CRNA in Iraq Page 2
The first day in As-Sulaymaniyah we are greeted by our host the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The local fighters are known as Peshmerga, translated their name means "those who face death."
We set up our surgical unit in a hardened facility well protected by the Peshmerga. We brought state-of-the-art equipment for our two operating rooms: portable ultra sound, the finest rapid fluid infusion machine that can warm and deliver blood as fast as we can give it. The monitors are top of the line and can run on batteries up to sixteen hours. Our team can treat up to four soldiers at once in the operating room. The limiting factor is our anesthesia. Myself and another CRNA could run two rooms at once if we placed the patients with their heads directed at us, two at a time, but this is only to be done under mass casualty situations.
We would normally stabilize the patient and ship them out to the rear within six hours; however, because we are so isolated during this assignment we are prepared to hold patients for two or three days.
We are given our first mission: a four man team will be forward deployed with the battalion aid surgeon to a town called Halabja. Halabja is the infamous location where Saddam gassed more than five thousand Kurdish Iraqis in 1988 during his war with Iran. In recent years a group called Ansar al-Islam "Followers of Islam" have been harassing the civilians in the region. Recently the AI had entered the area from their hideouts across the border in Iran, beheaded several of the local fighters, and then sent photos of their handiwork back to the victims' families.
I gather up my anesthesia equipment which for this mission will include a portable monitor, my portable vaporizer, and a backpack full of drugs and airway management equipment. We are preparing for a two hour ride to Halabja in the back of a flatbed farm truck when one of our escorts accidentally fires his Mark Nineteen grenade launcher.
Welcome to Iraq.
Fortunately the round lands near a chicken farm; no one is hurt.
When we arrive in Halabja we set up our equipment in an old schoolhouse along with the Peshmerga surgeons. They will treat their own men. When my roommate and I begin to clear an area in a room in the schoolhouse where we can sleep, he discovers a hand grenade with the pin half hanging out. Yeah ... Welcome! The Peshmerga ordnance team quickly removes the grenade and explodes it in a nearby field.
CPT Joyce on the RT, with two other FST team members and a Peshmerga fighter -- note the Reebok footgear.
The offensive against the AI is already under way when we arrive. Special Forces teams have been working with the Peshmerga in the Shenerwin Mountains on the Iranian border harassing and bombing the AI.
Shortly after the Reebok photo above was snapped, bombs began to fall on a ridgeline not far away.
We spend three days at Halabjah. The Special Forces teams do their job well and not one American is killed or wounded. The Peshmerga, however, have around twenty dead and fifty to seventy-five wounded. The FST team spends most of our days watching air strikes and our nights watching tracer rounds and rocket propelled grenades flying through the foothills of the Shenerwin Mountains.
On the third day an Ansar al-Islam fighter is shot, wounded and taken prisoner. The Peshmerga observe the terms of the Geneva Convention; the prisoner is given medical care, food and water, and they treat him quite well, considering the fact that his organization has tortured and killed many Peshmerga fighters.
We return to As-Sulaymaniyah and for the most part the surgical team remains quiet for the next two weeks. This is a good thing as it means none of our guys are getting hurt. However, several times during the night we are awakened by missile alerts.
These alerts become routine: we grab our chemical protective gear but after a week or so instead of taking cover we just go out and look in the sky for incoming missiles. I am told the closest the Iraqi army came to getting a missile on us was four miles away.
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