Chapter 9

FOB Hawkeye was the Western most US military installation in Iraq. Hawkeye was a medium sized base that was home to an Army Aviation unit with a half dozen UH-60s, an Engineer Battalion, a Transportation Battalion, two Infantry Companies (for camp security) and a small Air Force Detachment of Combat Controllers. In addition, there was an enhanced signal unit with all sorts of Satellite Communications (SATCOM) equipment, a Support Battalion that provided Maintenance, Supply, Food Services, and a well-equipped Medical Clinic with a Physician’s Assistant and four or five medics. And there was a seriously misnamed Military Intelligence (MI) Company and a platoon of MPs (Military Police). Most of the current units in the camp were from the Indiana and Wisconsin National Guard or the 4^th Infantry Division.

The camp had been in place for a few years and had been constantly upgraded and expanded. The residents of Hawkeye lived in the newest version of military Containerized Housing Units: CHUs. Choos were aluminum boxes slightly larger than a standard shipping container. They were prewired, had doors and windows and were even air conditioned. Even better, the choos at Hawkeye were the ‘wet’ type. This meant they had a bathroom between two rooms which each had two beds. Not bad, heh?

Unfortunately, the Ranger portion of the base didn’t have the deluxe CHUs. Instead, we had a sad looking cluster of ribbed Quonset hut type hooches and one squat, windowless concrete building. The Ranger compound was tucked into an out of the way corner of the base against the outer perimeter that included three defensive bunkers. The compound was shaped like an upside down ‘U’ with the open end facing the perimeter bunkers. The concrete building sat at the apex of the ‘U’ with two huts on each side.

Living accommodations were the four Quonset huts. Each squad had their own building, as did the Platoon Headquarters Section. SFC Edwards assigned hooches for each squad. JP and I bunked with the first squad. The four squad buildings were divided into five two-man rooms. The open portion of the ‘U’ formed by the buildings faced the platoon’s assigned defensive bunkers.

The approximately 50 meters by 50 meters middle area held a decent latrine and shower building and two 40-foot-long Conex containers. The Conex containers were about twenty feet apart and the area between them was roofed by a couple of layers of camouflage netting. The shaded area under the netting held a few tables made from wooden pallets and a weight bench with some sand filled plastic weights. A large, ancient, and rusty refrigerator that buzzed and shuddered as if every breath was its last was up against the left-hand container. The Conex containers held weapons, ammunition and specialized equipment under the control of the Ranger’s Senior NCO.

The concrete building was the Tactical Operations Center. It was one big room with the door guarded by a sharp looking Military Policeman. The room held a half dozen desks with computers on them. The desks were manned by some communications types, some Air Force Combat Controllers, some Intel dudes and a couple of operations sergeants. The TOC was commanded by a Major assigned from the Ranger Regiment. Missions were planned at the TOC and given to the resident Ranger unit to execute.

Two of the inside walls of the TOC were covered with whiteboards and large maps. On another wall a movie screen hung from the ceiling in front of a desk mounted projector attached to a rugged looking Toshiba laptop computer. In the center of the room a group of tables were pushed together with enough chairs for about a dozen people.

The day after we arrived was spent orienting ourselves to the camp and our mission. Part of the orientation was a detailed briefing at the TOC. We were introduced around and then this Military Intelligence Major named Wilson gave a threat assessment of the local area and our rules of engagement. There was some grumbling from the guys who had served previous combat tours when we were informed that the local village was a no fire zone. The village was less than a kilometer from the camp straddling the road leading to Damascus.

SSG Ruiz immediately questioned the prohibition.

“What about returning any fire we receive from the town?” he asked.

The Major gave Ruiz a look.

“Sergeant, we have been working in this town for two and a half years and we have an excellent relationship with the village elders. They provide us with good intel that they pick up from travelers passing through. The last thing you need to worry about is trouble there. In fact, we’d prefer that you stay out of the town when armed. That way you trigger happy Gung-ho types won’t undo all our hard work,” said the Major mockingly.

I saw Ruiz’s jaw tighten as he nodded his understanding. The Major knew how to make friends, eh? I never thought there would be a time that I’d wish First Sergeant Blakemore was around, but right then I’d donate a paycheck to watch Blakemore’s reaction to the Major’s condescending speech.

Over the next couple of days, we familiarized ourselves with the camp, test fired our weapons and squared our gear away. On day two SFC Edwards met with the FOB Sergeant Major. The Sergeant Major, a logistics NCO, told Edwards how the camp operated and what was expected of us Rangers. When Edwards shared the info with us, he said the SGM sounded like one of those movie sheriffs telling the rancher to keep his cowboys from running wild. He also directed Edwards to send me to the Troop Medical Facility (TMC). Although I was not assigned to the clinic, I needed to make my presence known since my medical supplies would come through there. I also needed to familiarize myself with their operation in case I was needed there due to some emergency or a mass casualty event.

The clinic was in three interconnected modular buildings. It had a couple of treatment rooms, a ward with four patient beds and a secure storage area. The Physician’s Assistant was a female Captain named Garza. Captain Garza was a tall woman with a short haircut and a ‘spare me the bull shit’ attitude. I liked her right away even before feeling a moderately strong connection when we shook hands. The captain had a strong grip. She looked me in the eye as she shook my hand.

“I hope I’ll be happy having met you, Specialist Pulaski, but your predecessor might have poisoned the well. He was an asshat who thought he was too good to work with us mere mortals. Are you going to be like that?”

See what I mean? Captain Garza didn’t mince words.

“No, Ma’am,” I replied.

Something made me think I should give as good as I got so I added, “I was called to spread medical enlightenment among you poor unfortunate mortals. Your lives will be enriched simply by being near me.”

The Captain barked a laugh, and introduced me to the two medics working at the aide station. They weren’t busy because the morning sick call was over. The medics, one male and one female, were both Specialist Fours like me. The male medic was a slender Asian guy named Gary Nguyen. Gary was about five eight and could pass for Bruce Lee. I sort of expected the small connection I felt between us because most people in the medical field had a good-sized dose of empathy. It was part of the reason they chose medicine.

The female was a Native American woman named Lakota Stone – cool name, eh? Lakota was about five-nine and solidly built. She had strong but attractive facial features. Her nose had a slight hook to it, her brown eyes were large and expressive, and she had a braided rope of jet-black hair coiled on the top of her head. Acne or Smallpox scars subtracted some from her otherwise natural attractiveness. When I shook hands with her a good-sized spark jumped between us. She looked up at me without changing her expression, dropped my hand without saying a word and turned back to what she had been doing.

I didn’t say anything either. Working with females was new for me. There were none in the Ranger Regiment. Sure, I had females in my initial medic training, but we were all students then, too scared of getting booted for fraternizing to even talk to each other. I could say something to Captain Garza because she spoke first, but I didn’t have a clue as to dealing with somber Specialist Stone. Gary Nguyen quickly filled the conversational void.

“Don’t mind Lakota, Johnny, she doesn’t talk much,” he explained, “but if you need a good medic that won’t panic, she is the one you want.”

Gary kept up the banter as he showed me around the clinic. Captain Garza ran a first-class facility. The clinic was well stocked with equipment and medical supplies, everything was where it should be, and the place was spotless. It only took a ten-minute tour before I was ready to fill in when and if they needed me. Provided I wasn’t busy with my real job, of course.

We started combat operations six days after our arrival. It wasn’t a planned mission from the Tactical Operations Center (TOC), rather it was a quick reaction call out in support of an ambushed fuel convoy. Each rifle squad, along with one machine team was designated as the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) for a week at a time. If called out, the QRF had twenty minutes to grab their gear and be ready to move out. I grabbed my gear and so did my Ranger Buddy JP. SFC Edwards and the Lieutenant had agreed to me deploying any time the QRF did. And JP went where I went, which was convenient because he carried the platoon’s radio.

I was on auto pilot as I geared up and grabbed my aide bag, but I don’t mind telling you my pucker factor was high enough that you couldn’t have driven a greased BB up my butt with a sledgehammer. We assembled in front of the Platoon HQ and trotted over to the helipad where three UH-60s were spooling up. Staff Sergeant Ruiz had a brief conversation with one of the crew chiefs then waved me over to where he stood.

“Get on that med-evac bird, Doc,” he said, “they need you at the ambush site.”

I nodded and JP and I trotted over to the helicopter he pointed out. I mumbled thanks to the kitted out regular soldier that helped pull my clumsy ass into the helicopter. Then I did a double take when I saw it was Lakota Stone, in full Battle Rattle. She was wearing her PASGT (Personal Armor System, Ground Troops: made up of body armor and a Kevlar helmet), a combat medic aid bag was strapped to her back, and she had a standard issue M4 carbine across her lap. New as I was, I still should have figured out that, of course, they put a medic on a med-evac copter. Seeing Specialist Stone calmly sitting in the door of the helicopter settled me right down.

It was only a fifteen-minute flight to the site of the ambush. The site wasn’t hard to find what with the columns of black smoke coming from two burning ten-thousand-gallon fuel trucks. This part of the Al Hajarah Desert was crisscrossed with rocky hills and seasonal river ravines the Arabs called Wadis. The gravel road seemed to meander haphazardly through the barren landscape. The Terrorists had sprung their ambush from a couple of low hills and a steep sided Wadi. Our helicopter landed a hundred meters from the convoy as the other two flew on a couple of more moments before landing further out. Stone and I sprinted towards where some soldiers were frantically waving. We skidded to a stop, and I froze for a second at the carnage assembled under the edge of a flatbed trailer.

“Airway, IV access, and trauma before burns Pulaski,” I reminded myself as I squatted down and started triaging the injured soldiers from the left as Lakota started on the right.

As we worked on the wounded, I asked the convoy NCOIC to stand down his nervous soldiers. It wouldn’t be good for our morale if we lost a Ranger in the first week to a twitchy motor pool private with a 50 Caliber machine gun.

Of the six wounded soldiers, two needed immediate evac. One of the serious wounds was a nasty open fracture of the left femur and the other was a traumatic brain injury (TBI). I had a bitch of a time treating the broken femur because part of the femur penetrated the thigh an inch from his femoral artery. I had him splinted and on a lactate drip with a shot of morphine in fifteen minutes. Lakota Stone was dealing with the brain injury as I applied some silver sulfadiazine to the arms and hands of a big burly bald guy who looked just like Mister Clean.

Mister Clean had second degree burns on his arms and hands from pulling the driver out of a five-ton cargo truck that was hit by an RPG. He was unflinchingly stoic as I loosely wrapped his injured skin.

“What about my face Doc, am I still pretty?” he asked.

I barked a laugh as his worry broke the tension I was feeling. The left side of his face was pink as if he’d spent too much time in the sun. Otherwise, he was good to go.

“You are still just as handsome as ever,” I replied.

The driver that Mister Clean had rescued was our TBI, and he was not looking good. He was unconscious and Lakota had him in a cervical collar and on a drip. She peeled open his left eye and shined a pen light into it. Then she did the same to his right. She turned to me and said the first sentence I’d ever heard from her.

“His right pupil is mydriatic and unresponsive, his breathing is slow and shallow, and his fingernails are turning blue,” she said.

I nodded.

“Hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the blood). Is there oxygen on the helicopter?” I asked.

She nodded affirmatively.

We got the unconscious guy, the broken Femur, and Mister Clean loaded onto the MEDEVAC bird. Stone jumped on with them. I handed her Mister Clean’s filled-out Casualty Cards (DD Form 1380). When the litters were strapped into the helicopter, it took off for the Combat Support Hospital at the big base in the city of Balad. Lakota was putting an oxygen mask on her brain injury patient as the MEDEVAC bird pulled away.

I treated the other less serious injuries after seeing the helicopter off. I picked a piece of shrapnel out of a guy’s arm and sewed him up with six continuous sutures. He pissed and moaned about the pain even though I used lidocaine to numb the area. When I pronounced him done, he gave me a look.

“Aren’t you going to give me anything for the pain?” he asked incredulously.

I rolled my eyes and dug two prepackaged Ibuprofen out of my bag.

“Sorry, I’m out of Spiderman Band-Aids,” I said.

He grunted his disapproval, but I ignored him and turned to the next injured soldier.

The last patient I treated was a Second Lieutenant who got thrown against the side of a truck by a secondary explosion. Even though she probably had a few cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder, she insisted I see her last. She shoo’d everyone away from us except this female sergeant. I saw why when the sergeant started helping her out of her gear. She groaned in pain a couple of times, but soon enough she was down to her desert brown t-shirt. Let me tell you, the Lieutenant filled that t-shirt in a spectacular fashion. I manfully kept my eyes off her sports bra covered assets even when she and her Sergeant wrestled her t-shirt over her head.