Who Fights This War? -- Flight Medic 2

This story was published on line on Wednesday and was also in a weekly newsletter I do now as part of my new job.

When the United States led coalition forces in the invasion of Iraq in
2003, SSG Quincy Northern, 32, began his first of three deployments as
a flight medic. For the first months of the war Northern flew MEDEVAC
along the invasion route led by the US Marines. "It was non-stop action
from the time we crossed the wire," said Northern describing his first
deployment following the Marines across Iraq in the opening days of
the war.

One MEDEVAC call he remembered vividly was an all-terrain, 8-wheel-
drive HEMMT cargo truck that hit a mine and rolled over. The call itself
was not out of the ordinary. He and his crew responded to many calls
for trucks that hit mines or had rolled over and trapped the badly
injured crew. What made this rescue different was the landing zone.
"They marked out the LZ (Landing Zone) right in the minefield," said
Northern. "We didn't know till we got to the vehicle that the bird and
us were right in the minefield."


They continued the mission. All of the Marines survived. Landing in a
minefield made Northern very conscious of security on MEDEVAC
flights. "When the 9-line (MEDEVAC call) comes in I review it to be as
prepared as I can to treat the injury. Then I think about security issues.
When we land I have to be ready to go and treat the injury, not be
thinking about anything else."

Northern enlisted in 1996 and trained as a flight medic in 2002. He
went to Kuwait in January of 2003 in preparation for the invasion and
followed the Marines until June. He was back in Iraq from March of
2004 to March of 2005 and returned in 2008 with Charlie Company 1-
52nd Aviation Brigade. The Alaska-based unit is currently attached to 2-
104th General Services Aviation Battalion. Northern says the current
deployment is by far the easiest. "On the first deployment we slept on
the bird," he said. "We slept in the same litters that carried the
patients."

Northern is a Native of Baton Rouge and admits to being an adrenaline
junkie, but says when he retires from active duty in seven years, his life
is going to be different. "When I retire, I am going to a get a job where
the toughest thing is just showing up every morning," he said with a
wide smile. He is married with two children, a boy and a girl. His wife is
staying with her family in Ellicott City, Maryland, until Northern
returns from deployment.

Who Fights This War? -- Flight Medic

Army Staff Sergeant Cynthia Dalton, 

Camp Adder, Iraq, 2009-10

“I am never nervous on the flight out,” said Staff Sgt. Cynthia Dalton, describing her experience as a flight medic in Iraq. “I go over every possible scenario in my mind. But when we touch down, I just go.”

Dalton, who is assigned as a flight medic to the 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Brigade, part of Task Force Keystone, said her first rescue mission in Iraq was the hardest. It was a vehicle rollover in bad weather. One Soldier was dead at the scene, two more were badly injured. She and the other medics at the scene treated the Soldiers as much as they could and then loaded them on their Black Hawk helicopters for transport to the nearest emergency medical facility.

“Both Soldiers made it,” she said. “But after a mission like that I am really hard on myself. I can see why people burn out. I go over everything I could possibly have done differently. We did our jobs, but it always seems like there is something I could have done different or better.”

Dalton, a daughter of military parents who hails from Orwigsburg, Pa., said she knew from an early age she wanted to help Soldiers, but tried various jobs before finding a career path that was right for her.

“I joined the Army at 17 when I was a junior in high school,” she said. “I went to basic training between my junior and senior years and started training to be a medic right after high school.”

While serving in the Army Reserve, she got additional medical training as a civilian and worked for a nursing agency.

She was serving as a reservist in Germany on September 11, 2001. She was activated in Germany in a medical support unit and helped Soldiers prepare for deployment to the Middle East.

“I did literally hundreds of immunizations every day,” Dalton said.

When she returned to the states, she switched to the Pennsylvania Army National Guard to take advantage of the education benefits.

After getting Soldiers ready for deployment at the very beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, Dalton spent the three years prior to her current deployment helping Soldiers return to civilian life after deployment.

“I love helping Soldiers,” she said. “Soldiers come back from deployment needing many kinds of help to reintegrate into civilian life. The Guard has the help available. I make sure they can get access to the right resources.”

In preparation for deployment to Iraq, Dalton trained as a flight medic. She has worked with two medical evacuation companies during the deployment, including an Oregon-based unit during training in Oklahoma and Kuwait. She is currently serving with an Alaska-based active Army MEDEVAC unit. Dalton works a 48-hour cycle, sleeping and eating at the hangar waiting for MEDEVAC calls.

When she returns to the United States, she plans to take a full-time job as the medical sergeant for the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 55th Brigade in Scranton. “That will be the end of flying for a while,” she said. “I am sure I will miss it.”

Who Fights This War? -- MEDEVAC Pilot

This story went on line yesterday on Armed Forces News service so if you want to see the pilot's picture, just Google my name under the "News" tab and this story will come up with photos.


CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq – Maj. Matt Stevenson sits alone in the ready room next to the medical evacuation hangar at 11 p.m. He is hunched over his personal computer, editing a document for a meeting the next day.

“I’ve got to get some sleep in case we get a 2 a.m. call,” he says, mostly to the air. The rest of his crew is asleep or resting, waiting for the call.

Stevenson is a senior staff officer with 2nd Battalion 104th Aviation Brigade, but two to four days every week he is a MEDEVAC pilot on a 48-hour rotation with Alaska-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment. His shift will be over at 9 a.m. the following morning, but he had a long flight in the afternoon and a long day of meetings on either side of the flight.

“I have to stay balanced, I have to stay rested, but I have to complete the mission,” he said.

It’s a challenge he faces both in civilian life and on deployment. Senior Trooper Stevenson has served with the Pennsylvania State Police since 1995, most recently flying Aviation Patrol Unit One in the southeastern area of the Commonwealth. Adding MEDEVAC pilot to his staff duties makes life hectic, but Stevenson lives to fly.

He arranges his life to complete the staff tasks to the best of his ability, making the time necessary to fly MEDEVAC Black Hawks every week. He is serious and professional when discussing staff duties, but is all smiles and broad hand and arm gestures describing a favorite MEDEVAC mission. Even while crawling on top of the Black Hawk underneath the rotors for pre-flight checks before starting the engines, he is clearly enjoying himself whether under, on top or at the controls of a Black Hawk helicopter.

Stevenson said flying MEDEVAC in Iraq has many similarities with flying for his civilian job.

“Flying for the state police is always on an emergency basis,” he said. “The mission can be a lost child, lost hikers or hunters, or a bad guy pursuit. We get the call. We go.”
MEDEVAC is the same. On the first 24 hours of his 48-hour shift, Stevenson and his crew are “second up,” the backup team that goes if a call comes in and “first up” is already on a mission. During the first day, the crew must be ready to take off within a half-hour and can travel a short distance from the ready hangar. On the second day the crew moves to “first up.” The Army standard says they must be prepared to fly within 15 minutes of receiving a MEDEVAC call. In Charlie Company, the standard is eight minutes.

Whether at Ali Air Base or in Pennsylvania’s Twin Valley, the emergency response mission gives Stevenson a sense of accomplishment.

“We make a difference here,” he said. “When a Soldier is down, we do everything we can to get them care and get them home. At home when we find the lost child or get the bad guy, it’s a great feeling.”

“One big difference here is we have to be more vigilant when landing at a point of injury,” Stevenson said. Scanning for mines, Improvised Explosive Devices and the enemy are part of every mission in Iraq.

Home Sweet (Trailer) Home

My youngest daughter Lisa is graduating from Lancaster Country Day School in two weeks. Her older sister Lauren graduated two years ago. A few years ago, the school underwent renovations so my daughters and all their fellow students had some classes in temporary classrooms next to the buildings (trailers). But the students were not allowed to say trailers. These metal-sided buildings were "learning cottages."

Since moving to Iraq, we have had a huge upgrade from 70 roommates in a tent in Kuwait to 2-man rooms for sergeants and junior officers, three-man rooms for enlisted men, and one-man rooms for the senior officers. Here's the basic building:

The Army needs an acronym for everything, so these 30-foot long, eight-foot wide housing units that can be transported on a truck are not trailers, they are Containerized Housing Units (CHU), pronounced "Choo." Most everyone calls them CHUs. When dozens of CHUs are surrounded by 12-foot-high blast walls with latrine CHUs and Shower CHUs in the middle, the result is called a Living Area (LA). There are ten LAs on Tallil. Members of our unit live in most of these living areas numbered from LA1 to LA10. A few of us make jokes about living in trailer parks and putting cars up on cement blocks in the yard, but most people use the acronyms.

Here is an LA on another base. Ours is similar.

I'll try to get some photos from here soon.

Inside a CHU we each get a bed, an end table, and a wall locker. Some soldiers are already finding refrigerators and TVs. As of Saturday night, I have temporarily have the not-available-at-any-price luxury of my own room for one month. My roommate got temporarily reassigned to another base. He will not be gone long enough to take all his gear or reassign his bed, so I am alone for 30 days or so. When he left he said, "Enjoy the library while I'm gone." You can just sit in here and listen to nothing. Which is not exactly true. Since he is so careful to put on headphones to listen to Gangsta Rap or watch movies, I seldom listened to anything in the room. But with the room to myself, I can listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" the BBC World Service, several New Yorker podcasts and Distillations from my work. But mostly, it's quiet in my trailer, I mean CHU.