wooooohoooooooooo, my nephew comes home from Iraq in 24 days and a wake up!!!!! I am soooooooooo excited to see him. (doing the touchdown shuffle)
im glad he is okay and that he will be back. i know you were worried... do you think he is actually back to stay?
thats great, how long has he been deployed? i have a "rook sister" over there. shes a medic. she just got deployed in December. gonna be gone for 18-24 months. also, a whole bunch of students from my school are getting deployed soon... ...i hope you nephew comes home in good health.
he has been there since September, and will go back in September or maybe sooner. his gunney wrote my mom a letter that said keep the mail coming for him because he wont be home for long. It seems like he has be gone FOREVER!! I hope your "rook sister" comes home in good health, I admire the medics over there, I am very thankful for them as well as the other men and women over there. and I hope all of your friends from school make it back safely.
and with that, people that have loved ones over there... or care anyways BUT dont agree with the war OR the way it's going.... do something about it. write letters. protest. etc. it's NOT about hurting the soldiers. it's about HELPING them. they DONT make the decisions. help people. state what you think.
amen to that Trish! we have written so many marines that I lost count. My mom even sends the families sympathy cards when one of them dies, its nice when the families respond. THey all need the support. My daughter is still sad that the marine she was writing got killed. THere is this one marine who got shot in the face and lost both of his eyes, well anyways, him and his wife sent my mom a christmas card with their picture on it. It seems as if our circle of friends and loved ones is getting bigger and bigger
heh... well, it's sad no matter what side you're on. but i think the people that are against it should understand even more then the people for it (the war)- that things need help.. whether that means trying to change things, or being a friend, whatever. it's just sad. sooo sad. and it's not gonna end anytime soon. i hate it!
i glad your loved ome is returning. I saddens me that all loved ones are not returning. Judge me if you want.
Fitzy,I have been looking for this since you posted about your "rook sister" being a medic. I realize its hella long and I apologize in advance, but this really says a whole helluva lot. Greetings all from hot, hot, hot Iraq, We are short indeed...although not quite as short as we had originally thought...our flight home has been posted and is showing up 3 days later than planned. The good news is that we leave in the middle of the night and arrive (all admin complete, including turning our weapons into the armory) ! around dinnertime at Pendleton on the same day we leave (11 hrs time difference). The other good news is it appears we've got commercial contract air carriers taking us home...so we don't have to worry about sleeping on the cold steel deck of an Air Force C-17. So...we turned over authority of the surgical company last week to our replacements, who had a serious trial by fire here in multiple ways, including multiple traumas, surgeries, increased risk to their personal safety, power outages, water outages, and camel spiders in the hospital...all in their first 4 days. But a few days ago, we heard the helicopters coming and knew they were dealing with multiple traumas, several of which were going to the OR...and we sat in our barracks and waited for them to call us if they needed us. They never did. Last week was the ceremony to mark the official end of our role here. Now we just wait. As the days move very slowly by, just! waiting, I decided that one of the things I should work on for my own closure and therapeutic healing...is a list. The list would be a comparison: "Things That Were Good" about Iraq and being deployed with the Marines as one of the providers in a surgical company, and "Things That Were Not Good." Of course, it's quite obvious that this list will be very lopsided. But I thought I would do it anyway, hoping that somehow the trauma, the fear, the grief, the laughter, the pride and the patriotism that have marked this long seven months for me will begin to make sense, through my writing. Interestingly, it sort of turned into a poem. To be expected, I guess. Most of all it's just therapy, and by now I should be relatively good at that. Hard to do for yourself, though. So here goes...in reverse order of importance... Things That Were Good Sunset ov! er the desert...almost always orange Sunrise over the desert...almost always red The childlike excitement of having fresh fruit at dinner after going weeks without it Being allowed to be the kind of clinician I know I can be, and want to be, with no limits placed and no doubts expressed But most of all, The United States Marines, our patients... Walking, every day, and having literally every single person who passes by say "Hoorah, Ma'am..." Having them tell us, one after the other, through blinding pain or morphine-induced euphoria..."When can I get out of here? I just want to get back to my unit..." Meeting a young Sergeant, who had lost an eye in an explosion...he asked his surgeon if he could open the other one...when he did, he sat up and looked at the young Marines from his fire team who were being treated for superficial shrapnel wounds in the next room...he smiled, laid back down, and said, "I only have one good eye, Doc! , but I can see that my Marines are OK." And of course, meeting th e one who threw himself on a grenade to save the men at his side...who will likely be the first Medal of Honor recipient in over 11 years... My friends...some of them will be lifelong in a way that is indescribable My patients...some of them had courage unlike anything I've ever experienced before My comrades, Alpha Surgical Company...some of the things witnessed will traumatize them forever, but still they provided outstanding care to these Marines, day in and day out, sometimes for days at a time with no break, for 7 endless months And last, but not least... Holding the hand of that dying Marine Things That Were Not Good Terrifying camel spiders, poisonous scorpions, flapping bats in the darkness, howling, territorial wild dogs, flies that insisted on landing on our faces, giant, looming mosquitoes, invisible sand flies that carry leischmaniasis 132 degrees Wearing long sl! eeves, full pants and combat boots in 132 degrees Random and totally predictable power outages that led to sweating throughout the night Sweating in places I didn't know I could sweat...like wrists, and ears The roar of helicopters overhead The resounding thud of exploding artillery in the distance The popping of gunfire... Not knowing if any of the above sounds is a good thing, or bad thing The siren, and the inevitable "big voice" yelling at us to take cover... Not knowing if that siren was on someone's DVD or if the big voice would soon follow The cracking sound of giant artillery rounds splitting open against rock and dirt The rumble of the ground... The shattering of the windows... Hiding under flak jackets and kevlar helmets, away from the broken windows, waiting to be told we can come to the hospital...to treat the ones who were not so lucky... Watching the helicopter with the big red cross on the side l! anding at our pad Worse...watching Marine helicopters filled with patients landing at our pad...because we usually did not realize they were coming... Ushering a sobbing Marine Colonel away from the trauma bay while several of his Marines bled and cried out in pain inside Meeting that 21-year-old Marine with three Purple Hearts...and listening to him weep because he felt ashamed of being afraid to go back Telling a room full of stunned Marines in blood-soaked uniforms that their comrade, that they had tried to save, had just died of his wounds Trying, as if in total futility, to do anything I could, to ease the trauma of group after group...that suffered loss after loss, grief after inconsolable grief... Washing blood off the boots of one of our young nurses while she told me about the one who bled out in the trauma bay...and then the one who she had to tell, when he pleaded for the truth, that his best friend didn't make it... Listening to another of our nurses tell of the Marine who came in talking, tellin! g her his name...about how she pleaded with him not to give up, told him that she was there for him...about how she could see his eyes go dull when he couldn't fight any longer... And last, but not least... Holding the hand of that dying Marine
