened, tied, or bolted down and still be useful. We were able to “procure” some .50 cal ammo cans to put equipment in, and this helped.

I found out that I was the only Line medic who requested any equipment. This made me feel kinda funny. I felt like a jerk for being the only greedy one. Maybe our point was just that run down. I started to maybe feel like I was one of those crazy “Ricky Rescue” guys (the crazy woodsman survivalist of the EMS world). Maybe my co-workers were rolling their eyes every time I called. Then I started to just laugh about it. When we replaced the Screamin’ Eagle, they left me 50 blue lightweight drapes among other oddities. Someone probably thought that they would be useful if we all suddenly ran out of the normal chucks, needed new bed sheets, or wanted cheap superhero capes for Halloween or something. The unit that replaces me probably will hate me for all of the crap I’m going to leave them.

The next day I was talking to one of the local workers when I was told that there was a gunshot victim up at the front. I grabbed my aid bag and zoomed up in my ambulance. The guy had been shot in the thigh, the forearm, and the right abdomen. The guy was brought in the back of a truck and there was a large sticky pool of blood lining the bed. We transferred the patient and started to the hospital. The poor guy had probably been bleeding for 20 minutes and had no significant care given to him.

As we drove, he started to breathe kind of like a fish out of water, each breath coming with a longer and longer pause between them. I checked for a pulse and could not find one. I started CPR while a buddy continued to patch the holes. I pumped the chest as best as I could and breathed for the patient through a pocket mask while bouncing around the back of the ambulance. Bubbles and blood spurted out the hole in the abdomen with every thrust and I knew then that his lung was probably hit. We continued to work and my buddy told me that we actually got a faint pulse back. Before I knew it we were unloading the patient at the ER.

At the ER we all grabbed a bottle of cold water and downed half of it in two gulps. I went outside and began to clean up the mess. The Doc from the hospital came out and told me that he didn’t make it past the OR. With what few details we had given the Doc about the time of his injury and the location of wounds, the Doc guessed that the wounds sustained to the abdomen and to his liver caused him to bleed out. The patient would’ve had to have been at the footsteps of the hospital to have had a chance.

The rest of the week was normal until last night. I was filling in for two-and-a-half hours when I got a call that there was another patient brought in. I went through the same drill and found a frail man who had been treated for some gunshot wounds long ago. But now he was pale, sweaty, and I could hear him trying to breathe nearly 40 times a minute. I grabbed the patient and his brother and loaded up into the ambulance. I gave the patient some oxygen and tried to assess the patient further. I could not find any pulse while bouncing around in the back. I new this guy had a pulse, so I moved on. Both lungs had wheezing sounds, and there was a high pitched sounds (stridor) coming from the man’s throat. The patient’s breathing slowed down with the oxygen on, but I still prepared to intubate (aka: stick a breathing tube in) him because I felt like it was going to need to happen soon. I would not have a long time.

We arrived at the ER and I unload the patient. Within ten minutes the patient ended up being intubated, sedated, and put on a ventilator. The Doc in the ER said that he was decompensating quickly and that we got him there just in time. For whatever reason, the vocal chords and lungs of this patient were having spasms and were closing off.

I did not feel bad about not finding a pulse when I heard that they had to give him an IV in the femoral artery. That is not your first, second, or probably even third choice of IV sites.
I’m pretty happy to have saved someone. I started work today feeling a little more sense of purpose. But then I thought about how two patients, back in MN, is a slow day on the ambulance… Two people in seven days is not really all that miraculous. And the twelve hours of banality at the Gate eroded my sense of purpose back down to a minimal level.

Back to watching birds makin’ sweet love.

Story time, kids!

2006-06-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I apologize to the reader in advance for how juvenile the story I'm about to tell is.

It was about 15:00 in the afternoon on a sunny day. The day was pretty toasty (I think it was 116*F in the shade). The wind felt like I had opened the door to the oven. I was working at The Gate (opening and closing the gate). Gradually, I started to feel kind of bloated and unhappy. My intestines started to signal me that it was time to use the bathroom. Now, I am a fairly simple guy. I can make do with what I have to, but if possible I will holdout for a bathroom that I feel comfortable in.

I could not wait another couple of hours and I started to do a silly/nervous dance. I made my way to my favorite "port-a-john" at work. I had never experienced this emergency at work and I was less than thrilled to be using the work port-a-john.

>>> I feel that I must take a moment away from the story to tell you what made this portable latrine my favorite "work port-a-john".

The criteria starts with the level of cleanliness that the port-a-john displays. Out of the three options I have at work, two are tolerable. For some reason people have wedged rocks in the urinal portion of the port-a-johns. This keeps the little scented ring thing from going down the tube and into the deep blue abyss. At work the worker bees never put these rings in the urinal, so why the rock? The middle port-a-john has a rock wedged so well that it restricts urine flow to a leaky faucet.

When I started working crazy shifts, I would have to urinate and I would stumble through the darkness to the port-a-johns. Upon inspection with a flashlight, I would find a pond in the urinal of the middle port-a-john.

Remember how I said "two were tolerable", well... During a sandstorm port-a-john #1 was tipped over (while full). The port-a-john may look clean now, but the memory of the damage still runs through my mind (and my nostrils).

The last of my criteria makes me sound really vain. But the last port-a-john has a small mirror inside the door. I thoroughly enjoy seeing how crappy I look after I've just struggled to go to the bathroom while wearing 60lbs of gear that obstructs all movement, trying not to touch anything despite being sized like a football player in a phone booth, all while trying to hold my breath from the giant two-week old hamster-cage smell. Back to the story.>>>>

I dropped all of my gear at my point and ran to the port-a-john. (A flagrant violation of General Order #1 as there were no personnel to relieve me.) I actually thought of that mid run so I was driven to accomplish my task before the next convoy arrived. I found the port-a-john in relatively good condition and I sat down. The air was not moving and I was sweating up a storm. (I'm from Minnesota. I am not supposed to use a bathroom that is 116 degrees!) I started looking around at all of the goofy graffiti on the door of the port-a-john and at the rest of my surroundings.

I noticed a couple of twigs lodged behind the toilet paper dispenser. I looked away and then thought to myself, "hmmm. Why would anyone wedge twigs back there?... Where would they get twigs out here?... Why are all of the twigs equal shape and color?" This is about the time that I leaned forward and was face to face with the largest spider that I have ever seen 3 feet from my face (uncaged).

I froze. I also could no longer complete my mission. I cleaned up as slowly and deliberately as I could, trying not to upset my new port-a-john-mate. Then I ran back, got some witnesses and my camera. Hence the pictures below.

I am not afraid of spiders; I dislike them in my personal space. But I now have an odd/irrational fear that everything that lands on me in the port-a-john (be it flies, mosquitoes, etc) has to be the largest spider I have ever seen, coming back to get me.

This will be my PTSD. (Probably)

Close Up

2006-06-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

How to waste my time in the sandbox.

2006-05-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

I have found a few ways to pass the time here:

Read Paramedic Textbook (Important)

Read ECG textbook (Important back home)

Read ACLS textbook (Also only usefull back home)

Play Dawn of War on Laptop (Not-so-important)

Play Red Alert 2 on Laptop (Definently not important)

Build Shelf (Important, but more difficult than sounds*)

Watch Movies (Important in the sense that it is mind numbing... and sometimes you need that.)
___________________________________________
Things that the command here has found to pass my time for me:

PT tests (OK, I'll give the Army that one)

Fun Runs (Nothing "fun" about running... especially when the Army has forbidden use of headphones/MP3 players here. I'm gonna whine here-> Air Force is still allowed the use of these items during PT.)

Introduction of new and irritating hoops for me to jump through to get my ambulances fitted with the proper equipment.

NCO of the Month Boards (to which I was voluntold I was going to... representing a platoon, company, battalion, etc, that I only am only a part of for this deployment.)

Loss of and re-writing of awards I already filed (for events that occured 3-4 months ago.)

___
I should probably stop bitching now.
::::::

(Note about the shelf: My attempt to build a shelf has been set back at a couple of times now. Every piece of wood I took to build my shelf turned out to be warped slightly. My tape measure that I bought had some length missing. I did not factor in the blade width when cutting the first few pieces of wood. Then the self-help had wood that looked un-warped, but was rough-cut. So I planed out the wood only to find that these 2-x-4s were also warped. It is driving me a little nuts, but at least it's keeping me busy.)

Patient care story

2006-05-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

In my time here I have treated only a few Iraqi people for minor cuts and the like. (I have only treated my fellow soldiers for upper-reparatory infections, diarrhea, and headaches mostly.) The worst patient I've seen had some serious bed sores. The patient was a paraplegic with a tracheotomy. The patient was dumped at our gate by an Iraqi ambulance.

My treatment would have been fine except that during the transport to the cache hospital the patient started to choke on phlegm. In a civilian ambulance I would have suction already prepared in this case. Well, here I was limited to an aid bag. I ended up cutting apart the tubing that connects oxygen masks to the tank and then I found a large 100 cubic centimeter syringe (without a needle) from my combitube® (airway device). I connected the tubing to the syringe and cleaned the tip off with saline from an IV bag and started to suction the patient's tracheotomy stoma/airway by pulling back on the syringe. This did close to nothing. It was a shoddy jury-rig device, but at least the trip was short and the hospital had real suction set up.

The hospital was unwilling to take the patient because the injuries (bed sores) were not considered "life, limb, or eyesight". I asked what I was supposed to do and I was told to take the patient back to the gate and call for an ambulance. "Ambulance" being kind of a joke since in this country they do no care in the back. You might as well call a taxi. I fought with the administration personnel and finally a lieutenant colonel came out with an interpreter and figured out that her paraplegia was a result of US action and that they were obligated to take her. I was relieved.

I'm kind of hesitant to say that I am bored with not seeing anything more significant than that. If I was in the cache, I would see a lot more and I'd get to work my skills. But I guess that I'm lucky that I do anything medical... If I was with Charlie Med I would probably trying to re-design the wheel. Reports from my pals have been less than encouraging and I'm pretty sure that I will try to spend as little time there (after my deployment) as possible.

Banality at the Gate

2006-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is my first post in Iraq.

I have been here a while and am already bored. My job is to simply open and close a traffic gate and wait for injured people to arrive at said gate. As you have probably guessed (given that I am bored), i have yet to treat anything more serious than a small cut to a finger tip. (Welcome to REMF/FOBbit status.) Woot. I have filled the time on my shift by talking to my co-workers (when they happen to pass by), reading the paper (when it comes), and watching birds "make sweet lovin' down by the gateside" .

One of the people from the unit we replaced (hint: starts with a W. and ends with Virginia) was talking to me about how he had watched two birds fighting on the gate. "I watched a bunch of those birds wrestlin'. One was trying to knock the other one off by jumping on his back and hitting him in the head." I looked at his face to make sure that he was not messing with me, and low & behold, he was serious. I had to inform him about how birds make the "sweet lovin'". He replied, "Oh, was that what that was? Hmm. OK." (Note to the readers: He's older than me.) Never thought I would have to explain the "birds & the bees" to anybody (for at least several years).

The only other thing worth noting about my location is that someone is obsessed with spray painting the word "Mufasa" on several of the Jersey Barriers. I did manage to find one piece of interesting grafitti.

Arrgh

2006-04-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

(Image is approx. 8" in height)

In the Desert.

2006-04-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Everything that I have read about on other blogs kind of prepared me for this. It was kind of like researching for a big project. The air isn't too bad once you get used to the lack of moisture. The mini-sandstorms that have passed through have been similiar to the strong rainstorms back home. When you are driving and you see that huge wall of rain ahead... replace the rain with sand.

I had a long post here that blabbed on and on about OPSEC violations. But it was erased by some kind of foul internet demon. You wanna read what I'm not supposed to tell you? go here.
http://www.redbullweb.com/4.html
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S15124.html?cat=1
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/14187301.htm

After spending 45 minutes typing, just to look at a blank post kind of left me disenchanted with the internet here.

Four Day Pass

2006-03-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

As Mike Watt sings, “Six weeks sea and what does it mean? We Need Liberty! Liberty calls! Liberty calls!”

I left Camp Shelby in the evening with the girl to Hattiesburg and the dumpiest hotel I’ve been at in a long while. I dropped some stuff in the room and we went foraging for food. The town had all of the same food-chains that we have in Minnesota. The one chain that was not native to Minnesota and was right next to our hotel was Waffle House. Woot. The night was short as we had to leave early in the morning.

Our second trip to Waffle House was disgusting. The morning waitress had a head cold that she had received from “taking some pain pills for my teeth”. I found the story far-fetched and watched in awe as she coughed in and on everything in her path. (This path of bio warfare included our food. Mmm mmm good.)

We made our way to New Orleans down through the Lake Ponchetrain area. The big bridge caused The Girl to clutch the steering wheel. I asked her what bothered her about the large mass of water beneath us and she replied something to the effect of, “people can drown in their cars”. My personal theory behind her phobia and the phobia of almost all evening traffic in the southern suburbs of Minnesota is that people are afraid of trolls who live beneath the bridges. Much like the story of the Billy-Goats Gruff, people have a fear of trolls and must approach all bridges with caution, lest they be snatched up and eaten by the evil trolls who dwell beneath the bridges before them…. Hey, it sounds feasible to me. Why else would all traffic slam to a halt on Cedar Avenue South (around 5pm) and suddenly speed to 20 miles above the posted limit across the Minnesota River?

We went off to find the Jefferson Parish Records office to file our application with a Mapquest map and our city map in hand. The Mapquest map told us to go far south of Downtown and to follow Hwy 10 towards Gretna. When we reached the location from the map, I made a startling discovery. The address at the top of the Mapquest map was literally “Gretna, LA. USA”. We had just followed the map to the center of Gretna. Upon closer inspection of our destination address, I noticed we were not only in the wrong spot, we were probably 25 miles south of where we actually wanted to be.

We made our way back up Hwy 10 and to the Metairie/Jefferson area (go figure: the Jefferson Parish office is in Jefferson Parish) and we hit dense traffic. I felt like a true man as I navigated us north towards 11th street looking for 111 N. Causeway. Around 11th street we turned around. Not only was I horribly wrong about which way I was navigating us, I was also horribly stupid to assume that New Orleans would number their buildings in correspondence to the number of the street. We drove south along the Causeway until, we once again, found ourselves lost in a loop of confusing one-ways.

We stopped for directions at a law office because, “Who would know better where legal stuff is better than an attorney’s office?” The Girl questioned. They had so many people that get lost and stop in for directions that they already had directions written for the lost travelers of the Causeway. We found our destination and filed our paperwork. Now it was on to the hotel.

The trip to our hotel was interesting since we ended up about 10 miles northwest of our hotel. And every street seemed to be a one-way in the wrong direction. The signs in some areas had been knocked down and spun around in such a manner that navigating by our map was useless. We struggled down Canal Street until we finally found our way to downtown New Orleans. The hotel was nice and we found the rest of the group (my parents, The Girl’s mother, and my friends Rich & Claire) within a few hours of our check in.

The manager at the hotel had assured the girl that her dress would be able to be steamed by the hotel in-house-service to straighten out all of the wrinkles from travel. When we questioned the hotel lobby, we found that they did not have any in-house-service and that their service that they use would not be able to return the dress until late the next day. A look of fear seemed to flash across The Girl’s face for about the next four hours as we struggled to find a service that could take care of the dress before 4pm the next day.

The disaster was averted by a very nice lady at a wedding shop on the corner of N. Causeway and Metairie Rd. who agreed to not only do the work 4 hours before anyone else could do it, she also drove out and got the dress and saved us the trip through a confusing and unfamiliar city. I was tired at this point, but at least The Girl had calmed down a bit.

The next morning we ate some odd pastry-type-things that were basking in about 4 inches of powdered sugar. Then we split so that I could pick up the dress and my friend Tim. The dress came back in perfect condition. When I got back to the hotel The girl was sniffly from a head cold that she had, no doubt, picked up from the Waffle House waitress of doom. Her hair was rock hard from all of the hairspray, but it looked very fancy. We sat around for about an hour and then we started to get ready. I had been slightly nervous of the whole thing, but never as much as I was right at that moment.

I was not nervous to get married, just that I would screw up during the ceremony. But it went smoothly. And it really calming to see some of my comrades from Charlie Med come to the festivities. They put me at an odd sense of ease as they all seemed happy and comfortable with their wives.

The dinner was another exercise in land navigation and in parallel parking. Our restaurant was in the French Quarter and was so fancy that The Wife and I were at a loss as to how to appropriately conduct ourselves. The tension quickly melted as everyone got their food and drinks. The food was awesome. As a matter of fact, even the dumpiest place we ate at had decent food in New Orleans.

The following day we said goodbye to our parents and we snooped around town and into the French Quarter. We ate dinner ate Mulates which was very tasty Cajun food near the New Orleans Riverwalk. In the evening we went out to a cool dark bar called Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and Bar which resembled “the Pirates of the Caribbean Gift Shop with the lights out”, per Tim. We left Tim down in the French Quarter and made our way back to the hotel where we quickly fell asleep.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and had some alligator po-boys in the dive bar across from our hotel. We took Tim to the airport and struggled our way towards Magazine Street. The Wife and I looked around at some antique shops in the area and ate at The Buddha Belly Bar. As the sky turned dark grey we got into the car and headed back to Hattiesburg. Rain pelted the car as we got close to Mississippi, almost as a warning to turn around and stay away. But we pushed on to our dumpy Motel 6.

We got up the next morning and drove onto post so that I could be back in formation in time for our “parade rehearsal” (which I was fortunate to only attend half of). We were released around 4pm and The Wife and I went into town to eat dinner with the Carlsons. After a filling (and garlic-filled) dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings we went back to the dumpy motel and tried to watch a movie. I had to be in formation at 7am and The Wife had to be on a plane at 6am, so we kind of struggled with whether or not to take a nap.

Around 2:30am we made our way onto Camp Shelby and we started the long process of saying goodbye for a year. Tears, sadness, and snot flowed through the air of our rental car. As I walked away I could see The Wife starring at me with wet eyes. I felt horrible as I walked away from her. I felt like I was abandoning her. And with that low note, this story ends. No fun anecdote. Sorry.

Joint Readiness Training Center

2006-02-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

7 February

I arrived and found myself a spot near the temporary arms room. Little did I know that by 13 February that the floor around my bunk would become the planning area for all of the missions in the neighboring town. The area of floor to my left would become the walkway for all individuals in the building. (Special Note: First time in my Army career where I had an actual building to leave all of my stuff. No tents. Woot!!!)

8 February

I slept for five hours and awoke in that special confused state where nothing looks familiar and you can't remember where you are or how you got there. After a non-eventful day with pleasant weather, we started full scale operations at midnight. (Game On!!) Who needs sleep? Overrated.

9 February

I lied about the no-sleep. I tried (in vain) to monitor the radio all night; I cannot account for all transmissions made between 2am and 4am. We lived without a fire mission or an attack, so I was lucky... Until 7:30am, when the Observer/Controllers (O/C's) noticed that half of the mortar crew was not wearing their IBA vests. The O/C's threw a mortar simulator and shot their laser-tag "God-Gun" at one of the vest-less mortar men. I ran over to him and pulled his casualty card (a card that we are issued for the game that denotes injuries we might sustain). His card stated that he had shrapnel in his rear left chest. I treated the patient quickly and evacuated him (in what felt like five minutes) to the cache hospital which just happened to be on our little base.

The clouds rolled in around 3pm and the rain started to pour. The temperature dropped quickly and it made for a miserable night on radio watch. I fought the sleep battle again, losing (altogether) about 2 & 1/2 hours of consciousness.

10 February

I went to chow around 5am, when I bumped into one of my fellow medics. I was told that I needed to check into the acting platoon sergeant. When I did I found out that I was losing one of my medics (of the four of us supporting C-Troop) to an Armor company. I was stunned and instantly angered. We were just barely scraping by with the people we had and now we were expected to "do more with less".

Half of my team was out on missions and the other guy was on a Quick Reaction Force, so I left the cushy job of RTO and manned the Ops Center. My job there was to receive/unload patients from Blackhawks that came in sporadically and drive them down to the cache hospital. This sounds alright... But you must realize that each patient weighed at least 200-300 pounds (w/equipment). Carrying just 1/4 of the weight (as part of a four-man litter team), while speed walking, wearing the same 60 lbs. of gear, repeatedly, got old pretty quick.

11 February

I slept in the TOC (Ops Center) from 3am-5am. Then I made my way to chow. After chow I shaved my stubble and sat around for a briefing on a CMO mission. We were going into the neighboring town to warm the relations there. Around 9am we made our last minute checks and loaded up the vehicles. By 10am I was in the makeshift town with a small team talking to the sheik. (People from Iraq were paid to play the role of Iraqi Nationals. I think that would be the best government job a person could get. "Hey, here's some money; do whatever you were doing before I paid you.")

I almost became a casualty when an O/C noticed that I was not wearing the MILES gear (laser tag set). One of the other soldiers had a problem with his MILES gear and the O/C checked it. He walked over to me and looked at me. "You wanna check mine?” I asked as I grabbed at my Medic-pack straps. That is when I realized that I had left it on the floor by accident. An "obvious violation of the Exercise Rules of Engagement" I was told. The O/C's mulled it over a bit and decided that since we had conducted ourselves well and had no contact that I should be allowed to live. One of the O/C's was dieing to give me a snakebite/anaphylaxis injury card. Thanks... Man, I hate O/C's.

The mission ended without any traumatic snakebites or other notional injuries. I went back to my cot, grabbed my shower stuff, and got my first shower in five days.

12 February

I pulled double duty again. I worked the nightshift of Evac at the TOC and then went out on a mission in town. The weather was cold, grey, and windy.

13 February

I gave up my aforementioned medic to the Armor Company and thus eliminated my duties at the TOC. I went out on another mission to town, but I sat outside of it staring at a burm waiting for casualties. No casualties ever came during the two and a half hours of burm-watching. I had actually sunk in the mud where I sat. After my return I started to strip off my gear. I was told to put it back on and that we had been assigned a QRF mission to assist another unit who had made contact with the enemy.

We hastily made our group together, got our briefing, and sped out of the FOB. Our ride was filled with tension. About midway to our destination we turned a hard left and heard a large boom. Our first vehicle was disabled and blocked the road. Instantly gunfire came from the high-ground to our right. The M-2 .50-Cal machine guns went into full action. The fire then ceased on the right and started to come from our left (low ground). The enemy had the perfect ambush position and we were caught.

I moved from vehicle to vehicle under covering fire. I did a baseball slide when I reached a vehicle with a soldier lying outside of it. He was supposed to have shrapnel wounds to the front and back of his right side. I patched him up with a couple of bandages and kerlex. I helped load him into the vehicle only to find another person inside whose MILES gear was beeping. His card stated that he was KIA. Outside I heard someone yell "Doc". So I slid out of the HMWV head first and ran low to the ground towards SSG Alley cat. Inside his vehicle was a soldier who was supposed to have an abdominal wound. I treated him quickly and threw supplies to a few people so that they could treat themselves. A team of two others helped me fore-aft carry the soldier to another HMWV.

By this time we had started to move out of the kill zone. I found SGT Jocko in the HWMV that I was in who needed care for an abdominal injury. I patched the wound and then started to give an IV as we drove to the cache. I got a successful stick on the first attempt (in the wrist). At the cache we unloaded patients, conducted an AAR, and turned in for the night.

14 February

The morning and afternoon was taken up by large unit and command AARs. (Which, if I have not mentioned, are a review of our actions and possible improvements to be made.) The rest of the day was pretty uneventful for me.

15 February

We woke up with a mission to go into town and conduct a community service/medical service. For whatever reason I was told that there would be two medics assigned to this mission. When we moved into town both Eckery and I just sat around waiting for casualties. I pulled security (stared into a forest) in my area for about 3 1/2 hours. Boredom set in about 5 minutes. The mission ended and the rest of the day was boring too.

16 February

I was posted to the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) in the morning and did nothing but walk around between the barracks. In the afternoon we were summoned to take a "Key Iraqi Official" into custody from his home. We moved towards the objective in a 7 vehicle convoy. Enroute we noticed 4 vehicles speeding towards us (and away from the objective) so a hasty Traffic Control point (TCP) was erected and we started checking out the vehicles. About 10 minutes into the process our command called and told us that we were going to lose our Close Air Support in 20 minutes if we did not move on the objective.

The Platoon Leader worked feverishly on the side of the road to make a plan of attack. The TCP was dropped and two of the vehicles in the convoy were to move to the house and probe the area. They left. A few minutes passed. We heard gunfire. The radios started squawking with situation reports of casualties. The LT hastily sent the other five vehicles into the area to extract casualties and to see if the mission could be done.

I was in the back of a high-top HMWV with a SAW gunner. As we turned off of the main road to the driveway of the house, the gunfire picked up and our truck made a 180 degree turn. This left me facing heavy machine gun fire and an RPG attack with no cover whatsoever. My MILES gear went off and an O/C pulled my casualty card. I had, notionally, lost my right arm and was unconscious. So I left my aid bag with the SAW gunner and sat down outside on the ground, taking my Kevlar helmet off (to indicate that I was out of play).

The SAW gunner dragged me to the only bit of cover in the whole area and continued to shoot back at the house. I was evacuated out with six others to our FOB and moved into the cache hospital. The rest of the night I was notionally treated for my injuries. The nurses came around every so often to tell me the status of myself. I "went to surgery" and "awoke in pain" so I was notionally "medicated with 6mg of Morphine Sulfate by IV". Woot.

16-17 February

I was then moved, by five ton, to the Patient Holding Area around midnight. I was actually moved to a large empty airplane-hangar style building to spend the next five hours. We had heard that they had a shower facility here so I grabbed some soap, shower shoes, and clean clothes to change into before I left the FOB. The facility we had heard about was a little wooden shack that had four small showers inside. But the water was hot and I felt like a million bucks afterwards. I slept for a few hours and then was sent to the "Replacement Company", where I was supposed to represent a new soldier coming into the game to replace myself. It was all kind of odd. The best part of the whole deal was that we flew back to the FOB on a Blackhawk Helicopter to go back to work.

17 February

Upon arrival on the FOB I went into the TOC to announce my return. I was put right back on the QRF and went out on a mission to the town outside of the FOB. A car-bomb had been detonated outside of a UN building and we went to control the area until the casualties could be evacuated and the area cleared of any more possible explosives. During this mission I heard the most comedic radio traffic of the whole game.

One of the other companies had been sent out to do a different mission during our mission to control the road outside the UN building. One of the elements was directed by the HQ to go and set up a TCP. Well, we had already done that, so naturally we were confused. Our LT called up on the radio and asked: "Why are you setting up a TCP? We got you covered." The voice on the radio replied: "They directed us to. I'm not quite sure why they wanted us either." A stern voice came over the radio: "I am not 'they'! I am Blade X-Ray! (The Battalion) And I directed you." This caused our LT to roll his eyes, I chuckled, and I could laughter and mockery from the other vehicle crews nearby.

18 February

The last day of the game was one massive coordinated strike on a large town. The morning was hurried as everyone attended last minute mission briefings and geared up for the big hit. I had prepared the night before by going on a raid mission for medical supplies. I had managed to find two ambulance sets that had been brought, but never used. They were slated to go back to NE the next day, and I could not figure out why they hadn't been put to good use, so I robbed them. I also split out my treasure with the other medics in the line units.

The whole FOB, it seemed, lined up on the entrance road. The bottleneck was horrible as Bradley Vehicles (armored troop transports), HMWVs, and LMTVs (5-ton trucks) all tried to squeeze out the one lane. As we convoyed to the town, units moved to their staging areas and cleared a path for us. Around 10am we pushed into the West side of town. We were in a HMWV with an M-2 .50 Cal. We shot at RPG teams as our dismounts moved up and cleared buildings.

About 1/2 way to our Rally Point, I heard someone call me. "Medic!!!" I moved to the closest building from my HWMV and found one of the soldiers from the unit was lying down. His casualty card stated that he had swelling on the left side of his forehead, he was unconscious, and that his pupils were unequal. I wrapped his head and sent him off with the instructions that he was not to get an IV. (The people running medevac gave him one anyway. Which would have killed him by raising the pressure of the blood that was pooling between his brain and skull.) I hopped back into another HWMV since the one I was originally in had moved up a ways.

The buildings had been cleared and our half of town was cleared. Our new order was to secure the town as the majority of elements left. The majority ended up being all but 6 HMWVs (not enough to adequately secure a city block, let alone a whole town). As we went over to talk to 3 of the 6 HMWV's (whom had gathered at one location to work out their commo problems) we noticed a truck driving quickly through town towards a Bradley. The TC of our vehicle told the driver to haul ass towards the truck. Our gunner (on an M-2 as well) had problems engaging the truck for fear of fratricide. Our driver followed the TC to the T and drove right up on the truck. BOOM! A grenade simulator went off and we were informed that we had been vaporized in a car-bomb attack.

We all kind of regretted our actions in the situation (I had wished I was in the original truck I had left earlier); but our spirits lifted as we realized that we did not have to play the game anymore. We slept in the HMWV for about an hour before anyone came to collect us. The game ended a few hours later and we all convoyed in. That night we also moved into cantonment (which signaled the end of the interesting part of JRTC).

The Night of the Misfire

2006-01-23T15:58:00.000-08:00

When I returned from long day of loading connexes I was greeted with a note that read "05:30 Live Fire - Mortar Range - C-Troop". I got a little excited that I would finally be able to go and meet some of the people that I would be supporting in Iraq. I packed up some rain gear and checked over my aid bag and then went to sleep.

Around 4:30 I woke up and staggered out of bed. I slowly put on my ACU's and all of my gear. I made my way down to the C-Troop HQ and ran into a few mortar guys loading up HMMWV's with equipment. I introduced myself only to find that most of them had already heard or seen me around. I didn't realize how many of these guys had been through the CLS classes that I was involved with, but in hindsight it was not that big of a surprise.

I ate some breakfast and then packed myself into a backseat of a turtleback HMMWV (the least-spacious it seems). The morning was grey and mist kind of floated around in the air. The ammunition truck showed up a few moments after our arrival. Then I proceeded to realize how weak my arms were as I toted 100lb cases from the truck to the mortar tubes. 20-some cases later we began to break open the metal cases to find two-mortart rounds a peice that had to be removed and stacked in an orderly manner. (Round, incendiary, objects like to try and roll away I found.)

There were some smalled mortar tubes that had came from D-troop to participate in the live fire exercise as well. Their 60mm mortars sounded like a firecracker compared to the cannon blast that came out of our 120's. Rounds were shot in short controlled intervals, making the morning kind of dull and anti-climactic. Then they realized that I was just watching them fire and that I could participate to speed-up the rate of fire on "Gun 2". I was now the ammo-bearer and had the important task of properly adjusting the rounds and handing them to the assisstant gunner. This also meant that I felt the most concussion from each round that left the tube. The pressure shook my chest and I realised that my ears would hurt less if I kept my mouth open.

I would like to have seen myself at a distance. I'm hunched over, clutching a round as if it's my first-born, making faces like I've been hit in the back of the head.

At about 16:00, I think I had it all figured out, and then it started to rain. I was now in charge of keeping the rounds dry and trying to hand them off in a timely manner. The first few rounds went off without a hitch and then I heard a pop and kind of whizzing noise. I looked behind me and saw people running from their position, I looked at my crew and noticed that I was the only one left in the dust. So I sprinted like a gazelle. "When I'm scared, I'm very gazelle-like", said comedian-Dane Cook. I sprinted (as fast as I ever remember myself moving) and made my way towards a ditch about 60 meters away. The crew of the 60mm mortar slowly crept back to their mortar and tapped on the tube. They had a misfire and their round had fallen short.

I found out this was a common occurance as it happened two more times in the night. One High Explosive (HE) round sounded a little too close for comfort when it detonated. I had switched to the mighty "Gun 1" to fire some HE rounds so that Gun 2 could fire some flare rounds. (Which I must say, seemed about as bright as the sun when fired in a volley of three.) Our first two rounds impacted and then round three was hung into the tube but never shot out. This time I sprinted away through the dark, splashing into (now) knee-deep puddles. Our round had never hit the firing mechanism on the base.

My crew cautiously walked over to the tube and looked around for a few minutes. ... ... Then they kicked the tube repeatedly. Still no movement. So the tools were brought over and the round was carefully extracted and put off to the side. The barrel was cleaned and the gun crew took a smoke break.

I was pretty skittish after this debacle, but I went back and all of the guns started firing massive fire missions. It was reminiscent of "The 1812 Overture". We finished up all of our rounds and burned up all of the excess chargess in one massive eruption of gunpowder. Then we packed up and headed for contonement; all very muddy, sore, and tired.

Back on the Block

2006-01-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

2 weeks before I left Camp Shelby for Christmas Exodus, I was moved from Charlie Co. to Headquarters Troop 1-167 Cavalry (Reconnasiance Surveilance & Target Acquisition) (- 3/4 words are probably not spelled right). I was thrilled to be down with a "line unit" since it brings me closer to my EMS backround. Up at Charlie Co. I was bound to just be a hospital technician or something like that.

I can already hear people looking at the screen and saying, "He's got to be nuts to want to be closer to the madness". But it's true... I can't stand looking at the same four walls whether it's an office or a tent. I hated working as a clerk when I was on active duty. It was 5 months of hell. I curse red pens and secretary work. I like to move around... I'm migratory... Maybe I'm a shark. I have to keep moving or I'll die. Although, I do like to sleep a lot, maybe I'm more of a bird-type-creature.

Back to the story. I was instantly welcomed and felt at home (or as at home as one could feel in Camp Shelby). I also realised very quickly that I was the senior-most E-5 and that I would have to step up a bit. In Charlie Co., my squad leader only used me in a leadership role when it suited her, and it drove me nuts. At 1-167, I was given my own squad right away. I got to know a few people and then Christmas Exodus came.

I came home to an airport full of people clapping, even though I had only saved a few mannequin's lives. A hero's welcome for a not-quite-a-hero-yet-type guy(-who-likes-hyphens). I shamefully hid behind a Colonel and walked through the gate area until I was greeted by The Girl and my parents. I walked briskly away from the clapping mass in such haste that I almost left The Girl (with parents-in tow) at the gate. If I had saved a baby from a pack of wild hyeenas, won the nobel peace prize, or built my own civilization of talking dolphins then maybe I would have had a reason to puff out my chest and bow to the clapping, but I had done none of these things. And I did not feel like getting any praise for saving the lives of countless mannequins who had been injured at the hands of the dreaded OPFOR (opposition forces).

I spent my days at home in the car, mostly. We (The Girl and I) always seemed to have to go and take care of this errand or that errand. I had made almost no plans to speak of, but somehow, I always kept moving. But I did make sure to sleep in almost every day. When I returned to Camp Shelby on the 3rd of January, I was alone. No one else had returned from their Christmas break and when I awoke at 5:30am on the fourth, I looked around to find the barracks still quiet and empty. I rolled over and did not get up until 11am.

Around 3pm, the majority of the people had returned and we went right back to work. "So much for easing back into the swing of things", I stated. The next day we started training for mass casualty events. We worked in small teams treating and triaging large groups of patients. It was not the type of training that I should have attended after fattening myself up over Exodus and having done no Physical Training or anything.

Now that it has been a week, I feel back in the groove. My wall locker is trashed and I'm tired. I'm not sure that most people would say that is a good measure of normal, but it seems to be my measure of normal. The level of activity seems the same as it was during the last few months. I am kinda curious how this place is gonna look when we are gone. Will our space be filled with people the next day or will my Onion quotes go unappreciated for many months? I would ponder that for a while if I didn't have this nagging feeling that I should be off cleaning my wall locker.

Boredom and FOB Madness

2005-11-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of couple-day events that we've been attending. The days in between have not been very eventful. And boredom in the Army can lead to madness... Or crazy rumors and minute subversion.

For example: We've managed to lock ourselves down. People believed that three big name bands were going to play a concert in the local PX parking lot. People were under the impression that they might have to stay back for Christmas. I, personally, have been subverting small details on platoon white-boards around the area.

The lock-down: We came back from four days in the field at about 10:00. We were looking forward to a little time to go shopping in town. As I walked towards our bathrooms, at 10:15, I was stopped and told by my platoon sergeant to alert everyone that we were "locked down" (exact words).

This typically means that you can't go anywhere or do anything. It's like being grounded by your parents. But we hadn't been back long enough to get in trouble. So the evil elves or gremlins, who run the rumor mill, started up the steam engines.

The first reason that went around for our punishment was: Our command was angry at us for having an "un-authorized AAR". ("After action review"-a discussion about what went well/what can be improved in a training event.) Truth: The command had little idea that the company had the AAR, how could they have been mad.

The second reason for our punishment was: Someone from another company was drunk and arrested in town. Truth: Everyone was out at different training events. No one could've been arrested in town.

The truth in the whole matter was that our trip to town had to be requested through Battalion via memorandum and one had not been typed or sent up. Therefore anyone could go anywhere on post and no one was in trouble.

Bands at the PX: Around Thanksgiving there was going to be a concert in the PX parking lot. The bands playing there had not been announced. The rumor for the set was Three Doors Down and/or Slayer. I am personally proud that this rumor started at our barracks, around 09:00, and had made its way to the opposite side and through different battalions (1-167 CAV) by 14:00.

The conversation was that Three Doors Down had a video of them playing a concert on an aircraft carrier and that it would be cool if they played for the troops here. Slayer was mentioned as a joke. The truth was that three local bands played the show.

There are platoon dry-erase white-boards that have the days/weeks training events written out for all to see. In light of the lock down and concert rumor I "adjusted" the schedule to read something like this:08:00 Formation09:00 Create Rumor15:00 PT on your own17:00 Destroy Morale19:00 Closing Formation

I've also been leaving insightful quotes (from people like Patton) about how to run/command troops on the boards. I've also been subverting the wall lockers of my fellow soldiers by taping The Onion headlines to them.

More subversion to come (probably after Christmas).

MOUT

2005-10-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

I went through some training on Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) this week. The highlight of the whole thing was that I got to be an enemy sniper.

I was emplaced by an OC (observer controller) in a two-story building that was in the middle of a makeshift/replica town. It was about 8PM and the sky was clear and star filled. There was no moon so the darkness was staggering within my sniper-hide. My mission was to hinder the team/platoons mission.

I stood about three feet back from one of the two open windows looking out towards my platoon area. As I stood in my area I shifted from foot to foot imagining how tough it might be to find me under that hurried, chaotic, moment when I start shooting. Then something made a quick patter near my building. I froze.
I turned my head, trying to ascertain the location. It sounded like it was a solitary unit. I figured that maybe the platoon had sent out some scouts. But the movements were from one thing and one spot.

I thought that maybe an OC might be coming back to talk to me, but the noises moved from my left to right and not towards any buildings. My heart was pounding so strong that I swore I could hear it. The sounds started making their way towards my view. I raised my M-16 up slowly and drew a bead on the corner of the alleyway near my building. A small black shape emerged. I had been sweating for about 15 minutes due to a wild dog.
When my platoon came into town it was much more noticable. I took up position and I let them come up on me. Just like I had for the dog I slowly raised my M-16 and looked down my sights. My heart tried to pound itself through my chest. I slowly moved my selector switch from safe to burst and felt the trigger. My finger tensed and I fired off three blank rounds out the window.

I waited for a few moments, fired a single shot from each window, and paused again. They had located me. I loaded a full clip and started to shoot randomly. My job was to hinder them, so I stayed put and hindered them.

The platoon stormed my area and took me prisoner. It ran very smooth. Even though I put over 100 rounds out. I never triggered anyones MILES gear (laser tag). At this close of range I was sure that I'd get someone.

At the end of the assault I felt pretty glad that I was going with these people who were able to locate and eliminate a sniper. They didn't faulter under the stress of the unknown. They followed their training. Most people here continually underestimate us because we are medics. The beauty of that assumption is that most of us are relatively intelligent and can follow complex direction. Even combat direction. The OCs stated that we worked well together and better than some of the infantry units that had come through the week before. That felt pretty good to hear.

Medic Refresher

2005-10-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have been going through our medical re-certification and I have found out some pretty critical information from my classes. When people go to hell they must first sit through 10 days of powerpoint presentations. And everyone who runs the slides will read them verbatim and ask questions that can be answered by looking right up at the slides. Then people will go through a SRP or SRC. The lines will be long and there will be nothing to do but to mindlessly move down the line from station to station.

The medical training would be interesting if a good percent of our company were not working in some medical setting in the real world. I guess "interesting" is not the word; maybe a "good refresher".

The text book was made by the Association of Orthopedic Surgeons. I have decided that if I need emergency care that maybe orthopedic surgeons are no more suited to care for me than orthopedic shoe salesmen. I used to moan when I had to read my Mosby book... Now I would gladly read that thing over the crap that I have seen in that book.

After day 6 I started drawing with SPC True-Believer. I would draw the head of some beast, fold over the paper, extend some reference lines, and let him draw the next portion of the monster. We came up with some pretty interesting drawings. Although, True-Believer is a much better artist than I could ever hope to be.

M-249 Range

2005-09-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 0430 and sped through our fifteen-minute rush to shit/shower/and shave. We swallowed breakfast all by 0515 and met in a formation to march back down to the parking lot where we commonly catch busses. The job of the day was to run a Machine Gun range. We split into a zero range and into a qualification range detail and left for our respective ranges.

I went off to the qualification range where there was noticable storm damage to the woods. The sun was red and low in the sky as the people in charge of our detail (permanent party) were clearing the damaged trees with a chainsaw and an industrial John Deere fork-lift.
As we watched the guys work, we unwittingly volunteered ourselves to help clear. I grabbed fair-sized limbs annd dragged them over to a pile that (I assume) was for a later collection. As I moved the trees I kept on tripping on this small rope that was tied to a stake. As we cleared more and more trees it became evident that we were unburying a GP-Small tent.
Sequeda bug husks were attached to many of the trees and for some reason, I imagined how Sequeda bugs seemed like descendants of a much older (and bigger) monster that probably terrorized the lands of old. Speaking of terrorized, I was helping with the ammo detail and unknowngly stumbled into a deadly spider. I was sticking my hand into the ammo crate when I spotted a black shiny shape on the side of the box about 3"s away from my bare skin. I pulled my hand out when it started to move. I looked closely in the crate and spotted the red hourglass of a black widow. First one I've ever seen in person.

One of the range personnel took a look in the box and said "Yup, it's a black wida". Then he took the lid and smashed the black widow without a even the slightest bit of hesitation.
The range guys were pretty funny. The tower control kept taunting the firers on the line. "We are waiting on you lane 5... You are the pace car... You are the weakest link..." etc. It would have been horrible had everyone been taking it seriously, but there was a resoundingly upbeat feeling to the whole ordeal. As the sun beat down and the breeze flowed through the air everyone remained really positive.

One poor soul tried to qualify on his M-249 twice and failed both times. The second time he failed the taunting-tower-controller ordered him to low crawl off of the line. The SPC low-crawled off the line while the voice from the tower hummed a song that sounded kinda like the theme song to Welcome Back Cotter. He got up and dusted himself off with a big grin. He qualified the next round to cheers from every single one of us running the range (and the tower too).

The range would have been done early had we not had some fires. I got to be on the fire team. I sped out in a range control truck and stamped out the grass fires with these broom-like devices with a rubber mud flap instead of bristles. At one point we had five separate grass fires running and only three of us putting out the fires. After the second time of shutting down the range we removed all of the tracer-rounds from the M-249 belts. Taunting-tower-control asked the next set of "Firestarters" to come to the line, but it was kind of a mis-nomer since there were no more grass-fires from that point on.

We finished our range as the sun set behind us. The group of us on the qualification range walked to the gate to get on our buss only to find that the zero range personnel had left hours earlier and had not sent the buss back for us. An hour later we were on the buss comparing the sun to the one we had seen at the beggining of our range detail.

M-16 Range

2005-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

We got up at 0445 this morning and ran through the morning like it was basic training. We had about 15 minutes to shit/shower/shave and be in line for breakfast chow. Then we had to be in formation at 0530. We all came running up to formation with seconds to spare. It was still pitch black outside and people were very anxious because it was weapons qualification day (for the M-16A2). We marched down to the street where we met up with A and B companies and boarded busses to get to the range. The first range was set up to zero in our individual sights on our M-16s.

I laid in the prone and focused on my "four fundamentals" of marksmanship: breathing, steady body position, aim, and trigger squeeze. The tower called out "fire when ready"... So I lined up with my target and let loose three rounds. I got up and went over to see how I shot.

When I arrived I found that six not three! I looked at the firers to my left and to my right; both of their targets had their respective three holes. There were two really tight shot groups on opposite parts of my target. The range safety came over to observe my target and was just as equally confounded. So I shrugged and went back to my firing point. I fired another three rounds and again there were twice as many holes as there should've been. It was like the scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel Jackson kept trying to figure out how the bullets missed him. Now I looked all over down the line.

At about the time that I saw Sjobeck looking very confused, Merryman (to my right) asked, "Hey Sjobeck? You got any shots on your target? I'm pretty sure that you've shot Dock's Target." The mystery was solved, but unfortunately, I had not zeroed my M-16 and had to be recycled in order to get a clean target.

After the zero range we were bussed over to a separate range performing the qualifications. There was a lot of talk going on as I waited for my turn to shoot. I was significantly delayed as I had been one of the last groups to zero. The word around the sewing circle was that the Army Rangers on post had been having problems with this range and that they had only been able qualify 56% of their unit the day before. Now, if only 56% of an Army super-unit qualify at a range, I'd view that as a range problem and not a unit problem. I was a little more than hesitant to believe this. But I did witness a mechanic going out to fix lane number two (of twenty) by kicking the targets. Some of the targets refused to move as he assaulted them.

I lucked out and qualified on number nine with a sharpshooter score. (31/40 and 20/20 NBC fire). Then we waited for the blistering sun to set so that we could do a night fire. The evening dragged on as we chatted and goofed around trying to burn time. When my turn came, I lucked out and got number nine again and qualified for my night fire.

Around 22:00 everyone finally finished firing. We all crammed into a few busses and recounted our weapons-qual stories... That is, until we started moving. The bus driver (a sergeant) drove the bus down the gravel roads as if the bus was the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard. We fishtailed at every intersection, we slipped onto the shoulder at the passing of every vehicle, the only thing we didn't do was hit a jump over Boss Hog's limo.

Afte being around gunshy individuals with M-16's and live ammo, i'd have to say that the ride back was the most dangerous portion of my adventure. Boy, was I glad to get to my bed.

Bugs

2005-09-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

We have today to ourselves to go to church or what not. I decided to sit around and do some typing and read out of my brand new good news bible (courtesy of the chaplain). I'm a bad diciple. I'm on Catholic-Union strike. But that's a can of worms for another post.

The weather has been pleasent due to Rita pushing a lot of wind our way. Just when it seems to get too hot and muggy the wind picks up and cools it down. We hear that rain is forcast for the next few days, but there is no way to verify the rumors around here.

Most of our deployment seems to be rumors so far. Where are we going? What will we be doing? How will we train to do the mission that we don't know we are doing? I gave up trying to figure out the answers to these questions. And that feeling that I've given up on something bothers the NCO in me.

I can't keep my people informed if I am not informed. It sounds cheesy, but I really am kinda bothered. Kind of like when you know there is a mosquito in your house but you don't know where. Every once in a while it will pass by and you will try to get at it but the more you chase it the more you just seem to waste energy.

Well, nothing else interesting to report. Until something comes up, we will be busy chasing the cockroaches (which are the biggest I've ever witnessed) out of our tent. I'm sure they've been stealing individual socks.

Dead Hooker-pack

2005-09-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

SPC Short-Round is a pretty quiet guy in my squad who I am losing to another platoon. I was pretty bummed out because I was going to try and get him to teach me some Hmong. I tried to say some basic stuff and he kinda laughed. I asked him if he could understand me or if it just sounded like I had shit in my mouth. He just said "yeah". So that answered my question.

Another reason that I'm gonna be sad to see him go is that whenever anyone needs stuff he seems to have it in his backpack. This has lead many in the tent to believe that he has anything and everything in the backpack. So SPC Hayes asked him if he had a "dead hooker" and Short-Round actually started looking deep in his bag. In these dead spaces in our training times the worst, most morbid, darkest of humor comes out of the wood-works... And I love every minute of it.

There is a running gag between a member of this tent (12B) and two members of 15B. One day we found an eviction notice on our tent and since then the notes have been going back and forth like volleys on the battlefield. These are the small things that make the monotony tolerable.

FOB Hurricane

2005-09-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Mississippi to a humid hot morning. We rode into town and could see downed trees all along the route. Buildings were still standing, but they had their roofs partially torn back. Standing signs for restaraunts like Denny's had been turned into skeletons of their former selves. As we got to post we say a couple of billets that had all of their citing torn back. We passed an area where a white tent was half-collapsed. I'd later find out that it was a dining facility that had just recently been completed. The bus rolled into an area that had been set up to look like an arabic-style town. Past the town we saw a burm built up with concertina wire lining the top and a few guard towers lining the entrance. This was FOB Hurricane (titled pre-Katrina) and it was to be our home for the next few weeks. FOB Hurricane had no grass (except on its burms) and it had a nice tent city built on pallets and planks of wood. There were also large groups of Porta-Potties disperced about. We unloaded our bags,found our individual tent assignments and got settled in. After a few briefings that proposed our schedule over the next few days,we ate dinner at a hastily chow area within the FOB. Then I fell asleep early and did not wake up for the next 9 hours.

Leaving

2005-09-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

I got my notice that I was getting activated on Friday. I performed a wedding on Saturday (as an ordained minister) and on Sunday I ran errands and hung out with my girl. On Monday I drilled with my unit, verifying rosters and fixing paperwork.

We asked about when we were going to leave and were told that we were probably going to leave on Wednesday at 0100 or 0200. We left our unit on Monday knowing about as much as we had the week before. The only news that we did receive was that we were still going to go to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for a few weeks. Camp Shelby was hit by Katrina and was currently being occupied by members of other units and FEMA. So I was kind of surprised.

Tuesday we were given our rough itinerary. We were to meet at the North East Minneapolis National Guard Center and leave our families at 0400. We would do some last minute paperwork and then leave for the airport as a unit. Then we would fly down to Shelby and move right out to our tents.

Tuesday night I tried to concentrate but I just couldn't. The girl looked like she was on the verge of crying every time I looked at her. It absolutely kills me to see her cry. I tried to keep the mood light, but just seemed lost in space. I repacked my bags with some personal hygiene items that I had not packed before. (We were told that there were minimal showering facilities at Shelby, so I picked up a box of wet-wipes. There were also issues with Shelby's power so I stocked up on batteries.) I screenprinted some T-shirts for the girl and put some more tunes on my iPod. As I finished all of my errands the clock pushed further and further in to Wednesday. Around 02:30 I finally started to lose steam. I laid down on my basement floor and stretched out. I was tired enough to sleep for a week but I could not manage to fall asleep.

At 03:15 my mother came up and drove the girl and I to the Mpls TACC. When we arrived we could see a lot of familiar faces from my unit. They were all looking a little uneasy being surrounded by their families. The girl started to cry and as we stood outside my eyes started to burn. It wasn't that I was sad to go... It was just sad to see the girl so torn up about my departure. I rammed two pieces of gum into my mouth and started chewing them to take my mind off of her tears. I clenched my jaw with every bite of my gum. The tension in my jaw caused my head to hurt right near my temples and it seemed to make it easier to keep from losing it.

At 0400 I gave my last goodbye to the girl for the next 18-20 months. I got into formation and started inprocessing for the flight. A lot of people had pulled an all-nighter like me and were showing as they stood in line. We all boarded busses and I fell asleep. I woke up to unload/load my bags to the plane and then I got seated and fell asleep again.

Short Notice

2005-09-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

I am (most likely) going to be activated by my unit to serve as a medic in far away place. I would have guessed that I was going to Iraq, but my unit never seems to guarentee these types of things. I have a friend in the Air National Guard who was told 1 year out that he was deplolying to Iraq to fight fires. I was told last week that I might be getting activated to go to Iraq by next Wednesday. The difference between 2 weeks and 52 weeks seems kind of big in my eyes.

Now, I can almost hear some of you saying ,"Hey Sergeant, you signed up. Deal with it." It's not that I am afraid or angry that I am being deployed. I say "so be it", but I am a little frustrated at the lack of The Beast to be able to give me more than 14 days notice. It's not like the people in the Guard or the Army do things like this on a whim. There is somebody at some desk deciding these things for at least a few months.

I can say that with 95% certainty since I saw these "desk" people hard at work making ARTEPs and Field Problems that were planned one fiscal year out. During my 4 month stint as a commander's "driver" (cough cough bitch cough) while on active duty, I got to see, up close, how much prior-planning goes into a single movement from point A to point B. I inclined to believe that our unit has been on the slate to move into a deployment for more than just 6 months. I am also inclined to believe that there are orders (printed on paper) that were cut for unit somewhere on someones desk.

I really don't have much of a point I guess, just kind of venting my frustration.

"Way back when..." aka "The Story Begins"

2005-09-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I really don't want to bore the crap out of you right away so I will keep it short. I was born and raised in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. (I feel the need to point out that the Twin Cities are in Minnesota due to the absolutely true fact that I was once asked 'which state is Minnesota in?'. ) I went to high school and graduated in the 51st percentile of my class (woot). Since I was completely apathetic I enrolled into community college because 'they told me to' and because paying rent to stay at home seemed kinda ridiculous. As time went on at college I actually started to form my own opinions and actually give a damn. When I graduated I was excited to go on. I was not so excited when I started looking at how student loans worked and at the prices of going on in the cities.

The Army recruiters set up shop in our college's hallways on a pretty regular basis (along with every other branch of military recruiters). The Army was offering a pretty hefty college fund to join so.... I found myself sitting in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I was a rocket-jockey or MLRS-Crewmember (13M) for three years. I spent my years in one of the tiniest posts in Germany.

At the end of my three years I enlisted with the Minnesota National Guard to be re-classed to (91W) the Army Combat Medic or Army Medical Specialist as they are now known. That brings us up to speed with a lot of holes. But I figure I have a lot of space and plenty of time to fill in the gaps.