I was in the Indiana Army National Guard when I got the alert that my unit was going to be activated and sent to Afghanistan. It was my turn to go and fight for America and I was happy about being activated. I had never been to Afghanistan before. The company first sergeant called and notified us of the activation. However, the timing was horrible; I had purchased a new home a year before and I had bought a new car only one month before I received the call notifying me of my activation for combat. My house and my car would have to lay dormant while I was gone and that worried me. I had financial concerns as well; I made significantly more working as a registered nurse than I did working as a sergeant in the Army, even with the extra combat pay that we received. It helped that during the war our military income was not taxed by the Federal Government.
The training for our year-long deployment lasted roughly three months from May to July, 2004. This was the first time many of the soldiers in the unit were going to war. Some had never even left the country. I will say our training was a watered-down version of basic training; it was for me, anyway. We slept in open bays at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, where we normally did our drill weekends, so it was not new to us. What was new to us was the routine: we woke up in the morning and had company formation; after the first formation, we split into our platoons and did PT. The physical training was light at first and then progressed as time went along. Every Friday, we had to do a road march in our body armor. My body was not used to wearing the armor; it was a shock to my system. We slowly progressed and it became easier as time went along.
The whole unit had specific training objectives that had to be met, both on the individual level and on company level. We had to qualify with our weapons, but unlike all the previous weapon qualification ranges that I had shot at in the past, this time we had to qualify in our full combat gear. It only made sense to train as you fight. I was issued a 9mm Beretta; this was one of the easiest ranges to qualify on. I had the option to have both a pistol and an M-4 rifle issued to me, but it made no sense for a medic to carry an M-4 rifle since the first thing a medic does is put the weapon down as they treat the wounded. Later I would learn, however, that sometimes it does come in handy to have a higher caliber of weapon available instead of just a pistol. I had to shoot the same targets again and again as they popped up and down. It was as simple as point and shoot. I even closed my eyes and just remembered how far I turned my body to hit the targets. It was a very easy range.
Our company did receive some awesome offensive driver training. We learned how to do a spinout from driving in reverse and spinning the car around and putting it back into drive. We learned how to knock other cars off the road. As a passenger in the car that was being knocked off the road, I can say it certainly was an experience, much like a controlled car accident. The instructors taught us how to really explore the limits of whatever vehicle we were driving. One exercise was to learn how to take a dead driver out of the seat of car and quickly replace them with a live driver. It was a morbid task, but it made sense to know how to do it. Having confidence in your driving ability, letting the car or truck perform as it was made to perform, and applying the laws of physics all make for a better offensive driver.
No Army training would be complete without an old-fashioned compass course. We walked from different points across the woods to find our different points. I have always enjoyed doing land navigation training like this, but this time there was more. We learned to navigate using a vehicle and a map. It was simple enough: we figured out where we were on the map by looking around for the major terrain features and went from there. Lakes are major giveaways. What was new to me was using the global positioning system (GPS). GPS is commonplace now, but the military version of the GPS is different. It is based on the coordinates from a military map. I have played around with the military GPS system before, and it does come in handy to know where you are and where you want to go.
We had a lot of downtime during our training for the war. Some soldiers would just go to sleep; I found it more productive to walk to the gym and workout. This is where the saying “Hurry up and wait” really means something. I was out of the active duty military routine; I was truly a part-time soldier at this point. Even with the three-month training period, it was still a shock to my body and mind. I had not lived in close proximity to so many other people for such a long period of time. One night I woke up and had an anxiety attack and was wondering where the hell I was. I stepped outside the barracks and remembered I wasn’t at home. We also had downtime in the evenings. Some soldiers went to the club on Camp Atterbury and got drunk. We couldn’t get drunk in Afghanistan, so I did not see the sense in getting drunk here. Instead, I would chill out at night and play games on my computer or read medical books.
Almost all the medics in the brigade had to take medical specialist refresher training. The command decided that because of my civilian medical background, it made no sense for me to sit through those classes. I would not have learned anything new anyway. I needed to focus on my soldiering skills, namely getting back into shape. The medical company was missing a pharmacy technician, and their company first sergeant asked me if I wanted to work in that position. It would have been an easy deployment if I only had to work in a pharmacy. The idea of sitting in a small room, filling prescriptions all day, was a job that did not appeal to me at all – I wanted to work as a medic, to go out and do combat medical things, like I had done in Desert Storm 14 years before.
The primary mission of our unit was to train and, if needed, fight with the Afghan Army. Our unit was going to have soldiers embedded with different Afghan Army units throughout the country. The majority of the soldiers in our unit were going to stay at a place called Camp Phoenix, which was in the capital city of Kabul. I thought that I would be one of those soldiers who would just stay in camp for the entire deployment. Having been in combat before, I thought, “let the younger guys do it.” I was a 34-year-old sergeant, older than most of the medics that were going to deploy. To be honest, I was not interested in doing anything heroic; I just wanted to do my time and come home safely. I believe every soldier does. No one wants to be a hero; it is often the heroes who end up dying. The name of our unit’s mission was Task Force Phoenix. The phoenix is a mythical bird that is born again from its own ashes; Afghanistan would be born anew, just like this mythical bird, but with assistance from the West. And, as the deployment progressed, I learned that I would be part of this mission.
The biggest threats to us in Afghanistan were landmines and IEDs. We learned that the only safe way to get out of a landmine field was to go back the way that you came, be it in a truck or on foot. The IEDs were something different. The Taliban set up hidden roadside bombs to kill and maim American forces. These devices could be set up remotely. We learned in our training that the only effective thing to do was to hit the gas pedal and get the hell out of the kill zone. Our training period ended in July, 2004, and we were ready to go. I was in pretty decent shape at this point and I was eager to get it over with.
We had a weekend to say good-bye to our families. We flew from Indianapolis to one of the former Soviet Republics called Kyrgyzstan, where there was an airfield that the United States leased. We unloaded our gear and put on our body armor, which we had to wear as we flew over Afghanistan. It was for real now; our unit was going into the combat zone. We flew into Afghanistan in a C-130 cargo plane. There was a lot of tension during the short flight, as many of the soldiers had not been to war. A few people started to vomit; they were letting their nerves get to them. I was not particularly worried, because I had never heard of a C-130 being shot down over Afghanistan. Helicopters were a different story, though. I was more worried about what would happen when we landed on the ground. The flight was bumpy – worse than other flights I had been on. The highlight of the flight was when the plane took a sudden, nasty, nosedive to the ground. The crew chiefs on board the plane had warned us about this before we took off. The airplane dropped altitude quickly to avoid getting hit by anti-aircraft missiles from the Taliban. After the nosedive, the plane leveled off and we landed in Kabul.
Kabul is an ancient city, dating back almost 8,000 years. It also smelled about 8,000 years old. We waited at Kabul International Airport for the people that we were going to replace to pick us up and take us into camp. They were from the 45th Infantry Brigade out of Oklahoma and were eager to see us. We trucked to the base camp and had to face outwards for security. Typically the passengers in the back of an Army truck face inwards, but it made sense to have all the passengers face out – that way more eyes were on the road, and if a threat developed, more soldiers could engage the enemy. The city was full of traffic and even more pedestrians walking on the sides of the roads. It was not uncommon to see men walking around with weapons on them. Many of the women have to have their body covered in a burka as Afghanistan is predominately a conservative Muslim country, and under the Taliban it was required by law. I could not help but stare even more. Most of the people on the road minded their own business and stayed out of our way. Some of the cars swerved in and out of the traffic. This was dangerous for those drivers who would do this around a military convoy, because the soldiers providing the security would often shoot at them to warn them off. Sometimes that meant disabling the vehicle on the road; other times it would result in the death of the driver and the passengers of the car. The death results not from the soldiers firing directly at them, but is the consequence of their vehicle being hit and crashing. We had to be careful, though, not only watching for dangerous drivers, but also for the roadside bombs that the Taliban had waiting for us. They all knew that the newbie replacements were coming in.
The smell was atrocious in Kabul; it reminded me of a decaying corpse and it was a shock to the olfactory system. Our senses slowly adapted to the odor, and after a few weeks I did not notice it at all. My sixth sense told me that this place was full of death. Maybe the phoenix was rising from the ashes and being reborn, but I sensed death. I also sensed so much sadness and hopelessness in this country.
Camp Phoenix was on the outskirts of the city, alongside one of the major roads. Our own forces guarded the camp, but the initial checkpoint to get inside the camp was manned by an Afghan man nicknamed Rambo. I didn’t know his real name. The Taliban killed his family, so he had no love for the people that we were fighting here. I do not know whether Rambo was loyal to Afghanistan or to the United States, but he was being paid for what he did. Loyalty in Afghanistan is based mostly on the depth of your pockets. It is a sad that in Afghanistan, a small part of the population accepts that corruption is considered to be the norm. We learned this in our training and experienced it firsthand. I found that a few of the local interpreters and workers don’t care who is in charge of the country or what happens internationally; they will be loyal to whoever is paying them.
Camp Phoenix was ever evolving. We stayed in large army tents when we first arrived in country, but the military contracted local nationals to build us wood huts. Although the wood huts were the same size as the tents, they felt more like home. I stayed with other soldiers who were in my platoon, most of whom were infantrymen. We had a lively tent; the men would stay up late playing silly video games and watching movies. Our medical section consisted of three soldiers, and I was in charge of the section until one of the medics was promoted to staff sergeant. Then he was in charge. With such a small section and only one ambulance, it really was not that much to be in charge of.
Camp Phoenix was rocketed by the Taliban every once in a while. It was hit or miss but thankfully the rocket attacks were mostly misses. After a rocket attack occurred, security sounded a loud alarm indicating we were to go to the cement bunkers for safety. On their downtime, some of the guys loved playing combat simulation video games. The explosions in the games are loud, but one time while the guys were playing we heard extra explosions. It took us a few seconds to realize we were being attacked – the green army tent we were in shouldn’t shake just because of a silly video game. We quickly put on our “battle rattle” or full combat gear and headed toward our designated bunkers. The bunkers were large round cement slabs partially under the ground. I couldn’t help but wonder whether some of the local nationals that worked on the camp were some of the same people that bombed the camp at night. Then they would get paid during the day to clean up the mess.
Our medical section’s primary duty at Camp Phoenix was to go with our protective services detachment, or PSD. The job of the PSD team was to provide security for our general or any other high-profile dignitary that came to visit. Most high-profile dignitaries had their own PSD team with them. A one-star general led our brigade. It was like when the Secret Service goes out and provides bodyguards and security for the President. Our job, as medics, was to provide lifesaving medical care to the general if he needed it. The PSD missions were always exciting. The three of us medics took turns going on missions. Sometimes we all went out at different points of a certain mission. I typically rode shotgun or sat in the back seat of one of the trucks used to block traffic or for flank security when we drove in a convoy down the road. The PSD drivers would drive as fast and as aggressively as possible – crazy was more like it. It was scary at times sitting in one of the vehicles as the team worked. On several occasions I just knew we were going to crash, but we didn’t. This team was good. The majority of the PSD team consisted of the military police that were in my Army National Guard company, in addition to several infantry soldiers, and they were my friends. I was afraid that the guys would get in a wreck and I would have to work on them. A medic working with a security team or a PSD team has to remember that the main goal is for the safety of the general; he is the medic’s top priority, even though this goes against what is learned during triage situations with multiple wounded. I am glad that I never had to implement that strategy. The PSD convoy was shot at a few times, but we increased our speed and got the hell out of the kill zone.
One time, as the PSD team was driving the general back from an important meeting, an IED exploded up the road. It caused a major traffic accident and the traffic started backing up. We were at a standstill. The PSD team had no choice but to get on the side of the road and wait for the traffic to pass. We got out of the vehicles and formed a defensive posture. As local people started to approach us, I pointed my weapon at them to shoo them off. I was not sure who was friendly, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to get killed on the side of the road because of a traffic accident. I was curious about who was injured and wondered if I could help out; however, doing this would have gone against my job as a medic for the PSD so I stayed with the team. The traffic eventually began moving. It was a very eerie feeling sitting on the side of the road waiting for traffic to improve.
One time the general had to go to the eastern part of Afghanistan, near Pakistan. We drove to Kabul Airport and took off in an old Russian helicopter. I had never flown in a helicopter like this before; it reminded me of a Chinook with less room and less power, but it was a similar ride. The terrain looked like parts of the southwestern United States, all desert and mountains. There was always the risk that the helicopter would get shot down; if that were the case we would have been out of luck as we were up in the mountains. When we landed we were greeted by some members of the PSD team, who had driven ahead to help coordinate security here. The general went to a few meetings and gave a speech outside a small compound. We were in a valley and the mountains next to us belonged to Pakistan. A valley is the worst place to defend from during an attack and I was a little nervous, but for extra security, the PSD team had Marines attached to us during the mission. The general concluded his speech and had to drive through the small town with leaders of the town. The PSD team patrolled the roadside on foot, providing security, as I sat in one of the trucks. I wanted to be out there doing security with the team; I felt like a twerp sitting in the truck. If the general’s truck was hit, however, I would have to rush to get the general out, so patrolling on foot was not a good idea. With the truck, if we had to rush the general out of the killing zone we could. Other medics in Task Force Phoenix started nicknaming us the general’s medics and this was essentially true.
Our medical section also worked with the medical company at the small troop medical clinic on Camp Phoenix. I was not too eager to work at the medical clinic, but we could not sit around all day and do nothing and working with the clinic was one way to fill our time. As well as working with the medical company at the small troop medical clinic at Camp Phoenix, the company had other missions. One time I went on an observation mission with a few of the military intelligence soldiers from the unit. These guys did not wear military uniforms and they grew their hair and had beards, so they essentially looked like civilians on the battlefield. They were nicknamed “The Spy Kids.” The mission was to check a pool hall in Kabul because it was suspected to be a front for the Taliban. However, the command would not allow us to conduct this intelligence-gathering mission outside the wire. The intelligence unit found a good observation point on top of one of the buildings being used by the United Nations. We entered the building minding our own business and walked up to the rooftop. Italian military forces occupied the building; I smiled and said “Ciao” as I walked by the Italian soldiers.
They had no idea what the hell we were doing. We did not coordinate any of this with them. The guys were doing their observations; I stayed back and let them do their thing. I knew to mind my own business, as I was just the medic. There was no sense in keeping any noise discipline, so we just sat back and talked while the guys were snapping photos and observing with the binoculars. The Italians became angry with us for some reason, maybe because they did not like the idea of having Americans snooping around using their buildings for observation. They were yelling at us, but I had no idea what they were saying. The intelligence people had got everything they needed so it was time to go. The Italians tried to stop us and ask what we were doing, I think, but we just kept walking back to our trucks.
A mission came down. The Afghan Army was sending 800 soldiers to a town on the Iranian border called Shindand. Two different warlords were fighting each other; I’m not sure why, but I am sure it involved land and poppy fields. I was told that both warlords didn’t particularly care for Americans; however, this small conflict had the potential to escalate and cause instability in the region so we were going to keep the peace. My company commander got hold of me and told me to pack my bags because I was going to help support this mission. The American forces, embedded with the Afghan Army, were to act as advisors to the Afghan military and fight alongside them on this mission. It took me only a few minutes to pack my bags; I was ready to go. One of the female mechanics in my company wished me well. She gave me a little blessed angel to clip onto my uniform before we drove off to the airport. This little angel was my good luck charm. We took off from the airport in Kabul and landed about two hours later on the airfield in Shindand. We flew in with roughly 800 Afghan soldiers, a force equal to a battalion-sized fighting element that was known as a “Kandak.”
It was the middle of August, 2004 – hot as hell. We were less than 20 kilometers from the Iranian border. We met with the American Special Forces unit that had arrived before us, who welcomed us and took us to where the embedded American forces were with the Afghan Army. Our first job was to set up an emergency treatment center. We planned to set up shop in an old, abandoned building and began unloading all our gear, only to find the building was an old, rundown mosque. The Afghans in the mosque told us that the medical people could stay in the building, but the infantry forces would have to go somewhere else. There was no way that we were going to separate from our infantry counterparts, so we had to find a different place to work on the abandoned airfield. We found a suitable location for both the medical and infantry forces. During this time, we were under a constant artillery barrage from both fighting warlords. Now there were three sides in the conflict. We represented both the interests of the Afghan government and the United States.
The airfield was a former Soviet base left from when the Russians invaded Afghanistan in the late 1970s. This place had not been used for a long time; old Soviet fighter planes were still on the ground, rusting and falling apart. Otherwise the building was in pretty good shape and we set up our aid station on the first floor and the infantry stayed on the second floor. Every once in a while, an Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt plane could be seen and heard patrolling the skies over our location. This was for our close air support. Designed to be a tank-busting airplane, the A-10 could easily handle rivaling warlords and artillery barrages. I felt a lot safer knowing that the Air Force was up there providing air support for us.
The night sky in Afghanistan is something to see. Because of the lack of electricity and lighting, you can see so many stars with the naked eye. The sky would really light up when I wore my night vision goggles; it was a nice way to escape from reality for a few minutes. We received word that one of the warlords was going to mount an attack on our airstrip during the night. We had prepared for this and had plenty of ground forces and air support. The cavalry was also on the way; the Air Cavalry from the 25th Infantry Division was going to arrive with their Kiowa helicopters. Nevertheless I had all my essential gear packed just in case we had to evacuate the area. There was a firefight, but the warlord’s forces were easily overcome. They had never even made it to the airfield.
While we were on the mission we had a few combat injuries with some head trauma, but most of the injuries we stabilized were because of accidents. Some of the more common accidents we managed were simple lacerations that requiring suturing. Some of these soldiers had never had stitches put in them before. If they cut themselves, they wound would just have to close on its own and it would leave a lot of scar tissue because the wound did not close properly. We also managed the day-to-day muscle aches and back aches that a soldier would get from doing patrols with a rucksack and combat equipment. Typically we would manage these patients with a pain medication called ibuprofen.
One time, some Afghan soldiers brought a lethargic, almost comatose soldier into our aid station. He was obtunded at best, and was almost dead from the looks of it. We hooked him up to the portable electro cardiogram (EKG or ECG) machine to see what his heart was doing. The EKG shows the type of rhythm that a person’s heart is in. It was done because some medications or drugs can alter the way the heart beats, or the heartbeat could be altered and required immediate attention. This soldier’s heart rhythm was normal. I started an intravenous line and one of the medics pushed some naloxone – naloxone is great for an opiate overdose. In order to cover all eventualities, I talked with the physician assistant, and we also pushed some glucose and sodium bicarbonate intravenously. I suggested this to the physician assistant because as a registered nurse, I have encountered patients who are lethargic because they have a very low blood sugar count; the glucose is pushed in the vein and the patient typically become more orientated to what is going on. Sodium bicarbonate is given anytime a patient is a confused state when they could be in acidosis state. Patients become this way when the carbon dioxide levels build up in the bloodstream because they are not breathing normally. He came around; he had smoked a little bit too much of the local opiates that night. Afghanistan is known for its poppy fields and the opium poppy is used to make morphine and other narcotics.
We had a few lacerations come into the aid station. When a guy came in with a pretty deep laceration on his chin, the other medics were eager to throw in some suture lines. It was late and I needed to get some sleep since I was down for guard duty later that night. As a result I didn’t get involved; the other medics sutured his chin.
We had daily sick call at the aid station for the Afghan soldiers. They came in for the most minor of things. They thought that our medication was better than theirs, but the truth is, all of the medication was the same. During medical evacuations, we learned to use rolls of bandage gauze to tie a patient down on a litter. We had a small pickup truck in which we would evacuate our wounded. Using litter straps would have been better, but once the soldier and those litter straps went on board the airplane, we would never see those litter straps again and we started running low on them.
An infantry security point was established at a gas station on the road outside the airport. The medics provided medical care to anyone who got sick or injured there. We had a couple of Americans that stayed with the Afghan infantry company that was providing the security point – they had fire points going in both directions on a hilltop overlooking the road, and the rest of the soldiers were at the gas station. The medics all took turns working at the point and we each spent a few days there; I spent three days myself.
It was interesting spending that much time with the Afghan Army. I was embedded with a foreign army fighting a war. The culture and the traditions of the people of Afghanistan were new to me but a soldier is a soldier regardless of what nation they are from. As a medic, I made no distinction between a soldier in the Afghanistan Army and a soldier in the American Army. I was there to serve them and tend to their medical needs. It was an honor to do this. I enjoyed spending time out in the desert with this Afghanistan Infantry Company. It was living outdoors at its finest. The owner of the gas station told us of the horrors that had recently occurred. He said he was happy that we were there. He had a five-year-old son who had a bad case of bacterial conjunctivitis. He wanted to know if there was anything I could do for him. I checked my medical supplies I had packed. I knew that I threw in a few tubes of ophthalmic antibiotic ointment. I explained to the father how to use the ointment. He was pretty grateful. The boy’s eyes started to improve the next day.
I also had a chance to play dentist at the security checkpoint. One of the Afghan soldiers had an abscessed tooth. The best I could do in the field without pulling the tooth was to numb the gum tissue surrounding the tooth with lidocaine. I put the soldier on ten days’ worth of antibiotics. He started feeling better after a few days and checked in to let me see how his mouth was. The swelling and the redness had gone down and I was satisfied. A different Afghan soldier was on patrol and somehow broke his arm. I tried to figure out how he had injured his arm, but that was too hard to translate. There was local swelling, and the most I could do was to set the arm and splint it as best I could. The Army has something called a universal splint which I used in this instance – an aluminum splint that is cushioned with splint material that becomes rigid when you twist it. Another soldier was on patrol and had a laceration. I was worried about infection, so I irrigated the hell out of the wound with a bag of intravenous fluid and some tubing and put in ten stitches to close the wound. I gave him both a shot of antibiotics and oral antibiotics.
It appeared that one of the medics from our task force was shooting himself up with vials of morphine. I am not sure what become of this person, or if the Army found out who was abusing the drugs. I looked around the perimeter area of where we had set up our aid station and found used morphine vials in two different locations. This infuriated me; those vials were meant for the injured, not to be used as a recreational drug. We had had a successful mission up to that point. All of the medics assembled on this mission were from different units within the 76th Infantry Brigade, and events like this make medics look like nothing more than druggies. I felt sorry that a soldier medic resorted to abusing drugs to make the deployment more tolerable.
Army Special Forces were in Shindand before we, a bunch of part-time National Guard soldiers, arrived. The Air Cavalry consisting of Kiowa helicopters and ground forces arrived after us. It was funny, because “part-time soldiers” were in the hot zone before the regular Army. We were doing medical evacuations in the back of our pickup trucks in our T-shirts, while all the ground forces of the cavalry unit were dressed head-to-toe in full combat gear; I guessed it was time to get my army appearance back on. I had not shaved in a few weeks and I smelled a little too local as we had no running water and limited electricity during the mission. The medical team from the cavalry unit came to the aid station to say hello. They were essentially our replacements, but they were a motley bunch.
The physician assistant bore a resemblance to the holographic doctor from Star Trek: Voyager. He had the same facial features, same facial expressions, same walk, and even the same voice. The last days I spent in Shindand, I felt ill. I was spiking a fever, had chills, and then full blown-out vomiting and diarrhea. It had to be those darned goat testicles I had eaten with rice. Some of the meals we ate were made locally, as the idea was to spend money locally, so the local nationals would want to do more business with us. This would eventually build trust as part of the hearts and minds mission. That was the theory at least.
I had an IV and got some much needed hydration but I was having trouble keeping fluids down. We were leaving on a C-130 to Bagram Airbase. It was not a direct flight, there was going to be a stop first at one of the former Soviet Republics and then we would take a connecting flight to Bagram the next day. I was sick beyond sick. We stayed in a two-man suite overnight; I stayed in bed the whole time. We finally caught a flight to Bagram, but I was in no condition to help with anything. The physician assistant that I flew back with was a good doctor. He took me to the hospital at Bagram, where I had some more IV fluids infused.
I was asked by one of the medics at the hospital why I had eaten local food. Well, I told him that we were out in the middle of a war zone and that was all there was to eat and I was hungry. The hospital medic talked to me about eating only at approved locations. I showed him my Combat Medical Badge and told him that I had another one on the way. That quickly shut him up. I don’t think that medic ever stepped outside the gate, but I was too sick to care. Medics like this soldier are called rear echelon motherfuckers (REMF); it is not a nice term but is used to describe the working location of someone who has not been outside the wire, and it is not limited to medics. No doubt this medic was good at what he did, but it was his condescending attitude that made him a REMF. When we arrived at camp in Kabul, I was relieved. The other medical people from our mission checked on me regularly. They hauled me to the clinic a few times to pump me full of IV fluids. To make matters worse, I was prescribed ciprofloxin, which I found out I am allergic to. I not only had to deal with the vomiting and diarrhea, but now I had itching and hives as well. For a few weeks I stayed in bed, drank water or sports drinks, and went to the bathroom. I did not eat anything during that time. They put me on some oral metronidazole, which probably helped. The medication is a type of antibiotic that is used to treat parasitic infections. I made a full recovery by the middle of September 2004 and I was back to my normal self. My acting company commander – who used to be the MP platoon sergeant, then the company first sergeant, then the executive officer – was now the acting company commander because the regular company commander was tasked out to another mission. Task Force Phoenix was establishing different regional commands across Afghanistan called Regional Command Assistance Groups (RCAG). They had several different RCAGs spread throughout the country, and their mission was to mentor the regional Afghan commanders. Leaders from Task Force Phoenix were embedded with the Afghan Army for this reason.
It was late September, 2004 when I was told I would be attending equal opportunity training, I thought I was being punished or something. I had not harassed or stared at anyone inappropriately. In the military, even looking at someone can be construed as sexual harassment. However, it was not that kind of training; I was not being penalized. The training was for leaders in the different units to learn about sexual harassment policies and the various regulations that the military has regarding these policies. The class also dealt with discrimination. Active duty soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division taught the equal opportunity class; it was political correctness in overdrive. I learned that part of my job was to start the paperwork if soldiers in my unit felt that they were being harassed or discriminated against.
One of the instructors commented that we had an over-representation of white men from our Indiana Army National Guard units. I guess the instructor failed to realize that the majority of soldiers that joined the National Guard are from the local communities. In Indiana, this meant that mostly white men from smaller farming towns constituted the National Guard. If a given population of a town is a certain race, then the odds are members of the National Guard from that community will be proportional to that. The class was a no-brainer, but it made me think about my own perceptions or misperceptions of people. We learned about discrimination and diversity. The analogy that the instructor used to demonstrate inequality and discrimination was a foot race; four people are in a race (white, black, Asian, Hispanic). The gun goes off and all four people take off. A few of the runners are being held back due to racism and inequality. Affirmative Action is supposed to help those who are being held back by racism and inequality.
The majority of us part-time National Guard soldiers did not live in a bubble like the active duty soldiers did. We pointed out that these programs have some merit, but in most cases in the real world, the playing field is pretty equal. We tried to explain to the instructors that Affirmative Action, in itself, has become a form of discrimination. A big argument ensued, but it was good that discussions like this can occur in the military. The instructors also frowned upon how many of us referred to each other by our first names instead of our last names or our ranks. We explained to the active duty soldiers that the National Guard was a different culture than the active Army, but that the job still gets done. The training ended and we took our final exam. The Army has to be one of the most open-minded organizations in America because people from all walks of life want to serve. No one should be penalized or receive preferential treatment due to race or gender. I will admit that I did learn something about discrimination and about equality that I did not know before: I learned how to try to put myself into someone else’s shoes. A lot of the material was common sense, but it raised certain things that we did not think about previously. A classic example is a calendar with pin up models. In an all male unit such as an infantry unit, having this type of calendar was not considered a big deal. However, this course taught me that just having a pin up calendar is a violation and is considered sexual harassment, regardless of the gender; it had no place in the work environment. It was a requirement that we send someone to this training, but I had no desire to work as the Equal Opportunity Sergeant for my company; I wanted to focus on being a good medic. My desire was to back out to the desert and serve as a medic, but that would have to wait for a few months.
Task Force Phoenix needed a high-speed, low-drag sergeant to go to Bagram Airbase to work as a liaison to the command in Afghanistan. I was picked for the job. It helped that I had a security clearance from my active duty days. The current sergeant who was working there got accepted into Officer Candidates School back in the United States. I was looking forward to this position. This was where all the decisions regarding combat operations were made and where all the high-ranking military members worked. The sergeant who was moving on gave me orientation to what the job entailed. The operations center where I would be working was on a stage with a massive computer screen. From that computer screen you could see satellite images, live footage from aerial drones – everything and anything pertaining to the combat operations. The people who worked in the operations center each had their own computer. All the different military commands were represented in the operations center to include our trusted allied forces.
Other military task force units which included infantry, Special Forces, and medical command were all represented here, and I would be representing the interests and the missions of Task Force Phoenix. I worked with a captain from the Task Force, he was an infantry officer in the Indiana Army National Guard, but he was an elementary school teacher for his full-time civilian job. The captain showed me the ropes of the job and I learned as I went along. He had to attend most of the meetings with the general that was in charge of all combat operations in Afghanistan, but when he could not go, I filled in. Task Force Phoenix had soldiers scattered throughout the country and our job was to make sure that everything flowed correctly and to coordinate with other military organizations. Let’s say that a unit was moving from point A to point B. The given unit had to stop for fuel, food, and rest at some point in between. The job of the liaison was to represent those people and coordinate with other liaisons so the given unit could meet up with friendly forces and safely sleep the night and eat. We were the in-between go-to people who helped make things happen. We became friends with the South Korean liaison and were invited to dine with him from time to time. I talked to the liaison, and when he found out that I had graduated from high school in Seoul, he was ecstatic. He felt like he had a new best friend. It was delicious to eat authentic Korean food again, in Afghanistan of all places!
I did learn to appreciate what the REMFS did though working as a liaison; I would never make fun of REMFS again since I was a REMF working as a liaison. These jobs are very important and if it was not for these administrative positions, the war could not be fought. Those REMFS are the reason why we get our supplies, food, and medical evacuations done. I was an E-5 sergeant working with colonels and generals coordinating for Task Force Phoenix. I was working above my rank; this was not typically the duty of a sergeant. This job did have its benefits though. I only had to work six hours a day and I stayed at one of the nicer bases in Afghanistan. It was almost like at home. I had the honor of meeting my civilian boss from my job back home where I worked full-time at the Veterans Hospital. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs came to Afghanistan to meet some of the soldiers and the secretary gave a speech to the soldiers who worked as liaisons. I wanted to approach him and say hello, so I pushed my way through the crowd and explained to him that he was my boss. He looked at me, confused, until I explained to him that I was an Indiana Guardsmen and I worked at the Veterans Hospital in Indianapolis as a registered nurse. He got a laugh out of it. I had my picture taken with him and received one of his coins. The military uses coins as a way to honor someone or as a gift for a job well done and typically, only higher ranking individuals like generals and colonels have coins to give. Distinguished civilians associated with the military also have coins. I was given many coins over my military career including unit coins, generals’ coins, and my father gave me one of his coins.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs gave a speech about how proud he was of the men and women of the military doing the hard work in the field; I missed being in the field and his speech bought it home to me. Every time a medical evacuation request came in from the field, the information was posted on the big computer screen in front of us. I wanted to go back to the field and be that medic initiating that medical evacuation request instead of being a REMF behind a computer screen. It was an honor and a privilege to work as a liaison, but I needed my boots dusty and bloody again doing my combat medic job. Some of the soldiers from Camp Phoenix came to Bagram Airbase on business. One of the sergeants told me that my award for my second Combat Medical Badge was approved by the general, this was for the combat operations in Shindand earlier that year. My acting company commander and my sergeant presented the award to me. They had no actual badge to pin on me, but it was nice to be recognized. I had a gold star on my Combat Medical Badge, which I had earned during Desert Storm back in 1991 when I was still basically a kid.
My command listened to my requests to go back into the field of combat and I was delighted. My replacement was an older sergeant first class who worked in the intelligence community, and he grasped the duties of working as a liaison rather quickly. I was longing to get back outside the wire and to function as a combat medic; that is what I did best.
THE ARMY COLORS SONG
The Army colors, the color is red: to show the world the blood we’ve shed
The Army colors, the color is blue: to show the world that we are true
The Army colors, the color is white: to show the world that we are right
The Army colors, the color is black: to show the world that we are back
The Army colors, the color is gold: to show the world that we are bold
The Army colors, the color is green: to show the world that we are mean
The Army colors, the color is gray: to show the world that you will pay