A Fallen Hero

by Sharon Kimbra Walsh

  The soldiers gripped and re-gripped weapons with their gloved hands. They shrugged and writhed their shoulders to ease the fit of body armor, and there were quiet bursts of static from PRRs as they were checked to make sure the radios were operational.

  Katie stood alone—uneasy and nervous—shifting her booted feet aimlessly in the sandy dust. The tension among the squad was palpable about her and she grasped her weapon more tightly in response. The palms of her hands were damp inside her gloves.

  She was grateful when Dan came to stand by her side. She glanced at him and smiled slightly, noting that his face was gleaming with sweat, his dark eyes intense and even his usually humorous expression was now one of sharp concentration.

  Dan returned her smile briefly, nodded then asked quietly, “You okay?”

  Katie nodded and answered with a voice that shook slightly. “Nervous.”

  The corporal glanced around him and nodded. “Yeah, you and everyone else,” he replied.

  At that moment, Joe and Louis Eastman joined them.

  “Okay,” Joe announced in a low but carrying voice. “Listen up. Group up into two formations, one-meter between each man, fire team one to move out first. Go as fast but as carefully as you can. Any questions?”

  There were shakes of heads and the men moved restlessly, eager to get on with the mission.

  “Okay, let’s move out.”

  As they exited through the jagged hole in the courtyard wall, the marines formed up into two lines as ordered and began to move off along the pathway between the perimeter wall and the inner. They moved silently, with only the faint sound of boots thudding on the hard ground and occasionally a dull clink as a weapon came into contact with body armor.

  After a few minutes, an opening appeared in the outer perimeter wall and the line of marines walking along that route stopped before exposing themselves in the opening. The second line of marines walking the inner wall moved to stand hidden at the farthest edge of the opening.

  Joe made his way to the front, closest to the exit, then crouched down to minimize his exposure to enemy eyes and with binoculars up, peered out so that he could survey the landscape. He was not happy with what he saw.

  The terrain between the compound and the tree line was flat with no cover whatsoever. The only protection they might have when reaching it, was lost in a rippling heat-haze, making spotting movement of hostiles difficult. He scanned the land slowly from left to right but all appeared silent and deserted.

  Joe turned to the squad and, making a hand signal that ordered them to go down on one knee around him, said quietly, “Listen up. It’s all clear. Fire team one, you’re up. The rest of you stand by with weapons live so we can give them cover. Fire team two, wait five then go.”

  Every man nodded and the first four men edged toward the opening in the wall. There was no hesitation as they stepped out from its protection and began to walk slowly and carefully away from the rest of the squad, weapons raised, eyes intently surveying their surroundings for hostiles and the ground for signs of IEDs, anti-personnel mines or explosives of any kind.

  “Okay,” began Joe. “Fire team two, you’re up.”

  As he spoke, his eyes met Katie’s. He did not want to send his wife out to cross that bit of land—every fiber in his body was screaming in protest—but there was nothing he could do about it. To single her out for special treatment would be to cause all kinds of damage to the morale of his squad.

  Taking a last glance at fire team one that was now some fifty-meters away, he said, “Fire team two, move…”

  There was the sudden nightmarish sound of a single gunshot, which cut off the rest of his sentence. It whip-cracked out of the tree line in front of them, shattering the silence.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katie jump, obviously startled, then he watched in horrified silence as one of the leading marines in fire team one seemed to stumble, attempted to remain upright then fell backward onto the hard ground, shockingly still. The three remaining marines threw themselves flat onto their stomachs, bringing their rifles up, facing toward the tree line, waiting for orders.

  “Fuck!” Joe exclaimed vehemently.

  The marines behind the compound walls ducked but shouldered their weapons and shuffled closer to the opening.

  Joe thumbed his radio. “Sitrep?” he demanded harshly.

  There was a burst of static then a voice replied, “Douglas is down, Staff Sergeant. He ain’t moving. We need the medic out here.”

  For brief seconds, Katie felt her heart leap into her mouth. A sudden terror threatened to choke her and she wanted to scream out a fear-filled refusal to expose herself to an onslaught of bullets from an unseen enemy intent on destroying her. Then her courage, commitment and dedication to her job suddenly overpowered the fear, squashing it into submission, and she turned to look at Joe, waiting for him to give her orders to go to the casualty. She was astonished to see him shaking his head.

  “Copy that. Negative. Bring Douglas back in.”

  There was an instant response. “No can do, Staff Sergeant. I can see from here that he’s bleeding like all hell. The medic needs to get her ass out here and check him out before he can be moved.”

  Beginning to feel annoyed, perceiving her position as the squad’s CTM being disregarded for purely personal reasons, Katie shuffled forward nearer Joe.

  “Staff Sergeant,” she began.

  Joe appeared to ignore her attempts to get his attention.

  “Staff Sergeant Anderson.”

  Katie spoke loudly and firmly and moving her weapon, managed to knock his, which was lying across his knee. Joe’s head whipped around and she was shocked to see how pale his face had become, teeth clenched together, jaw rigid.

  Enunciating the words slowly and clearly, Katie said, “I need to get out to the casualty, Staff Sergeant. He needs emergency medical treatment.”

  As she spoke, there came a volley of gunfire from the tree line and she and the surrounding marines flinched and ducked. There was a ferocious fusillade of return fire from fire team one as they lay flat on the ground beyond the compound then everything fell silent again.

  Katie stiffened her back, keeping her eyes on Joe, waiting impatiently for him to make his decision.

  Sensing that the men about her were glancing at each other, questioning looks on their faces as though they were becoming aware of what might be going on between her husband and herself, she snapped, “Staff Sergeant! We’re wasting time. I have never disobeyed an order in my army career but I will now.”

  Her foremost thought was to get to the wounded marine who—as the seconds and minutes of the golden hour ticked by—could be dying or worse…was already dead.

  Long, interminable seconds passed and eventually Joe nodded. Thumbing his PRR, he said in a harsh voice, “One of you, get your ass back here. The medic is coming out and needs some cover.”

  Katie watched as the man closest to the compound began to slowly and carefully edge his way backward on his stomach. Immediately when he began to move there was further gunfire from the trees which raised small fountains of dust and sand close by him, causing him to stop his movements immediately. Once he had done so, the shooting ceased.

  When there were no more bullets ricocheting around him, he began to move again. There was another single gunshot but this time the two remaining members of fire team one returned fire and the marine began to swiftly crawl backward again, head low, trying to keep himself as flat to the ground as possible, clouds of dust partially obscuring his movements.

  Joe turned to the rest of the squad. “Right, fire team two, wait out. The rest of you men go with Sergeant Eastman and get up on the ledge. I want covering fire on that tree line. If anything moves, knock it out. Let’s go.”

  As Sergeant Eastman moved away at a run with the rest of the marines, Joe remained crouched down, surveying the men out on the terrain. The marine who was on his way back to collect Katie had almost reached the outer wall and in a fe
w minutes, he was up onto his feet and running to join them. Once inside, he leaned against the inner wall, panting.

  “How’s Douglas?” Joe asked him.

  Eventually regaining his breath, the marine answered, “I think he’s screwed. He hasn’t moved since he went down.”

  “All right.” Joe turned to Katie. “You stay low, Corporal. Kowoski will cover you all the way and the others will when you reach them. Get Douglas stabilized then all of you get back here pronto.”

  Katie nodded. She leaned her rifle against the wall, took off her combat gloves and straightened up, taking out a pair of nitrile gloves and putting them on in preparation for dealing with the casualty. She moved closer to the opening in the wall but remained out of sight of the enemy.

  Turning to the marine who had now regained his breath, Joe asked, “Ready, Corporal?”

  The marine nodded and Joe turned back to Katie. “Okay, Corporal, get ready to move out.”

  For a split second, their eyes met then her escort edged in front of Katie to the opening.

  “Okay, ma’am. We need to move fast and slicker than shit off a hot plate,” he said. “Keep beside me until we get to my buddies then we’ll cover you while you sort out ‘ole Douglas there. Try and watch where you put your feet and you shout real loud when he’s ready to be moved.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Katie nodded again, for the moment speechless with fear, then the corporal was jogging out of the compound, and she instantly moved by his side.

  At their appearance, there was an immediate response from the tree line ahead of them. The bullets were wide of the mark but still close enough to cause the fear inside Katie to bloom into something bordering on terror. She picked up speed, her boots thudding on the hard ground, her heavy pack pounding her back.

  The air was stifling. The blood pounded in her ears and her breath hissed harshly through her clenched teeth. Sweat bloomed beneath her helmet and began to trickle down her face, the salty wetness running into her eyes and stinging them, blinding her so that she could hardly see in what direction she was running.

  Gunfire now began to come in continuous bursts from the enemy in front of them and the marines lined up along the compound wall returned fire. The noise was tremendous but all Katie could hear was her own guttural panting and someone screaming, “Go,” from behind her.

  Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!

  The words in her mind seemed to pound in rhythm with her boots slamming on the hard ground and she wanted to scream, to let out a howl of primal terror.

  The distance between herself and the downed marine seemed endless. A heat-haze shimmered all around her, rippling the air. Dust from her own and the corporal’s thudding boots obscured her vision as it plumed up from the dry ground in clouds. She stumbled and almost went down but the corporal beside her grabbed her arm and dragged her upward, almost wrenching her shoulder from its socket.

  “Move it!” Katie heard him scream and she lengthened her stride, realizing that she was alone, the corporal having thrown himself to the ground. She almost leaped the last few feet to the casualty, landing with a jarring thump alongside him, pain blooming along the left side of her body as her hip and rib cage slammed into the hard ground. Dust billowed up around her, and she choked and spat gritty sand and sticky clods.

  Breathing harshly, she shrugged out of her med pack, throwing it down beside her. Turning to carry out an assessment of the injured man, she was horrified to see that a vast pool of dark blood had seeped into the sand and dust beneath the still figure.

  “Douglas, can your hear me?” she shouted, shaking the man’s arm vigorously, raising herself up slightly so that she could look at the marine’s face. As she took in the pallor of his skin, her heart sank.

  The man was unconscious and when she placed her hand briefly against the skin of his hand, it was cold and clammy. She pressed nerveless fingers against his carotid pulse and felt a faint, weak hammering. The man was still alive but barely.

  “Fuck!” she spat out.

  Moving quickly, keeping her head as low as possible without impeding her actions, she carried out a skillful full-body assessment, searching for injuries that might not be obvious externally. She finally tore open the man’s body armor and after wrenching up the saturated bloody combat shirt and T-shirt, the wound immediately became obvious.

  The lower right side of the man’s stomach was nothing but a huge, deep penetrating wound in which Katie could see part of the internal organs and gleaming wet tissue and muscle. Blood was still pumping in slow thick spurts from deep within the wound and she immediately knew that there was possible damage to the main femoral artery. The man was bleeding out. He needed a blood transfusion immediately and to be medevacked out of the field back to the combat trauma hospital—CTH.

  Katie immediately pressed the button on her PRR and said forcefully, “Staff Sergeant, we have a Cat A—urgent status here. We need an immediate medevac. He’s bleeding out.”

  Seconds later, Joe answered, “Roger that, Corporal. Medevac is on its way. Estimated time of arrival is—three zero—thirty minutes.”

  Katie pressed her PRR again. “I don’t think we have thirty minutes, Staff Sergeant.”

  Knowing that time was of the essence to prevent the rapid onset of shock, Katie began pulling out packets of hemostatic dressings and gauze, scattering them on the ground beside her. With hands that trembled only slightly, she tore open their protective coverings and combining the two in layers four deep, laid them in an overlapping pattern on the wound, completely covering it. Pressing down hard on the thick pad and gently using her fingertips to press it into the depths of the wound, she hoped that the blood clotting agent on the dressings would reduce, or even completely stop, the flow from the damaged artery.

  Still keeping pressure on the wound, she used her teeth and free hand to tear off long strips of surgical tape to fasten the pad to the skin of the stomach. Maintaining the pressure for the rest of the two minutes for the clotting agent to start to work, with her other hand she pulled out an abdominal tourniquet. Shaking the long body strap loose, she laid the pressure pad across the man’s stomach, and quickly pulling her left hand free, released pressure on the wound.

  She flung the strap to the far side of the man’s body and after struggling for a minute or two, managed to rock him from side to side, thrusting her arm beneath the still body and grasping the end of the strap, pulling it back toward her. She was then able to draw the end up and over to fasten it together on top of the pressure pad, rather like the seat belt on an aircraft.

  She then unclipped a small pump bulb attached to the pad, similar to that used with an old-fashioned blood pressure cuff, and began to pump it quickly. A small gauge set into the tourniquet showed a dial in increments of ten pounds and precious seconds passed before she was satisfied that the pad was tight enough around the man’s body when the gauge showed it steady at eighty pounds.

  She stared intently at the dressings, watching the dark crimson stain, which had already seeped through, to see if it had continued to increase in size. It did not, confirmation that the arterial bleed appeared to have stopped with the aid of the anticoagulant impregnated in the hemostatic dressings and tourniquet.

  Almost not daring to breathe, praying silently that the bleeding would remain completely stopped, Katie took out a plastic packet containing an unused single eighteen-gauge large bore catheter. Tearing it open, she tapped the back of the man’s hand and managed to raise a vein just long enough to insert the sharp needle into it.

  Happy to see the red of arterial blood back up into the needle, she screwed on the tubing then attached a five-hundred mil bag of plasma volume expander. She finally taped the tubing to the man’s arm to prevent it from tearing out of its entry point and turned the drip to push the fluid into the casualty’s body to replace the blood loss and reduce the chance of shock. Additional fluids such as antibiotics and lactate ringers would have to wait until she could treat her patient u
nder less hostile conditions. Placing the bag of fluid onto the casualty’s chest, she spoke into her PRR and said, “All on this net…ready.”

  Numb with shock and exhaustion, without a clear thought or plan in her mind but unable to waste time waiting for someone to come and assist her, Katie awkwardly shrugged into her pack. Mindful to grab the injured man’s weapon so that the enemy could not get their hands on it, she rose to a low crouch, grasped the injured marine’s webbing with her right hand and reaching out with her left hand, she dug her fingers into the hard ground, clawing with them to wrench her body forward, stopping to drag the casualty along behind her.

  Repeatedly she pulled herself forward then dragged the casualty, aware of the pain at the edges of her mind as sharp stones and abrasive sand ripped at and rubbed the skin raw on her fingers and the palm of her hand and the solid weight of the man tore at her shoulder muscles. It was almost beyond her capabilities, but inch by inch, gritting her teeth, barely aware of the tears trickling down her face, her mindset reduced to a small tunnel of determination and perseverance, she continued on.

  A cloud of dust surrounded her, blinding and choking. The pain in her right shoulder screamed for rest and a seething mass of pain clenched her hands.

  When she felt as though she couldn’t go on, she suddenly felt the dead weight of the man ease and the speed of her movements increased as one of the marines of fire team one joined her in dragging his injured colleague along the ground. The remaining two members, together with the marines lined up along the perimeter wall, opened fire in an attempt to keep the heads of the enemy in the tree line down, preventing them from firing back.