Chapter 10

It seemed as soon as I fell asleep someone started pounding on our door. JP pulled his pillow over his head, so I got up to see what was going on. I glanced at my watch: it was 0900 and I’d been asleep for two hours. I jerked open the door wearing an irritated scowl and black boxers. Lakota Stone was standing outside the door fully geared up, her M-4 slung across her body.

“What do you need, Specialist Stone?” I asked coldly. I was tired and irritated, so the ill-natured medic was the last person I wanted to see.

“As always, I don’t need shit from you, Pulaski, but the TOC is sending your prisoner back to Basal. I am the flight medic, and they want you along, too. Wheels up in twenty and they want to see you at the TOC first, so you better move your ass,” she snapped.

Grumbling under my breath, I dressed, threw on my gear and double-timed it to the TOC. One of the OPS Sergeants directed me to Major Weber, the TOC OIC (Officer in Charge). I reported to the Major without saluting because we were indoors, and I was under arms. He stood me at ease.

“I want one of us to go with our prisoner, Specialist Pulaski, and you are the obvious choice. Get him to the hospital in Balad alive and able to talk. The MI folks are supposed to meet you there and take charge of him. Under no circumstances, I repeat, under no circumstances, do you turn him over to the Iraqi, got it?”

I said, “Yes, Sir,” and trotted over to the helipad.

The crew chief of the MEDIVAC UH-60 slid the door shut and handed me a set of earphones with a boom mike. I took off my Kevlar helmet and pulled the headphones over my ears. It was instantly quieter. I gave the crew chief a thumbs up in thanks as he closed the door and sat behind a pintle mounted M-240. As we were getting airborne, I checked our patient. He was unconscious, heavily sedated for the trip. His wounds had been cleaned some and the groove in his head was neatly sutured.

“You sew him up?” I asked.

Lakota nodded.

“Nice work,” I said.

She shrugged and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the flight. So, I talked to the crew chief who was sitting in the jump seat behind the right-side pilot. He was manning the M-240B Machine Gun in the right-side window. Yes, the MEDIVAC helicopter was armed. The Geneva Convention banned firing on medical transports of any type, but the framers of the Convention recognized that not everyone followed the ‘laws of war.’ Consequently, weapons were allowed on medical transports, but the crew members manning the machine guns on a MEDIVAC bird could only use their weapons in self-defense.

Anyway, the crew chief’s name was Rob Ridarelli, and his claim to fame was that his grandfather and namesake was a rock and roll singer and movie actor from the 1960s who performed as ‘Bobby Rydell’. I had to look Rydell up later, but the guy was a legit teen idol back in the olden days. Interesting guy.

The hour-long flight was uneventful, and we smoothly touched down on a helipad about three hundred meters from the collection of tents and portable buildings that made up the 68^th Combat Support Hospital. The trouble started when Rob slid open the troop door as Lakota and I unlatched the stretcher from the mounting rack.

“Uh, guys, we have company,” Rob said over the internal radio net.

I peeked out the door and saw a couple of HUMVEEs pull up from the rear of the winding down helicopter. The HUMVEES were armed with fifty caliber machine guns mounted on the roof. Serious looking soldiers were behind the fifties.

The vehicles skidded to a stop and an Iraqi Officer jumped out of the first Hummer and two armed men jumped out of the second. As they came nearer, I made out the three stars on the first guys epaulets denoting him as a Naqib (captain). The two guys with M-4s were Raqibs (equivalent to a corporal). I jumped down from the Blackhawk and saluted the captain when he stepped in front of me. He returned my salute.

“I am Captain Al Bakir from the Mukhabarat, and I am here to take charge of the prisoner.”

By then the Chief Warrant Officer piloting the helicopter joined us.

“I looked at the chief and asked, “What is the Mukhabarat?”

“The ISS, Iraqi Security Service,” he replied, and he didn’t look happy as he whispered into his boom mike.

I nodded my understanding and turned back to Captain Al Bikar. This was way above my pay grade, but I had my orders from Major Weber.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but with all due respect, I can’t do that. He’s my patient and I am duty bound to get him into the hospital. You are welcome to take any claims for him up with the hospital folks.”

The two guards moved up next to the captain, their weapons trained on the ground at my feet. Lakota stepped up by me and Rob pulled back the bolt on his M-240. Things were really getting out of hand when the 50 Cal gunners charged their weapons, too.

I held up my hands in a placating gesture.

“Let’s relax, Sir, we are all on the same side,” I said, and I hoped I sounded calmer than I felt.

“This man is an Iraqi citizen and a wanted terrorist. We will see to his medical care,” Al Bikar argued.

“Fine with me, but that’s not my decision to make. You are negotiating his custody with the wrong people. We are just medics, our duty ends when we wheel him through the hospital’s door,” I replied.

Before Captain Al Bikar could say anything else we were distracted as a Field Ambulance rumbled up. A Lieutenant Colonel in scrubs jumped out of the frot door of the ambulance’s cab. The rear door opened, and two medics emerged with a gurney.

When the Colonel ambled over to our little standoff both Al Bikar and I saluted. I immediately knew the Colonel was a doctor when he returned something that vaguely resembled a military salute. Ignoring the Iraqi Captain, the doctor turned to me and glanced at the name tag on my vest.

“Why is my patient still on the helicopter, Specialist Pulaski?” he asked.

He listened to my explanation, nodded and turned to Captain Al Bikar.

“Captain I am Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, the Chief Surgical Officer. I’m afraid you are not taking my patient anywhere. Instead, I propose you go with him into the hospital. I will contact your American counterparts and you all can work out ownership while he is recovering,” LTC Johnson said.

Al Bikar gave Johnson a sour look, nodded and spoke to his men. They saluted, returned to their Hummers and roared off. He watched them go then Al Bikar fell in beside the Colonel. As they turned toward the ambulance the Doctor spoke to us.

“I’ll take it from here, you guys can return to Hawkeye,” he said.

I glanced at Lakota and cut my eyes toward the pistol Al Bikar wore.

“Sorry, Sir. My orders are to see him into a bed on the ward, so we’ll have to tag along,” I replied.

It was crowded in the ambulance, but we made it work. I watched the Iraqi Naqib like a hawk during the short trip. Thirty minutes later we were back at the helicopter. We left Captain Al Bikar deep in discussion with a Major from the 4^th ID S-2 (Intelligence Section) and our patient in the OR being prepped for surgery.

“Thanks for having my back, Lakota,” I said.

I almost fainted when she said, “You got balls, Pulaski. Maybe you aren’t that big an asshole after all.”

We had been in country for twelve days when I finally had an opportunity to call back to the States. Traveling and Operational Security (OPSEC) before we left the states kept me out of touch with home for the last three and a half weeks. I was pulling an overnight Saturday to Sunday shift at the TMC, and with her permission, I used the phone in Captain Garza’s office. Because of the eight-hour time zone difference, I called at three in the morning my time, using an AT&T calling card I bought at the PX.

I called my parents first, told them I was safe and working at a troop clinic (which was the truth as far as it went), and that so far, everything was routine. I yakked with them for five minutes and then called my sister. Katrina had graduated from the academy, while I was busy fighting off mosquitoes during the swamp phase of Ranger School. Now, she was attending flight school somewhere in Texas. Katrina and I hadn’t talked with each other in a month, and she had big news.

“Bro, I’ve been dying to tell you ... Hunter proposed!” she exclaimed.

Hunter being Hunter Crawford, her boyfriend from the Air Force Academy. I was withholding judgement on old Hunter until I met him; but he had a high hurdle to jump for me to consider him good enough for my sister.

“Did you say ‘yes?’” I asked.

“Of course I did, you Doofus! I love him,” she replied.

After chatting with Katrina for ten minutes, I called Mikayla.

“Hey, Mickie,” I said as soon as she answered.

“Johnny!” she squealed, “I am so, so happy you called!”

I stayed on the phone with her for fifteen minutes, smiling the whole time. Mikayla Delong let me know in no uncertain terms how important I was to her. It was heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old GI to receive that kind of attention from a woman like her.

I called Elaine next, but her phone sent the call to voice mail. I left her a message with the clinic’s phone number and an invitation to call me anytime in the next four hours. I called Cindi Frasier and caught up with her, and I called Nina to see how she and her daughter Bella were doing. Bella was three and a half now, and in preschool two days a week. Nina handed her the phone, and she told me all about school. She reminded me a lot of Emma Thorpe when I first met her.

When I ran out of people I felt like calling, I rolled a hospital bed out of the ward and into the office so I could nap but still get to the phone. I knew to do that from the briefing Gary Nguyen gave me when I came on duty. I was pitching in at the clinic because two of their assigned medics DROSed (Date Returned from Overseas Service) and replacements weren’t due for a couple of weeks. Captain Garza worked out me filling in when my platoon didn’t need me with Major Weber. Us peons were all of the opinion that wasn’t all Weber and Garza worked out. I swear, GIs gossip more than Junior High School girls.

I was up again at 0600. Elaine never called. I rolled the bed back into the ward, made myself presentable, took the sign off the door that read ‘Emergencies Only,’ and opened the clinic. At seven Captain Garza and Specialist Nguyen arrived and I hustled over to the Dining Facility for a quick breakfast. I gobbled down my chow and returned to the clinic to help handle sick call.

I finally made it into the village down the road on Tuesday. I went with Captain Garza and Lakota Stone to the village’s small medical facility. The FOB medical staff pitched in a couple of days a week to help at the woefully shorthanded Iraqi clinic. A middle-aged Iraqi nurse with two young assistants ran the clinic. Doctors Without Borders volunteers visited maybe once every month or so. The clinic was equipped with a mobile x-ray machine and not much else. Because of religious sensibilities, I was assigned to treat a couple of men and a bunch of children.

I hustled the two guys through so they could get back to work. I wrapped one guy’s ankle. The other guy got his digitus quintus manus (pinky finger) reset and splinted. When the men left, I was alone with at least a dozen and a half children between the ages of three and eight. Some were there for treatment, and some were there waiting while their mothers received care. So, anyway, I had a great time with them, but the austerity of the clinic and the lack of pediatric supplies bothered the hell out of me. I couldn’t get the children and clinic out of my mind, so I decided to do something about it.

I had a few ideas, but I was going to need some help. I recruited my first ally that evening at the Dining Facility. She was sitting at a table with two other women.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Baker, may I join you?” I asked.

The Lieutenant looked up at me with her big brown eyes and quirked up an eyebrow.

“Sure, Doc, have a seat,” she replied.

I pulled out the empty chair and 2LT Baker introduced me to the other women at her table.

“Doc, you remember Sergeant Kennedy, and this is PFC Bass,” she said.

I inclined my head towards the women and said, “Johnny Pulaski, at your service.”

PFC Bass tittered at my reply and Sergeant Kennedy looked at me like I was crazy. I ignored them and picked up my fork. Today’s culinary delight was advertised to be Beef Stroganoff. I took an exploratory bite and was pleasantly surprised.

“Say, this is pretty good,” I commented.

Sergeant Kennedy nudged a blushing PFC Bass.

“Bass made that before her shift ended,” Baker explained.

So I found out PFC Bass’ name was Lindsey and she was a fellow Floridian from Jacksonville.

The women finished eating and started to stand up. I reached over and put my hand on Baker’s forearm and shot her a big dose of trust and sincerity.

“Ma’am, can you stay for a minute?” I asked.

She nodded and sat back down. The other two women looked at me strangely as they departed. As they walked away Baker looked down where my hand was still on her arm. I sent her one last jolt of trust and moved my hand.