medics
Feb 6, 2010 · No Comments
strong, healthy. yet somehow I always made a trip to the medics whenever out on Ex. I think it was the stress of being in a foreign environment of diesel and dust and long hours and constant go, go, go, but something always gave. though luckily never anything serious.
eyes raw from dust and contact lens (big mistake to wear them in the field). a cough. the dreaded GI of Suffield when I was put in 48 hr quarantine after being pulled off the live-fire level 6 and hauled away in a Bison (that was quite the ride). and even one night in KAF I slipped into the dark to find the Role 1, have a quick consult with the medic on night duty. she did her job. then told me about her 2 and 4 year olds back home. and how her husband, himself just back from A’stan, was finding running a house tougher than fighting a war (and I said, “no kidding”)
I remember a pair of young medics at Shilo. so bright and ready. one of them said he was sitting in his mother’s basement spinning his wheels. going nowhere fast. so he signed up. became a medic. and the kid was stoked (to use the vernacular). had a career all mapped out. couldn’t wait to get overseas.
a year later in Afghanistan, at the COB I visited outside the wire, I spent time on sentry with a medic. visited the tiny clinic they set up. from early morning until mid-day, a steady stream of villagers with aches and illness. the medics cleaning wounds, handing out tylenol, sorry they couldn’t do more. their limited stores chalked.
standing atop the OP I looked down at the medics. counting bandages. dressings. getting huge containers of the tools of their trade ready. it all looked so rolled and packaged and clean. the medics looked so clean. they were laughing and joking a bit. but mostly stuck to the task.
that night as the COB went to bed there was hush. no murmur of laugh and b.s. like the night before. I visited the green rocket (accompanied by a soldier carrying his pistol) one last time. past rows of helmets. boots. rifles. all of us ready for anything the night might throw at us. rocket, RPG, mortar attack, breech.
the Afghan moon, an onion ready to be peeled. the CP simmered like stew. the wired guys in that out-of-bounds place scraped the plate of sky for whispers.
next morning I watched the CO. the HQ cars. HLVs. coyotes. the medics in their Bisons. the whole damn parade of metal and gun leave the front gate. they waved at me as they headed out. wrapping their scarves around their mouths, adjusting their ballistics, their radios. the OC smiled. “see you soon”. and I recalled Shakespeare’s Henry V, St. Dunstan’s Day. a cloud of dust. off they went. just as our chopper landed. we ran through our own dust storm headed back to KAF.
I had a call the other night from someone I know on HLTA. he was there when the mass cas. occurred. helped out. he spared me most details. but the whisky of his voice told me in its own way.
and strange as it seems. my mind didn’t go first to the wounded or dead, it went to the medics. and I wondered if any of the young ones I met were there. and how they did. because Ex. is one thing, but A’stan is no duff.
and I’ve met the mother of a medic who was killed. they, protected protectors. I touched his name in bronze on the memorial places at KAF and mystery camp, the staging base. wanted to put the message into my fingertips so that next time I see her I can say, “yes, he is remembered over there” and I’ll hold out that hand.
and the medics are gods to soldiers.
at the dinner in the Officers’ mess last year, a toast was raised to the medics. “we know if we make it back to Role 3, we’re going to make it home. thanks guys” the room stood up.
we raised our glasses.
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The page you're reading contains a single diary entry entitled medics. It was posted here on February 06, 2010.