One Child At A Time

I’m stepping back from this entry. We have a Squadron publication called SABERS SENTINEL. It’s filled with stories about soldiers in our units and what they’ve been doing. It is edited by Sergeant Rick Fahr, a very talented and likeable, real-world newspaper editor. He works with Sergeant First Class Tammy Treat, another talented photographer and writer. I’m using (with permission) one of their stories. Its about our soldiers volunteering in an Iraqi burn clinic. Its an incredible story.


One child at a time
Troops making difference at Iraqi burn clinic

By Sgt. Rick Fahr
1-151st Cavalry Regiment
Photos by Sgt. 1st Class Tammy Treat


SCANIA, Iraq — YaYa sits quietly on the table. A flowered plastic band holds back her black hair, revealing a smile that only a child’s heart musters. YaYa’s sparkle grows for a moment as a Soldier walks toward, but then she notices the tweezers and the scrub brush. Remembering, she turns grim. The next half hour will bring excruciating pain. There will be candy and perhaps a toy later, but the pain comes first.


Sgt. 1st Class Stanley Krupsky smiles as he reaches out to welcome YaYa back. The girl’s hand finds his shoulder. She is ready. YaYa cries as the Soldier peels and scrubs away the dead skin. She muffles her screams, and Krupsky turns away more than once.
He hates to hurt the girl, but he has no choice.
“I know it hurts, but it’s got to be done.”
Krupsky, a convoy escort team commander for Charlie Troop, 1st Squadron, 151st Cavalry Regiment, 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Arkansas Army National Guard, is helping YaYa recover from burns suffered in a fire more than a month ago.


Two of her family members died from their wounds, and two others travel with their grandmother three days a week to Scania, to a free burn clinic where Soldiers from Charlie Troop and other units volunteer.
Most of the patients are children who have suffered horrific burns, their arms and legs blistered and raw. Krupsky and the Troops in his team rearrange their mission schedules, sacrificing what little off time they might otherwise have between missions, to spend a few hours
at the clinic. They do what they can to help the children and leave them with a smile — candy and toys the Soldiers buy at the post exchanges or receive in the mail.
“We just do what we can to help,” Krupsky, of Oregon, said. Staff Sgt. Mark Kellogg, senior medic for Charlie Troop, explained that the Soldiers are fighting infections in the severe burns.
They remove damaged skin in and around the burned areas and dress the wounds, directing the patients’ parent or guardian to repeat the process several times a week.
“We let it heal from the inside out,” he
said, noting that the process can take several months. Troops who volunteer to help receive a
crash course in procedures, Kellogg said, and the available medics oversee all the work.
Their work often involves seeing the agony on the faces of their young patients. Sgt. 1st Class Tammy Treat of North Carolina recalled one child who violently resisted help.“She was hitting herself in the face and trying to bite her mother’s hands. Even with the child in so much pain, the mother was smiling so big because she knew we were helping,” Treat explained.

Though many of the Troops who volunteer at the clinic have only limited medical training, they have ample desire to help.
“I’ve got four kids, and when you hear about something like that happening to kids and you are
away from your own, it’s a way of trying to keep in touch with yourself, doing something for
somebody aside from yourself. It gives you a good feeling,” said Spec. Ronald Branum, a Virginia resident who joined the unit several months ago.
That feeling of accomplishment resonates throughout the team.
“It’s nice to be able to give back to the kids, especially when you see how messed
up some of them are,” noted Sgt. Shea Lindsey.
Spec. Courtland Walker agreed.
“You think about your own kids in that situation, so you just want to help them however you can,” he said.
Walker said that after leaving the clinic to continue the team’s convoy escort
missions he reflects on what he sees and hears and feels.
“You have to take that one deep breath, but afterward you think that they are gonna be all right, and you feel good about yourself,” he commented. “You just wish you could stay longer and help more.”

Sgt. Kevin Jackson said he hoped that the benefits of the Troops’ work at the clinic go beyond the children who recover. “It shows them we are here for more than to just fight a war. It shows them we are here to help.”
Branum suggested the relationships built through the clinic are bearing positive fruit.
“The community knows we are there helping, and they are gonna tell people.”

These soldiers are incredible people.

SABER 02,
Out.

Rough Men Stand Ready

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." ---George Orwell


Everybody has an image of themselves. Think about it. You may see yourself as a smart, educated person…a poindexter type. Maybe you are the rough outdoorsy type. You may be the soft, cuddly ‘kitten’ type. Or you may just look in the mirror and see something else. We (the Army) see ourselves in many different ways. Usually those ways are a little rough around the edges, it involves a weapon of some sort and, in many cases, we see a scary creature.




After all, an effective Army isn’t made up of kittens, puppys and little chickens. We think an effective army is better staffed by Knights, Monsters, muscled up masked thingys and other scary sorts. We call ourselves ‘Commandos,’ ‘Copperheads,’ ‘Banditos’ and ‘Berserkers.’ Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Save the powder puff stuff for the cheerleading

competitions. Send your Desperados to Iraq.



Your Army is a practical Army. We have to be since we deploy in the most ugly, God-awful locations. So, when we stop somewhere and stay awhile, such as at places like COB ADDER, we start to make things better. We paint rocks....line them up and call it ‘Improving our foxhole.” When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? Well, KBR is fresh out of lemons but they have provided us with a few thousand concrete barriers. They come in all shapes and sizes and paint adheres to them very well.


So, in an effort to improve our foxhole we paint those rocks and make these inanimate objects serve multiple purposes. One of my favorite Armyisms is to turn them into motivational artwork. There are literally thousands of these painted barriers all over Iraq. They not only provide protection (their intended purpose) but they are esprit de corps builders. If you could paint testosterone, these barriers are what it would look like.

The barriers also serve as a historical record of sorts. Its evidence that a unit has been somewhere. Everybody comes and goes to Iraq through Kuwait, therefore, Kuwait is littered with these barriers. Go to any Army installation in the world and somewhere you will see something scary painted on a wall. It’s just the way we are.

We are YOUR army. You don’t need to be scared of us but the bad guys should be.

So, sleep peaceably in your beds tonight because we stand ready.


And we’ve painted a few thousand rocks to let you know it.


SABER 02
out.

CLS: Sticking It To A Buddy

Last week about 40 of us received medical training in the Combat Lifesaver course. Combat Lifesaver (CLS) is a level of medical training that is somewhat advanced but not as medically educated as a Medic.
Since the American Civil War, combat medicine has advanced by light years. Back then if a soldier was shot, there was a really good chance he would have that leg or arm amputated or he would die from infection. Since then the Army has made a concentrated effort to improve the chances of surviving battlefield injuries.

Your U.S. Army is one of the few, if not the only, country in the world that actually dedicates helicopters and vehicles to serve as ambulances so casualties can be evacuated quickly. We train a great number of soldiers in advanced trauma care. And we have the most advanced aid stations and combat hospitals in the world. Our Surgeons are real Surgeons and our Doctors are practicing Doctors. It’s something our country takes for granted but your soldiers are the best cared for troops in the world. Very few soldiers actually die from wounds sustained in combat. Think about it. In 5 years of a very violent war just over 4,000 have been killed. That is very tragic but without this kind of care the numbers would be much higher.

CLS is part of that. Every soldier learns a certain amount of first aid training in basic training. The basic first aid training amounts to how to stop bleeding, patch a hole, and stabilize a patient. That’s already more than some countries train soldiers. At CLS we learn those skills plus how to assist breathing, apply special bandages, dressings and splints and a few other tricks. Additionally, we learn to use some specialized tubes and needles that helps a wounded soldier breath.

In a nutshell, we learn how to take a serverely wounded soldier, patch him, stabilize him and care for him until he can be evacuated to higher level of treatment.
Most people have heard of the Army’s Medics, right? The Navy and Marines call them Corpsmen. Medics are very highly trained soldiers. They actually go to schools that are months long to learn field medicine. Many of them are EMTs, work in hospitals back home or are going to school to get nursing or medical degrees. These guys and gals are sharp.
Every convoy we send out has to have at least one medic with his/her aid bag. The aid bag has all kinds of dressings, bandages, tubes, patches, tapes, splints, saline bags, etc, etc. It’s their equivalent of the old time Doctors Black bag but this thing weighs about 40 pounds.
When Medics are assigned to a Convoy Escort Team (CET) they get to know the soldiers they are responsible for. After awhile they form a bond. You know they are getting tight when their soldiers start referring to them as DOC. I once worked with a Medic that I noticed was having a really good day. He was all happy and smiling. I asked him, “How’s it going?”
He said, “Great, my boys just called me Doc.” He was really proud that day. And he was a damn good Medic so I know he deserved it. The Medics get very protective of their platoons and CETS. Its really a wonderful thing to see. I’ve seen some of these guys performing very traumatizing feats under incredible pressure and they do it so well. They have my trust.

Back to CLS….The Medics are the ones who teach the course. One of the final things we learn is the stick. That is, properly inserting an IV needle into another person’s arm. It is a bit unnerving and it’s the last thing the course tests. We all have about 4 days to anticipate this. It is very unnatural, and in most cases illegal, to stick something foreign into another person.
Well, on the last day we summon up the courage and stick another person in the class. You find a vein, prepare it, watch the other person get really nervous, then insert it. Its really simple and relatively painless (or not very painful). We all survive. Some of us still have bruises on our arms to prove it, but we’ve completed the task to become a certified Combat Lifesaver. We aren’t Marcus Welby or Hawkeye Pierce…but in our own small way we medically proficient.

Hopefully we will never have to use our newly-learned skills, but if we do have to…there are plenty of us around to help each other out.

SABER 02
Out.

Combat Lifesaver Class shots

Medical training is a big thing for soldiers serving in forward areas. You never know when you are going to want someone with medical knowledge that goes beyond Motrin and band-aids. Here are a few pictures from a class I recently attended. Ill tell you more about it and Army Medics next time.





(Top) All eyes are on the needle in SSG Ben Wood's hands.

(Left) SSG Wood's prepares to 'stick' SPC Middleton.

(Below) Three Amigos. The contents of a saline bag are delivered to the patient.






SGT Foster, a Combat Medic instructs decompressing a
Tension Pneumothorax.


These experienced Medics know their stuff. I'll let you know how an old Infantry Officer did in their class in my next entry.

SABER 02
Out.

Warrior Farewell

A soldier died.




Last week a soldier from COB Adder was killed by an IED. Several weeks ago another lost his life due to natural causes. I will not write about the circumstances. I will tell you how we honor our fallen.

As soon as we learn of a death, dozens of actions begin taking place. We have rehearsed this battle drill because it is not unexpected. The amount of work that has to be done right away to make sure this soldier and his family is taken care of is amazing. I won’t tell you about all of it because I don’t know everything…there are lots of personal, administrative and command details that have to be tended to in a very timely manner.
When a death happens, no matter what the cause, several things go into motion. First of all we try to get the situation under control to make sure no one else gets hurt and that wrong information doesn’t get put out. It’s natural for people to speculate about the details of a death but most of the time that is not very helpful. We sort those out in due time.
Immediately a commo blackout is put in effect, that is, all communication back home stops. The phone lines are put off limits and the internet services shut down. In this day and age of instant communication we have to get that under control to prevent word of the death making it back to the families until official notification gets to them. This prevents second and third hand information from getting to the family which can be incomplete, incorrect and insensitive. The blackout lasts until the notification is made which could be a couple of days. The official notification is made in-person back in the states by trained soldiers and chaplains.
The soldier's remains must make it back to the states. A plane is immediately coordinated to take the remains of the fallen back to the states. Within hours a large ceremonial detail was coordinated. The plane lands and about two hundred of us are in formation on the tarmac. Airmen and soldiers alike in two parallel formations form a line that leads to the back of the aircraft. Our Squadron colors and the U.S. Flag blow in the stiff, hot wind. The aircraft ramp slowly dropps revealing the dark insides of the plane. The formation marches toward the back of the plane. The formation splits to form a lane ten feet wide. We stop short of the plane.
The Sergeant Major shouts a command, “CENTERRRR, FACE!” We sharply turn toward the lane. A formation of pall-bearers carries the flag-drapped casket to the plane and then into it. As the casket is secured to the deck of the plane our Chaplain said a prayer and words to send our warrior from us a final time.
That complete, the formation moved from the plane, “FORRRRRWARD, MARCH!” We move away as the ramp closes, the propellers began to turn and our friend left us for the final time to be laid to rest in the states.
Short, solemn, honorable. The farewell lasted only a short while.
Other details were taken care of. Personnel and administrative details were handled by subject matter experts. Awards he was due were processed, final payroll completed, life insurance details for the family dispensed.
A formal farewell ceremony was prepared and rehearsed. While this was taking place the soldiers from his unit were looked after with counselors working to ensure that his close friends were coping with the loss.
A final ceremony was held at our Memorial Hall which was filled with Squadron soldiers. Much like a funeral back home, pictures of our friend were posted, flags were standing, solemn music played. During the ceremony there were several speakers. Friends and leaders of our soldier spoke about him. What was he like, how did they come to know him, how he would be missed. Of course the Chaplain spoke and verses from the bible were read. At the end a 21 gun salute was rendered and Taps was played. The first volleys always take the crowd by surprise. We all salute our friend as honors were rendered.
At the end every soldier marched by the soldier’s memorial. Flags, his photo, and our soldier’s rifle, bayonet attached, stuck in the ground with his dog tags hanging from the weapon. We pass by the memorial one-at-a-time and give our final salute to a soldier who deployed, did his job, and gave his life while serving our nation.


The past few months I’ve painted you a relatively rosy picture of life on a dusty base. It's not always that rosy.


Every soldier that has lost his or her life while serving received this same type of final farewell and sendoff.

The youngest private and the highest General, should they fall, will get a similar sendoff. All are important. All are valued. All are missed. All play a part in the huge team that is assembled here. Nobody just slips away unnoticed.

SABER 02, out.

Brigade Run

There are lots of signs that things are going well here in Iraq. Signs that the violence has dropped and is continuing to get better. That’s what a big part of my job as the intelligence officer is; I track the bad guys. When things are going well and the threat is low then we do things that a normal Army unit does. Last week we had a Brigade run.

The Brigade our Squadron is assigned to is the 7th Sustainment Brigade and it is is about 5,000 soldiers strong. That’s a lot of soldiers. Here at COB Adder we were able to get a few thousand or so of us on the road at sunup and run for about 3 miles along the streets of COB Adder. That’s a big formation. If you’ve ever been near an event like this it is somewhat impressive. We bring out the guidons and unit colors (flags) and run in a long column.

If you’ve ever seen a movie where soldiers are running and singing cadence this was what they were trying to replicate. We sing a number of different running ‘songs’ to stay in step and help pump us up until the end. It’s an event that is all Army…nobody else does stuff like this.

Being on a deployment to a combat zone gives a soldier opportunities to get in shape. There isn’t much else to do and after about 5 years of being in Iraq our forces have managed to acquire some decent workout facilities. Some soldiers use the opportunity to develop some muscles…others don’t. I’m somewhere in between.

The ones that don’t stay in shape don’t do too well on the run. They run as far as they can and fall out and end up in the ‘line of shame’ on the sidewalk. Towards the end of the run it’s pretty apparent who hasn’t been working out. But most of us finish the run with a sweaty shirt, a motivated spirit, and a sense of esprit de corps that you just can’t get anywhere else.

But that’s not the point of the run. Sure, we are supposed to stay in shape…that’s part of being a soldier. But the run is a unifying event. It brings soldiers together under their unit flag and strengthens our unit identities. Your Army is made up of thousands of units big and small. Strong, small units combined make a strong Army. You can rest assured that you have a strong Army.

Just a few more months….a few more miles.

SABER 02,
Out.

Random shots

Things are going well. Just some pictures today.

Saber 02
Out.