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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Welcome to the war zone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — We’ve been moving around in an area southeast of Baghdad with the chaplain for 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment. The Georgia-based unit has soldiers scattered at several bases: Forward Operating Base Falcon, patrol bases Red, Murray and Hawks and two smaller outposts further south.
The idea, of course, was for the soldiers to live among the local populace, not commute to work from faraway camps.
Falcon is a fairly large and established U.S. military base. The 1-30 soldiers who are living at the smaller places rotate through here occasionally so they can eat a decent hot meal, get a haircut, shop at the PX or use a bathroom with a flushing toilet.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Medic Steven Goodwin, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, (left) arrives at the scene of a mortar attack to check on injuries as a soldier retrieves the remains of a shell from a blast crater at Forward Operating Base Falcon, Arab Jabour, Iraq. A second blast impact is inspected in the background. |
But they would rather be at their patrol bases, away from Army bureaucracy.
In the last few days, Falcon has been a rather scary place anyway. Incoming rounds are becoming a regular event in the afternoons. The soldiers say that warmer weather bring the insurgents out to play.
Today, 1-30 medics grabbed stretchers and made mad dashes toward the headquarters of another battalion across a dirt field from them after a series of thundering booms.
I am living in a tent filled with medics and as soon as I heard all of them rushing out, I knew things could be bad.
Spc. Juan Herrera, 25, was changing out of his uniform when the first round hit.
At first he thought it was a controlled detonation. Those are rounds that are intentionally blown up by U.S. explosives experts. Usually, there is a warning on the base loudspeakers that tell you a very loud noise is coming up even though I’ve heard it after the fact on numerous occasions.
This afternoon, there was no announcement. Just earth-shaking, ear-rattling explosions, one after the other.
Herrera quickly put on his gym shoes and flew out the tent into a nearby bunker. He saw a cloud of dust where a mortar landed. I watched him and other medics go into autopilot. They gathered up stretchers and their medical bags and began instinctively hurtling across the field toward the attacks.
They had on no body armor, no helmets. They were doing what they are trained to do: seek out the injured.
I don’t know too many people who would have the courage to do what they do. Even some of the other soldiers in this battalion have told me they are in awe of the medics.
“You really don’t even think about it,” Herrera said.
Until it’s all over.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| A stunned soldier and a civilian survey the damage Thursday from a mortar attack just outside the concrete walls protecting their offices at Forward Operating Base Hawks, Arab Jabour, Iraq. The barricades did their job, preventing injuries from the attack. |
That’s when he said he sometimes asks himself what drives him to do his job. Being a medic at war requires a hard stomach and superb skillsets.
“The most complex thing on Earth is the human body.” Herrera said.
Here in Iraq, it seems so easy to destroy what is complex. So hard to fix it. Luckily, Herrera was not put to the test this afternoon. No one was seriously hurt.
But the mortar rounds landed near enough to shake everyone up. Within seconds the bunkers around the 1-30 tents were filled with soldiers, some admittedly nervous about the proximity of the attacks.
There’s not much you can do if you get hit with a rocket or a mortar round. You can’t really fight back. All you can do is hope that it doesn’t send shrapnel slicing through your body.
“Get down. Get low,” screamed a sergeant in the bunker. “They’re close.” Last week, a rocket hit 75 yards away from my tent. Then just a few days ago, more incoming rounds landed on our side of the base.
Now this.
I crouched low, sandwiched between soldiers. Our hearts were racing. We were all thinking the same thing.
I heard someone say: Welcome to the war zone.
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