Dusty

It is amazing the dust storms here. I mentioned last time that sometimes the dust is thick enough, it is like a fog. I did a picture looking at some houses across the airfield. Some days you can see the houses and other days you can’t. I don’t recommend this place for people who have breathing problems. In fact, I don’t think I recommend this place even if you don’t have breathing problems.

I am including a copy of a letter I wrote to my sister-in-laws 6th grade class. They were kind enough to send me a group of letters that they wrote to me. I passed them around to some of the other medical staff. I think it sums things up pretty well.

“Dear 6th Grade Class, September 23, 2008
Thank you for your wonderful letters. Believe it or not, they were an inspiration for me. Just knowing that people back home care about our soldiers really mean a lot. Even little things like just sending a letter or saying “Thank You” means a great deal. All that a soldier want is knowing that people back in the states appreciate the sacrifice that the soldier is making. He wants to know that he is not forgotten. He wants to know that his hard work, his sweat and at times, his tears are not for nothing. Over here, the American soldier does make a difference. They help give the Iraqi people a chance for freedom, something that we as Americans at times take for granted. They also are fighting against terrorism, the same type that attacked our nation on September 11, 2001.

I don’t know how much Mrs. Baier has told you about me. I joined the Army a little over a year ago. I was inspired a great deal by my son, Michael, who joined the Marines about 2 years ago. When I saw what he was doing for our country, I decided that I could help our country as well. I am too old to be an active Infantry man, like my son. I am probably close to some of your grandparents’ ages. God has been very good to me and gave me other skills to help our country. He gave me skills to be a doctor, so I decided to use those skills to help out troops. Unfortunately, in war soldiers do get hurt and I can help them recover. I love these soldiers over here. Each day they go outside the wire, that is, outside of the base where it is safe. They face danger everyday of being injured by the terrorist. They do this for us, so we can have a safe place at home, free of terrorism. The reason I joined the Army was to be able to help these wonderful soldiers of our nation.

It is not too bad over here now. When I first came over here, our plane refueled in Ireland, then onto Kuwait. I spent a few days doing more training in Kuwait. Then we flew to Iraq. I am now stationed in Mosul, which is way up north in Iraq. Iraq is approximately the size of the state of Texas. Bagdad is the capital and I am a few hundred miles north of it. We have bases all over the country. When I first got here, the temperature averaged about 115-120 degrees. It took a while, but I got used to it. Now the fall is here and the temp goes around 95 -100. At night time it cools off to about 80 degrees. This place is truly a city in the middle of a desert. All water is piped or shipped in. The only water we drink is bottle water. The water in the sinks are not safe to drink. We can, however, take showers in it as long as we don’t drink it. I drink about 4-5 liters of water a day, just to stay hydrated. It is very easy to get dehydrated over here, then you need IVs or else you will get very sick.

We have had almost no rain since April. There are a few trees and I don’t know how they stay alive with almost no rain. I am told they have a very deep root system that must supply them with nutrients. I work pretty much in the hospital here, called a CSH (Combat Support Hospital). Because of all the dust here, there is a high infection rate. We basically stabilize the wounded soldier, meaning we clean out their wounds, give them blood if needed, IVs and medication. Then after a day or two, the wounded are flown to Germany for further care. We have very little TV programs, so most troops in their free time watch a lot of DVDs. I don’t have a car here so we do a lot of walking.

I finish up with my tour about the end of October.

Your letters made me smile and I thank you for them. “

Tom

Army Patch

Well, it is official. I received my arm patch. In the military, there is a tradition of after you have been in a combat zone for over 30 days you get a patch for your arm. They had a little ceremony at the CSH to give a group of us our patches. So it is official. I have been in a combat zone for over 30 days. We wear the flag backwards on our right shoulder. That is because we always have the stars facing forward, or leading us. I have about 30 days or so left. This last month time has gone by quickly, so I think I will be home in no time.

Ramadan should over in a few more days. They definitely made us busier, but fortunately, not that much of the really big traumas, mainly the smaller stuff. Part of that could be related to how much the equipment has changed. I am seeing more protective things around the vehicles, like this big wire fence looking thing. The idea behind it is that the grenades get tied up in the fence and detonate outside the vehicle instead of ON the vehicle which helps keep the injuries down. They also have more reinforced vehicles, even since I have been here.


They have a vehicle called MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protection). It has steel reinforced armor and the inside is has a separate carriage that blows away from the frame so not as much impact hits the soldiers inside. We have had a few head injuries when they don’t wear their Kevlars inside, but not nearly the bodily injuries we see from unprotected vehicles.


The weather is still quite dry. Some days you can see for a distance. Other days the dust is so thick, it is like fog. I hear they are predicting rain next week and even night time temps below 70. At least that will help with the dust.

Tom

Thank You USO

We had a real treat last night. I don’t know if it was an all-of-a-sudden deal or planned out. We only had a few days notice. The USO sponsored a concert for all the country loving troops. It was Trace Adkins who performed. I usually listen to a mixture of regular rock and roll, oldies and country. I really enjoyed the concert. It was outside. The temp finally cooled down to about 85-90 range. He has a new album coming out in November, so he played a few songs from it and they were great. Last year he won an award from USO for supporting our troops for the song “ Arlington”. He said when he recorded it, the critics gave him quite a bad write up, but he didn’t care. He wrote it for the troops. I don’t know if he was just saying that or not. I don’t see a lot of performers doing what he is doing, coming over to Iraq to give the troops a free concert in a war zone. When he played that song last PM, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Actually, the ovation was more for the fallen troops who are already at Arlington Cemetery. He acknowledged that fact. It is quite an emotional song if you are not familiar with it.

At the concert I ran into a lot of different people. A lot of the enlisted men and women were there. It was very interesting talking to them and learning of their experiences. They were quite friendly and gave me a tour of their vehicles. I was able to see the insides of an Abram tank, a Bradley, a Stryker and an MRAP. It is unbelievable how dedicated these guys are. All of them go outside the wire every day. Sometimes their mission takes them out for 2 or 3 days. Every day they go out there knowing someone is trying to shoot them or throw grenades at them or just blow them up just because they are Americans. No one complained to me either about how bad they have it. They just suck it up and say that is what they are trained to do. As I have said before, these guys are the true heroes. They do it for us without question and do it for the love of their country. It was really inspiring to talk to them and I thanked them for what they are doing. They got it a hundred times worst than me.



The tour of the tank was neat. The Sergeant showed me inside. For as big as it is, there is not a lot of room in it. The main barrow is 120mm. He pulled out one of the shells, and they are huge. It is like holding a kid. The shell is at least 2 feet long and the diameter is 5-6 inches. I bet it weighs 40 -50 lbs. The optics are amazing as well. You can see distance at night with no problem at all. I would rather have one on my side than take one on.

Take care, less than 5 weeks to go

Tom

I Found Area 51

I couldn’t believe it, but I discovered Area 51. It’s in the tabloids. Remember the movie “Independence Day” a few years ago. Area 51 was the secret hiding place of the government where they hid the aliens and spacemen from outer space and did experiments on them and studied them. It was out in Nevada or somewhere. Anyhow, I walk by this place every day and just yesterday someone pointed it out to me that we are in Area 51. After further investigation, I discovered it was our own doctor’s hut as it is called. This hut is where we have some medical books, computer and a small refrigerator for our NA beer. It is located at the beginning of Scapel Lane, just before our row of CHU’s . So I guess I am part of Area 51. I am not sure if I am from outer space or a failed experiment. I admit, I am part of a government coverup. If I start talking funny, I guess that you will know why.


I have added a link on my blog site to another blog if anyone is interested. I am not the only one here with a blog site. His name is Dr. Peter Brandup. He is an Anesthesiologist from El Peso, Texas. He is full time active duty. The active guys are here for 6 months, not like the short term hitters like me. He is a nice guy, a bit strange, but a nice guy. We actually get along very well. He is a Giants fan, but I won’t hold that against him, until the Giants play the Bears. He offers some views and stories that are different than mine. My blog site, however, is better.

Those scorpions were nothing. The other day a soldier brought in a poisonous snake. They were on Marez side, the other side of the FOB. They were doing some digging, over turned a big rock, and there was a desert viper of some sort. Iraq does not have any garter snakes here. All snakes here are poisonous. Some of the guys just freaked out. One of the sergeants took a shovel and smashed its head. They brought it into the clinic. It is not too big, maybe 2 feet or so. It is in formaldehyde, but I won’t show any pictures of it.

I am a little late putting out this blog. I was up late last night putting some bad guy back together again. Maybe we should adopt the Aussie’s philosophy. When their soldiers fire their weapons, and the bad guys are only wounded, their sergeants take the soldiers out for more training. I could use the sleep at night. Only kidding. Ramadan has definitely increased my work load. Can’t wait until it is over. I think another week and a half or so.

Tom

Some Good News

We had a general surgeon come talk to us from Bagdad. He is a trauma surgeon, actually from the Navy. He reported that all over the country, the amount of trauma is down from a year ago. So not just here, but other places, like Tikrit, Al Asad, and even Bagdad are slower than a year ago. So it is good that it is slower all over and not just here. The success is from a lot of things. The Surge was a factor. Probably more important is that they turned loose the SF guys (Special Forces). They go in on their own missions. They get pretty reliable intell and essentially do their missions behind the scenes. I met a few of them and they are hard core. They think nothing about going outside the wire to do their thing. In fact a lot of them prefer to be outside the wire shooting bad guys, than inside here. I kind of like it inside here, thank you very much.

Regardless of who wins in November, we will be seeing changes. As many of you know, they recently signed an agreement to switch over the control of the Anbar Providence to the Iraqis. So far, nothing has changed out there yet. Eventually, the Army and Marines will down size, but what that means who knows. Medically, I hear they are slower than we are.

It is almost WINTER here. I have been here in theater for 55 days now. The other day was the first day the temp did not hit 3 digits. It was a beautiful day. It was mid 90’s . Just like spring. I never thought that I would ever consider mid 90’s to be spring like, but it sure beats 115’. Also, today was the first day it even rained. It lasted about 3 minutes just enough to get the dirt wet so it was like walking in mud. After an hour, it was all dry again. I am told that about October, it starts raining regularly and everything just turns to mud. That will make it interesting, going from dust to mud. If the temp drops much further, I will have to pull out the long underwear soon.



I haven’t seen any more scorpions, so I guess that is good. I know they are still out there, but if they don’t want to show their faces, that’s ok. There is a new creature now. Not exactly sure what it is. I am not the only one to see it, so I know I am not hallucinating from dehydration. It’s a small furry thing, about the size of a fox or small dog. It has a long tail. I don’t know if they have foxes around here or not. I don’t think it is a werewolf. Someone else who saw it, said it has pointy, triangular ears, like a hyena. I only saw it at night going to the latrine.( I was going to the latrine, not it). So I only saw a glimpse of it as it ran by. I didn’t hear it laugh so I doubt the hyena. I guess I need to Google it find out what creatures they have around here

Tom

He is a Hero

This morning, (about 9 or 10 PM Tuesday night Chicago time) I got on the internet to look up the news. We have an Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, that makes it here about 3 or 4 times a week. It is always a few days behind. The paper I picked up yesterday was dated September 5th, so a few days behind. So to get more current news, I usually go to my Yahoo home page and read the current news, sports and important things, like how much my stocks have dropped this summer. I was looking in news on Iraq because outside of what is happening in Mosul, I really don’t know anything except bits and pieces. Anyhow, I was looking through the photo section (easier to look at the photos than read). I saw this photo and holy cow, I know this guy. President Bush was visiting Walter Reed and so they released this photo of the President saying hello to one of the soldiers. This is one of the guys I spent celebrating the first day of Ramadan with, only in the OR. When he came in, he was literally half dead. He required massive transfusions and all of us work a quite a bit on him. We usually don’t get follow up on our patients. Once they leave our facility, it is rare that we know how they finally did. I was really worried about his one leg surviving, but by the picture, it looks like both legs are making it. Just seeing his picture made me feel it is worth it. I don’t mean to brag, but knowing that I helped saved someone’s life and their limbs makes it all worth it. Especially since he is one of our soldiers, it makes it especially nice. I am glad I joined the Army and had this opportunity to help.

Seeing that soldier alive makes me glad I am here. I know I owe a lot of thanks to everyone back home; Nancy and my family for me being gone, my partners and Selina (my PA) for taking extra call and seeing my patients. Also, all my friends and relatives for their support, prayers and packages that I received. Thanks everyone for being so wonderful to our troops and myself.

I have been steadily busy here. Fortunately, it hasn’t been too much of the big trauma like above. I now have 3 clinics a week and see a lot of injuries in the EMT (ER). There are a fair amount of fractures and dislocations that keep me busy, just like back in the states. I usually just reduce them, cast them, and eventually they are sent to Germany. We don’t keep many soldiers in casts here. Especially if it is a leg cast and they are on crutches, it is too dangerous for them to stick around. Occasionally, if it is an arm cast, we keep them at the base and someone finds something for them to do.

I will do the critters next time

Tom

How Embarrassing

The rest of the week has been much better than the beginning of the week. It took a bit to get caught up, but now I am pretty much back to my regular schedule. I was too busy to go to the gym for a few days and I thought I was getting soft.

Speaking about the gym, I had an embarrassing moment. Of course there are a lot of young bucks around. If we did a steroid test on them, I bet at least half of them would test positive. Anyway, I was just about done with my work out and I had one more set of the bench press to do. This was my maximal set; I was going for 5 or 6 reps, when one of the young bucks came in. He was young about my sons’ ages, but then again just about all of them here are about my kids’ ages. So I asked him for a spot, so I wouldn’t drop all that weight on my face. He was nice enough to help me. So as I got up, he wanted to use the bench, which I was done with. I asked if he wanted me to remove the weights I just used and he said no. So, as I turned away to get my water bottle and head phones, he proceed to do the bench press. The only thing is that my max set was his warm up set. He popped off a set of 10 reps with little effort. I left in a hurry. I guess that happens. At my age I should be happy that I am able to even do the bench press at all.

We had some visiting brass here for 2 days. So we had to do some cleaning up and get ready for inspection. I had to pretend I was a real soldier for a while. You know, like stand up straight, tuck my shirt in, and not wear my Cub hat in the OR. I actually talked to one of them for a bit. Nice guy. Originally from Wheaton, so we had something to chat about.


We are back to our Saturday night barbecue. That is where for a few hours we do our outside grill, drink our NA beer and tell our jokes and exchange stories. I grilled this week. We cook just hamburgers and hot dogs. We borrow buns, ketchup, and tomatoes from the dfac. No one had to report for food poisoning afterwards, so that is a good thing. After dark, we are required to wear these reflective belts. They really show up in the camera flash.

WARNING – I think at my next posting I will talk about slimy things that crawl around in the dirt here. We have a collection of a few critters. Anyone who doesn’t like snakes, or poisonous creatures, should probably skip my next blog.

Tom

The Crap Hit The Fan

Ramadan sucks,

Man, I hate Ramadan, it truly sucks. The first day of their holiday, I spent almost 14 hours straight in the OR. I know there are good Muslims out there who care about people and are decent people. Sorry to offend those people who really treat it as truly a religious holiday. I know it is the radical Islamics and terrorists, who take advantage of the decent people and just want to kill Americans at no matter what costs or harm to others. Yesterday, they attacked one of our vehicles. We had 4 badly injured kids, and I do mean kids, they look so young. I am very proud to say that they are all 4 alive thanks to the hard work of the doctors, nurses, techs and support staff. They all jumped in and kept working, not taking breaks until everything was done. 3 out of the 4 were literally half dead coming in the door. It was quite hectic. We went through a lot of blood, almost exhausted our entire blood supply. 2 of them we transfused over twice what their normal total blood volumes are. Because they were young and healthy, they survived. Someone my age would not have made it. I guess that is one of the reasons they have the young guys out fighting the war. They have a better chance of survival when the injuries occur. While these guys made it, unfortunately, I was busy with all their extremity wounds. I have never seen such horrendous wounds. Never, have I seen anything so destructive in civilian life. Some of these soldiers are going to have permanent deformities the rest of their lives, because of these extremists. I am so proud that we have such fine medical people who worked so hard to help these soldiers of ours. My hat is off to them.

I am sure that one of the sergeants will get a medal of some type. One of the commanders in the recovery room afterwards was telling me about this guy. While both his legs are badly mangled, he put his own tourniquet on one leg (all the soldiers now carry tourniquets). Then he was directing his other soldiers, helping them, even with his own catastrophic injuries. I bet things would have been worse if he didn’t take charge and kept a level head.

Sorry to write all this but I needed to unload a bit. Hopefully, we are through the worst of things. This is one of the reasons why I joined the Army. I wanted to do what I could to help these wonderful soldiers. Anyone who has any doubt about the tremendous sacrifice these guys and girls are making should come over here and see them in action. No one is better than the American soldier.

I am very proud of these soldiers, but I think I would rather be bored and studying Spanish.

By the way, the pic is of my front door to my room or "CHU".

Tom