25 | August | 2011 | blogsense-by-barb

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"life lessons", Afghanistan, American, American Conservative, American Heroes, American history, American Interests, American Moral Character, American Morality, Building Character, character training, Committment, Conservative opinion, DO SOMETHING!, GET INVOLVED, Helping others, Hope * Change, Iraq, Military appreciation, Service to Others, spiritual, The BEST of America, US Military Veterans, Women's Issues

I can only hope and pray that those in positions of leadership in this country, that our inadequate Commander-in-chief, and the 90% of Americans who do not know what service costs, can somehow remember that Freedom costs … the – the bravery exhibited on a daily basis, the selflessness in service as politicians argue over Trillions of dollars and shake hands with desired votes.

I do not support Ron Paul’s foreign policy of “isolationism,” but I would very much like to see the mission clarified and simplified so we know when the battle is over!

Calm in the midst of chaos is lifesaving protocol for medevac crew in southern Afghanistan

FORWARD OPERATING BASE PASAB, Afghanistan — It was the worst of places, but the soldiers on the ground had few options when they marked the landing zone for the medevac helicopter. One of their buddy’s legs had been blown off by an IED near Pashmul South, and another had suffered a traumatic brain injury from the blast.

Grape rows, tree lines and mud walls surrounded the field. It was the perfect setting for an ambush.

Medics tend injured soldier alongside the road
Purple smoke billowed from the landing zone as the crew of Dustoff 59 sped toward a small band of 1st Infantry Division soldiers, waiting with their wounded. As pilot and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Marcus Chambers slowed for the landing, gunfire broke out and the all-too-familiar tat-tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat-tat pinged around them.

Chambers set the aircraft down and flight medic Staff Sgt. Garrick Morgenweck flung the door open to retrieve the wounded. As he stepped out, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade from close range, striking a mud wall and narrowly missing the helicopter as it blasted through. PLEASE READ MORE

The day to day devastation …
the unimaginable sights, sounds, smells …
the uncertainty from one day to the next …
waiting, waiting, waiting …
all take a toll on the soldiers on the ground.

War is hell!!!

A phrase thrown around lightly
by many who have never given much thought to the subject.

‘A little more closer to hell’

Capt. Maureen Pennington, director of nursing services at the NATO Role 3 Multinational Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, believes that medevac crews carry a quiet burden, one they aren’t often willing to share with outsiders, and she worries about what they see.

She senses the relief they feel when they hand over a patient and notices a slight drop in their head once the trauma team takes over. She knows they’re retracing their actions and wondering whether they did everything they could.

“You can’t even imagine what they go through. I think they have the weight of the world on their shoulders with all of the soldiers that they take care of,” Pennington said, adding after a brief pause, “That responsibility must weigh very heavy on them.”

While most of the medevac soldiers attempt to disengage their personal feelings from their work, some, like Lowther, let the swell of emotions wash over them. He can’t help but cry at times, especially when his patients are Afghan children. An endless stream of them, robbed of their childhood by poverty and war, make their way onto their helicopters.
Some have been caught in crossfire; others are simply victims of the brutal Afghan rural life.

Sometimes he calls the hospital to check on someone he’s treated. He’s one of the few who wants to know if they made it. Most can’t bear to know.

But even Lowther has a threshold. Recently, while other crewmembers were watching mission footage shot by an embedded film crew, he was overcome with a sickening pain and left the room. He can live it every day, but he can’t stand to watch it replayed.

Even those who try to disengage eventually think about what they see. Catastrophic blast injuries from IEDs that shred a body like nothing else. Gunshot wounds that cause a man to writhe as he pleads with a medic to help him breath or give him water.

Sometimes, the pain in the eyes of the soldiers gets to Morisoli.

He thinks about the journey they’ll have trying to put their life back together. He thinks about the families that will welcome them home. He can’t linger in his thoughts too long, though, because he knows that in the end, it just hurts too much.

He has to let go because he knows that tomorrow, or the next day, he and his crew will pick up another soldier who has lost his legs.

“This is a rough game, and I don’t care who you are, it’s going to affect you,” Role 3 hospital commander Capt. Mike McCarten said.