by K. Sue Roper
Having packed and repacked this backpack numerous times, I learned quickly that no space could be wasted. We were issued a three-day ration of meals, which consisted of nine MRE packets. We removed the various food substances from the packets and traded with one another, selecting and packing just the foods we knew we would consume. Because we would be wearing one set of MOPP gear when we entered Iraq and its protective nature wore off after a few days, we were issued a second set, which was to be included in the pack. Because the MREs and MOPP gear took up almost all of the room in the Alice pack, I made a decision not to pack this second MOPP gear set. This was a personal choice and one that I did not share with anyone.
My decision not to pack the MOPP gear was based on my personal desire not to survive a chemical or biological event if one should occur in our future. I believed that few, if any, would truly be able to survive such an event with or without MOPP gear protection. Even if death did not occur instantly from the chemical or biological agents, everything, including our meals and water supply, would be contaminated, and therefore death would still come, this time, though, as a result of starvation. I knew I would rather die within the first minutes of such an attack, no matter how horrific, instead of dying slowly from starvation or the gradual wasting away from exposure to these agents. I was firm in my decision to simply take my chances. By doing so I had more room to pack items I considered essential not only to sustain my own life but also the lives of others. My Alice pack was filled to the brim with MRE items, a few energy bars, a clean T-shirt, and two pairs of running shorts that I discovered worked better for me than cotton underwear. I also included a collapsible Jackson Reese/Mapleson Ambu bag, endotracheal tubes, and a variety of oral and nasal pharyngeal airways that might benefit and possibly save the lives of those we would encounter as we made our way into Iraq.
On 18 March we were given an opportunity to make one three-minute stateside phone call using the camp’s only Meridian satellite phone. The enlisted personnel of Bravo Company were given the first opportunity to use the phone, and then the officers would join the line. The wait to use the phone required standing in line for an average of one hour. We all took into account the time difference between Iraq and the United States and tried to gauge the best time we believed we would be able to connect with our loved ones back home. This was a difficult challenge for many because they wanted to talk with not only their spouses but also their children, most of whom would be in school.
I felt it was crucial for me to contact my sister, and I wondered whether this would be the last phone call I would ever make. I could not help but reflect on those who were in the planes or in the World Trade Center towers on 11 September 2001, wondering how they must have felt and what they were thinking when they made their last cell phone call to their loved ones. They did not know whether they were going to die but believed it was a definite possibility. I deeply empathized with those poor souls and believed I was experiencing some of the same feelings of finality they must have felt that horrible day. We expected to be at war in the next few hours. The marines had moved right up to the Iraqi border in preparation to advance and attack. We would follow in their wake, and we all knew our own survival was not guaranteed. The likelihood that we might easily be killed was inherent in the unpredictability and violence of war, and I desperately needed to hear Jeryl’s voice one last time. If I were to die during this war, I wanted to die having heard her voice resonate in my heart and mind and to have her last memory of me be my saying “I love you.”
The process of using the phone was regulated and strictly monitored. Only two people were allowed in the tent at one time: the person making the call and the person next in line. The security personnel monitoring the phone would listen in on the call, ensuring that we did not relay where we were, where we were going, or what we were about to do. The feeling of desperation was blatantly evident on everyone’s face as they waited their turn to use the phone. Departing the tent after making their brief three-minute call, they were either smiling and rejoicing that they had been able to talk with their loved ones or crying in disappointment that they either ended up leaving a message or were able to talk only to their spouse and not their school-age children.
When my time arrived to make a call, I was able to connect only with Jeryl’s cell phone voice mail. Instead of wasting my one allotted and possibly last phone call of my life in the form of a message, I quickly hung up and returned to the end of the line to wait for another opportunity. My second attempt to reach her, this time by calling her direct line at her place of work, also resulted in failure. We had only a twenty-four-hour opportunity to use the phone, but when my third try to contact Jeryl resulted again in receiving her voice mail, I once again refused to waste my call by talking to a machine. I needed to talk with another human being, and I needed to do so before the Meridian phone was no longer available to us.
I doubted that my mother would fully understand where I was or what I was experiencing, and I even wondered whether, because of her progressive dementia, she would remember me calling. I decided instead to attempt to contact a friend I had known for years. I knew my good friend Capt. Sam Yerkes, a navy psychiatrist, would probably be at her desk working at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington, D.C. The phone rang, and Sam picked up. I was so delighted to hear her voice; it warmed my heart. Instead of the impersonal mechanical voice of an answering machine or voice mail, I was talking with someone in the States, something I had been deprived of doing for more than a month.
Sam said, “Cheryl, are you okay? What do you need?”
“I need you to call Jeryl and tell her that I love her,” I responded.
Without hesitating a moment, Sam said, “I will. I’ll call her as soon as we hang up. Do you need anything?”
I told Sam I could use cereal, dried fruit, Kool-Aid, Sweet’N Low packets, and some Motrin. When I told her I needed the Motrin, she exclaimed, “Motrin! You’re at a freaking hospital, Cheryl!” That’s when I knew she did not fully understand the situation I was in, where acquiring a small supply of Motrin would entail traveling twenty minutes across the desert to where Alpha Company was holding sick call. The trip was not only potentially dangerous but also totally dependent on finding transportation, which was not an easy task to accomplish. All of our Bravo Surgical Company hospital gear, medications, and supplies were already tightly packed and secured in the ISO containers ready to be deployed forward, and even if we could have accessed them, our medication supply was being saved for those who might need them more, those who were injured in the war.
I did not have time during my precious three minutes of “talk time” to explain the logistical challenge of acquiring Motrin on site and that, although I was at a hospital, our wartime mobile surgical hospital/trauma unit was not anything like a hospital stateside. I felt frustrated, even a little desperate, and began to wonder whether my letters to my friends were being received. In all the letters I had sent to family and friends, I had tried to describe how we were living and what we were forced to endure. I asked Sam whether she and others were receiving my letters, and she assured me they were arriving and were being read. I wondered again whether perhaps some of the confusion and inability to understand the stark circumstances and environment at Camp Guadalcanal was a result of the CNN broadcasts made from those other more modern and civilized camps. We did not have any imbedded journalists in our group at that time, and as a result, no reports or televised images were shown of our small, stark, sand berm–rimmed tent camp.
I felt frustrated not being able to explain all this to Sam fully, and as my precious three minutes came to a close, I begged her to just please call my family and tell them that I loved them and that I was very thankful for everything they did for me. The last thing I said to her was, “Please make sure my flag is flown for my retirement and give my love to all my friends.”
Our conversation had been so short and perfunctory, yet I felt so good about being able to talk to an
d hear the voice of a caring and compassionate friend. My spirits were lifted, and I exited the tent with a smile on my face and a genuinely warm feeling inside.
With heightened spirits, I returned to my berthing tent for a night of rest. I believed I had accomplished all that I could; I had informed and reassured my family and friends that I loved them and that I was doing okay. Feeling relieved, I believed I was now more than ready to deal with the future, even when that future promised the unpredictable, chaotic world of war.
Our daily routine of musters, anesthesia society meetings, classes, and physical exercise that we had established and maintained throughout our thirty-one days in Kuwait was quickly replaced by the accelerated activities required for moving into Iraq. Ambulances were lined up and staged within the camp for forward deployment. Farewells and best wishes were extended to the members of the FRSS and STP groups as they departed for their staging area.
The mission and location for our three surgical hospital companies had been established, and final preparations were being made. Alpha Company would maintain its operation and location in Kuwait at Camp Okinawa, approximately ten miles from our present location of Camp Guadalcanal. They would receive the first casualties sustained when the marines crossed the border into Iraq. Once the marines moved farther north to secure the area and provide safer passage, Charlie Company would move into the southernmost region of Iraq and set up operations at Camp Viper near the oil fields in Al Bashra. A few days later, Bravo Company would move even farther north beyond Al Bashra to set up operations close to Al Diwaniyah, where resistance and heavy fighting from Saddam’s elite Republican Guard was anticipated. The fighting was expected to be fierce and bloody and could easily result in numerous casualties on both sides.
These three locations, one in Kuwait and two in southern Iraq, were the initial areas we were to travel, and they were to be temporary. The overall plan for the three mobile surgical hospital companies called for each to pack up after stabilizing and transferring the military wounded to an expeditionary medical facility (EMF) such as the USNS Comfort or the Army Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. Wounded EPWs would be treated, stabilized, and transferred to local civilian hospitals. Once all patients had been transferred and the fighting moved closer to Baghdad, the hospital located the farthest south would move forward to a location closest to the fighting. This move was referred to as “leap-frog advancement.”
It was expected that although Bravo Company would take the initial forward lead north of Camp Viper where Charlie Company was stationed in Iraq, Alpha Company would treat, stabilize, and transfer the initial war wounded, pack up and depart its location in northern Kuwait to “leap” farther north ahead of both forward companies, and set up again closest to the major area of battle. If needed, Charlie Company would then leap forward beyond Alpha Company, and the leap-frog advancement would continue as needed. This plan would ensure that at least one surgical hospital would be readily and immediately accessible to treat and care for the wounded as the war advanced forward. Unfortunately, as we would soon learn, planning for the medical needs of the wounded was one thing, but the actual execution of that plan during the chaos and unpredictability of war would be another matter.
Transportation plans for moving personnel and equipment into Iraq were tentative, unreliable, and dependent on the needs of our fighting forces. Once the war began, certain modes of transportation might be needed elsewhere and therefore no longer available to us. Transport of company personnel via C-130 planes was not a sure thing, so we received a special “convoy briefing” to prepare us for travel via truck convoys.
Convoy travel through the exposed, barren desert of Iraq was risky and extremely dangerous. These long lines of slow-moving seven-ton trucks were highly vulnerable to enemy attack. We were instructed to warn any civilians approaching the trucks to move back. The warning was to be given only once, and if they did not comply, we were to keep moving forward even if that meant we would drive over them. We were told that if a truck ahead of us should break down, we should pass it and stay together with the other moving vehicles. Should our own truck break down, we should disembark from the vehicle as quickly as possible and form a 360-degree circle around the vehicle with our backs to it so that we would be able to watch all sides for any approaching enemy or threat. We were also to ensure that our weapons were at the ready. If repair to the vehicle could not be completed quickly, we were to abandon it and all the contents within. Little did we know at the time we received this instruction the impact that convoy travel would ultimately have on our abilities to render care to our troops.
We believed we were mere hours from a declaration of war on Iraq. We had immersed ourselves in a flurry of prewar activity, including packing, repacking, bidding farewell to our battle buddies, making the one brief three-minute phone call stateside, and receiving last-minute essential survival training. In an instant, our life at Camp Guadalcanal was completely changed, and the changes were eerie.
The camp’s chow hall was especially quiet the evening of 19 March, less than eight hours before President Bush was expected to declare war. This special place, where we had spent hours bantering, joking, discussing mundane silly events and issues, and sharing our successes, failures, and frustrations, was now quiet and devoid of many familiar faces from the FRSS and STP groups. Most of us sat silently, lost in our own thoughts as we ate our meals.
As I settled into my sleeping bag that night, I thought of my home and family in the States. I also thought about the average poor-income Iraqi family and wondered how they must be feeling tonight. Were they afraid for their lives and those of their children? Would they be safe? Would any of us be truly safe in this war of unknowns?
12
WAR IS DECLARED
On the morning of 20 March 2003, at 5:45 AM Kuwaiti time (19 March, 9:45 PM EST), the first U.S. missiles were launched into Iraq. War had officially been declared between the American-led coalition forces and Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom had officially begun!
We received this long-awaited definitive news at breakfast. The atmosphere throughout the chow tent that morning was exceptionally quiet and subdued. Some of us sat silently, lost in our personal thoughts, while others tried diligently to obtain additional information from portable hand radios. We were anxious and apprehensive but also eager. We were on the brink of war, and as some sat silently, fearing for their lives, I was eager to move on and thought, “Finally! It’s about time! Now, when do we leave?” Once again we were haunted with questions and doubts about whether we knew enough to provide the needed medical care to our wounded troops. This fear surrounding the adequacy of our preparedness to render care to the wounded was more prevalent than the fear for our own lives.
The quiet stillness of our camp was short lived. Just as I completed my three-minute rinse-off shower around 10 AM, I heard the first Scud alert. I immediately grabbed my gear (Alice pack, web belt with gas mask, helmet with goggles, and pistol) that I carried with me wherever I went and ran for the cover of the Scud bunkers. This was the first of seventeen alerts we would experience in the first twenty hours of war. Ultimately, we endured fifty Scud missile alarms during the days we remained in Kuwait.
Scud alerts had no pattern and would be sounded anytime throughout the day and night. Our sleep was often interrupted several times on many successive nights. At times we would no sooner return to our tents from one alert than the alarm would sound again. Procedure called for Scud alerts to be sounded four minutes before missiles were detected. This procedure was not always followed because the frequency of Scud detection was often much less than four minutes. One Scud missile was so unexpected and so close that the explosion from it being intercepted by a Patriot missile violently threw us from our cots as we attempted to sleep. No alarm had been sounded.
Each time the alarm sounded, we raced to the bunkers, attired in Kevlar vests, helmets, and goggles. Carrying our Alice packs, we would often don our gas masks as we ran. Just
as in our practice sessions, we would scramble down the sandbag steps, enter the doorway of these crude plywood/sandbag shelters, and, along with the twenty-plus others who were seeking cover, crouch or stand, tightly packed together, anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes. And just like during practice, these bunkers were hot and uncomfortable. We had little more to do than breathe in the desert sand and taste our own fear as it welled up in the back of our throats.
Because we were required to seek shelter so frequently, many of us soon established our favorite bunker and our own spot either within or just outside of the bunker’s entryway. Knowing who usually selected a certain bunker and where they routinely crouched or stood was helpful because it provided us with the ability to visually check that everyone had made it to the bunker safely.
Even though these alerts were now real and not just drills, I continued to remain in my usual position, standing in the trench just outside the bunker’s entryway where I could see what was going on around me. From my vantage point I could easily see the explosions created by Patriot missiles intercepting incoming Scuds, some as close as a mile and a half away. Red streaks filled the sky, and we had little doubt that the enemy was aiming at all American camps just south of the Iraqi border, including our own. We soon realized that this enemy was not inclined to distinguish between noncombatant medical support personnel and fighting troops; Saddam and his gang of cutthroats wanted to kill all Americans, and we, along with the fighting troops, had become nothing more than targets to them.