I was in Iraq for my third tour, my second as a 68W Healthcare Specialist or better known as a combat medic (US Army). This was 2007-2009, during 'The Surge' as President George Bush pushed tens of thousands of additional troops in Iraq.
My primary job as one of the senior Sergeants (E5) in the section was to supervise each shift in the aid station, ensuring proper handoffs for patients and any other duties as well as to perform as the 'head man' if we had a casualty on the table. Additionally, we didn't have a mortuary affairs team so myself and one other Soldier that I picked were given the duties to handle all of the paperwork as well as properly packaging the bodies for their return to Stateside.
Because my job was so erratic, I normally spent whatever free time I had asleep because you never knew when the radio would inform us of casualties, requiring the entire aid station crew to report and prepare for incoming wounded, or worse, if we received the call notifying us of deceased personnel, in that event only the aid station NCOIC (Noncomissioned Officer in Charge) Staff Sergeant (SSG) [Davis], myself, my assistant and whichever physician was on duty had to be awake.
The morning of 28 April, 2008 was pretty normal. We received a call that a vehicle (m1151 hmmwv) an up-armored humvee had been struck by by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and caused a vehicle kill and had injured all three personnel inside.
Example 1151
We had four main trauma beds/tables with two additional ones for less injured casualties if needed. These beds were rarely used because we simply didn't have enough personnel to man them adequately. After every group of casualties that came in we rotated beds, #1 being the most severely injured and #4 being the least injured. #1 would rotate to #4 and so on. This was done to ensure that no one group was constantly given terribly injured personnel.
Photos of our aid station
1
2
3
4
After the call, each team reported to the aid station and did another check of equipment. My team was on Table 3 and didn't have much to do as the report said it was two severely injured and one with minor injuries.
Tables 1 and 2 stayed inside by the beds while the NCOs from 3 (myself) and 4 (a different NCO) went to the Motorpool to collect mechanics to act as litter bearers and then we waited in the triage area for the casualties to come in.
It took over 30 minutes for the tell-tale sound of a humvee screaming down the road of our FOB (Forward Operating Base) towards our aid station. The second they arrived in front of our building the doors flew open and panicked Soldiers started yelling for medics.
One of our jobs is to remain as cool and calm as possible and to ask them to step aside while we brought the casualties into the aid station. The NCO from Table 4 linked up with the medic that had just come in with the casualties to receive a report while I directed personnel to grab the casualties and which beds to send them too.
The most severely injured casualty was unconscious and appeared to have a partially compromised airway due to his gasping. A piece of shrapnel had hit him under his jaw and possibly broken it, but worse it seemed to tear some of the skin as the site and 'rolled' it up his face leaving a ball of skin over his left eye, exposing most of the muscles of his face and his right eye appeared to be damaged if not completely useless.
The second worst was conscious but wasn't completely coherent and also sustained a couple of broken limbs. Lastly, the gunner was shaken up and took some shrapnel along the right side of his body but was otherwise perfectly fine.
The casualties themselves weren't very noteworthy and treating them was easy. The only memorable part of the incident was while they were treating the casualty on Table 1 (shrapnel to the face) they had started wrapping his face in gauze. When they covered his left eye he left out this croaking moan of a voice and asked why he couldn't see anymore.
The sound of his voice combined with the fact that we all thought he was unconscious caused everyone and everything to stop for a moment. But we quickly went back to work and packaged all of the casualties for transport to a higher echelon of care.
When we neared finishing SSG [Davis] called in a MEDEVAC, and so we escorted the casualties in our ambulance to the HLZ (Helicopter Landing Zone) and after the bird landed we did a simple handoff and that was that.
Dropping off casualties, I'm on the left
After returning to the aid station we washed up and helped everyone else restock the aid station and prep for any future casualties. After the excitement had died down and everything had been checked off as good to go, I went back to my room to relax and unwind. Even though they weren't difficult to handle and no one had died, there is still a huge adrenaline rush that comes with each and every patient/casualty.
My room was a little larger than a standard prison cell everything made it of wood. The make shift bunk beds, the lockers and the walls. Everything had been built up to create rooms in what was otherwise a normal, if overly large, hallway. I sat down in my chair and played Final Fantasy 9 for an hour or so on my hacked PSP. I couldn't tell you what point in the game I was at but I can recall everything else in vivid detail.
But before I go any further, some minor exposition to explain some things. A month or so prior a contracted company took over security of the outer perimeter of the FOB it seemed to be American ran but the Soldiers that replaced us on the towers were Ugandan and were not trained well enough or taught the possible signs of an imminent attack which proved to be disastrous.
As I said, I was playing PSP when I heard a loud boom in the distance. Having heard similar sounds many, many times before I assumed it was an IED.
I should have gotten up and immediately went to the aid station but instead I was listening for the sounds of someone yelling for the medics to report while I continued to play, really I was just looking for a save point. After so many casualties and so many attacks you just become numb to it.
Then I heard another loud boom and my first thought was 'Man, someone is getting f*cked up out there!' I put my PSP down and started walking out of my room when everything turned black as the power went out, the air filled with dust and I was thrown to the ground. Something had just hit the building or very, very near by.
I crawled to the door and opened it. Looking down the hall I saw many other heads popping out of their rooms. I yelled out to ask if everyone was okay and some yelled back saying they were fine. The door directly across from my room opened and a young woman stumbled out, rubbing here eyes and sleepily asking 'What's going on?' I started yelling at her to 'GET THE F*CK DOWN!' Her eyes snapped open, she looked up and down the hall and immediately through herself to the ground.
I waited another second before I jumped to my feet and ran down the hall. Directly across from our aid station was the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) because we lived in a large building we were an ideal spot to put the MWR, a place for Soldiers to go on their downtime to watch films, play board games, socialize, and we had just gotten a pool table. I could hear a woman screaming, so I ran into the room and saw her curled into a ball, screaming her head off. The room was still dusty from so much debris falling from the ceilings. I crawled on my hands and knees under the table and asked if she was okay but she kept on crying and grabbed my hand. I made eye contact with another Soldier in the MWR and told him to bring her to the aid station if she was hurt.
I got out from under the table and ran back into the hall. The first thing I saw was another NCO, Sergeant (SGT) [Michael] rushing in through the side doors and immediately throwing them shut just as another rocket landed blowing the doors back open. We both ran into the aid station, stripping off our jackets and put gloves on as we started getting everything organized. The team that was already on shift had started standing everything up and SSG [Davis] was on the radio receiving reports. From what I could hear, a large semi-truck had pulled up outside of the FOB and the driver had gotten out. After that 10 to 11 IRAMs (Improved Rockets and Mortars] started firing from the back of it. While we were working he was yelling out to everyone what was going on so we had an idea of what to expect.
I should have been on Table 2 but in the chaos I found myself on Table 1, probably because we were just trying to get makeshift teams together while everyone came in. The first casualty to come through the door was carried in by a team of Soldiers and one of them shouted that he wasn't able to feel his legs. Immediately following him was another Soldiers carried on a litter.
This patient had obvious and severe 3rd degree burns of his face and arms. In the brief moments I saw him you could see his lips had been burned away and it looked like a grotesque smile.
Back to my patient, I was at the head of the table as one of the more experienced and senior medics. My job, if necessary was to establish an airway and to look down the length of the casualty and watch everything and keep everyone on track so they don't get tunnel vision. The casualty was able to breath and was talking to us. When the rockets started to land, he jumped back into his truck and was thrown around on the inside when one started landing near him.
Focusing on my casualty, it took my several minutes to hear, '[Ryan! RYAN!] Get the morgue ready!' That's when I looked over to Table 2 and saw blood pouring from under the casualty, the floor covered with bloody boot prints. I told the PA at my table that I was leaving and because it was an easy patient, there was no issue.
I walked out of the aid station to see people lining the walls of the hallway and some Soldiers I recognized as other medics and some from Combat Life Savers (Soldiers taught basic medical skills) were treating less injured casualties. Mostly superficial burns and scrapes from people running away and tripping. But some were seriously injured patients that were waiting for beds to open up. One of the rockets had hit a connex (a large metal container) that had a lot of ammunition in it, the result was that some of the rounds ended up firing through the connex and striking Soldiers creating even more casualties even after the rockets had stopped landing.
I walked into the supply room and then to our "morgue" which was little more than a stone closet with an air conditioner in it. When I walked in I saw that there was already another deceased Soldier on a little, with a t-shirt covering his face that was already soaked with blood. On the floor and to the right was a little on the ground that looked like it was covered with bloody towels.
I turned on the AC unit and went back to the aid station. SSG [Davis] told me to take care of the KIAs and that even though they were extremely busy, it looked like no one else was dead or dying. After he gave me the instructions to keep working I went out to the motorpool to see if I could get anyone to help carry the deceased casualties in and out of my morgue while I did the paperwork and prep.
The next several hours were spent occasionally running supplies to the aid station, finishing up paperwork for the physicians to sign off. I don't know how much time had passed before one of the First Sergeants from another unit came into the aid station and loudly exclaimed that he needed 'Every single medic to come with him'. When asked if there were more casualties he said no but he just needed everyone. That was quickly shot down because regardless of what he wanted, we were more important in the aid station. Though the NCOIC did concede and sent a few guys to help him with whatever was going on
Almost another two hours later, one of the other medical Sergeants came in with another Soldier that I didn't know, each carrying a large black trash bag. He set them down next to me and said 'His face is in here, somewhere. I don't know which bag. I can't deal with this right now.' and they both left. I didn't understand what he was saying so I took off my gloves and walked into the aid station and pulled aside SSG [Davis] and asked him what was going on. He told me 'it's the remains of the third KIA' I asked him what he meant because there were only two. Immediately his face went taught with anger, which in hindsight, I understand because he had a million other things going on but he told me to follow him into the morgue.
After walking in he pointed to the pile of towels and said 'There!' Still not understanding what he meant, he told me to remove the towels from the litter and it was then I discovered that the entire time there was the other half of a Soldier. His head, chest, left arm, left leg up to mid thigh, right leg from knee down, and left arm from elbow down were all gone. Ripped away.
I later learned that the attack had been so devastating because one unit was leaving the FOB as another was entering. They had planned and time the attack so that it would get as many people as possible. It's only by a fluke that we had three dead though we had many, many more wounded. The rockets that fired from the truck had propane tanks strapped to the fins of the rockets with chains. Meaning when they were launched they weren't able to properly fly and so they just tumbled through the air, haphazardly until they hit the ground and burst into flames.
The Soldiers whose body I was looking at, was one of those people in the yard waiting to leave the gate for a mission. He and another Soldiers crawled under a truck as they were landing. The person he was with crawled out and ran into a building after one landed and he had stayed. After another rocket landed near that vehicle, it blew him out from under it and another landed nearly on top of him spreading his remains all over the yard. It took almost 40 people a few hours to gather him in his entirety.
I grabbed a new pair of gloves and two more biohazard bags and started removing pieces one at a time examining each to see if there was a tattoo, a marking, or scar to identify him by. After each incident like an attack every must immediately do a face to face, accountability to ensure everyone is present. Including the two dead, only one person was missing and I was currently going through what we presumed to be his organs, skin, and bones.
Eventually, I found what appeared to be a tattoo. It was partially charred but when I pulled the skin taught, it mostly matched up with a portion of the remains of his torso's left side. I finished examining everything else and went and told the NCOIC. Roughly 30 minutes later, my NCOIC came into the supply room/morgue area with a First Sergeant, another senior NCO, and a young Soldier and they asked me to show the young Soldier what I had found. The assumption being that he, as the presumed dead's roommate would know what his tattoo's looked like.
I took the piece of skin and after stretching it out so the tattoo was most visible I showed it to him, he burst into tears. I put it into a biobag and they left. Afterwards I continued on with the paperwork and preparing the bodies for a Hero Flight. This is where everyone available honors and salute's the bodies of the dead as they are carried or driven to the flightline to be placed onto a bird to start their journey back to the U.S.
Throughout all of this I had to stop and take several breaks to go smoke and calm myself down. But I did my best not to display any outward signs of distress because I didn't want my Soldiers to think I was bothered by it. I didn't want to appear weak or pathetic. So I just bottled it up and waited until I was alone and I could just sit there and quietly break down without anyone seeing me.
When everything was said and done, I went back to my room cleaned the dust off of my bed and tried to sleep, but I wasn't able to. I just laid there for hours until I heard the familiar sounds of someone running down the hall in flip-flops, banging on doors and yelling for medics. I got up and went to the aid station to wait for another casualty.
Video of the attack
