“You ready, ma’am?”
It was a loaded question, of course. I had been sitting here in the sand of Kuwait doing nothing for six days. And yet now, faced with the moment I would actually load both seabags on the Humvee that would take us to the transport plane, I suddenly felt completely and totally unready.
I nodded.
Almost twenty-four hours later, our tiny group of stragglers arrived at Al Asad Airfield in Iraq in the chilling dead of night, and we hitched a ride on a Humvee to get to the hospital. Someone directed me to a dark room in which I was to drop my bags and find an open cot. I fell asleep with my boots on.
The light of day introduced me to the people of Alpha Surgical. When all was said and done, they had been in Iraq only about two weeks longer than Captain Sladek and me. I looked around, observing this newly founded band of medical and nurse officers and hospital corpsmen; I also observed the small group of men and one woman we came to call “our Marines.” (Our Marines drove ambulances, operated radios, orchestrated communication, and arranged logistics for the unit — and they protected us.) I realized that, although it would have been nice to have been with all of them during those extra two weeks, it actually wasn’t necessary. They were just like the people I’d met from Bravo: they had been mixed together, shipped across the world, and were now expected to function well as a mobile field surgical company in combat.
Somehow, despite the odds, we did. The infinite light brown dirt and rock of western Iraq quickly covered our boots. The first helicopter landed in the dust behind the hospital, and the first patients were hauled to our operating room. In those moments, we were transformed into a strangely familiar family, with serious personality conflicts, outright yelling matches, and seven-month grudges.
HEIDI KRAFT
Yet we understood one another when it mattered. That’s all our Marines knew. They knew they could count on us to take care of them. And somehow, even before we really knew them, we knew they would take care of us too.
Fever
Before the dawn of my third morning in country, I emerged sweat-soaked from vivid, disturbing dreams. I felt disoriented and nauseated, and a searing pain ripped across my shoulders and left arm. My head throbbed and my teeth ached. Frightened by the pain, I sat up, trying not to notice the walls shifting around me. I closed my eyes in an attempt to ease the dizziness and process the many sensations. The pain radiated from my left deltoid muscle, and suddenly I knew: it was the site of my smallpox vaccine, administered in Kuwait five days before our flight to Iraq.
I scanned the dark, windowless room. Five cots, five women, and ten seabags were crammed into a tiny exam area. Our assigned living quarters were still occupied, so we all lived in the hospital for our first weeks at Al Asad.
None of my sleeping roommates stirred as I swung my legs over the side of the cot. I squeezed my flashlight with one hand and, by its blue light, rummaged through my bag with the other. I found my shower gear and tiptoed out the door — so dizzy I almost fell, twice.
The shower in the hospital was located in a long, thin space with no lights, next to a broom closet. Just inside the door, a duct-taped X covered the bowl of a sink that had a long crack through its pedestal base. Beyond it, a small dressing area with three rotting wooden shelves on the walls led to a small square of tile flooring. A ceramic-coated hole in the tile functioned as a toilet, its flush handle protruding from the wall. A large plastic trash bag was crumpled in the corner, a repository for used toilet tissue, which the pipes could not handle. Most of the commodes at Al Asad were holes in the ground with bags next to them, but this one was special. It had a removable rusted metal grate cover, on which we were supposed to stand while the showerhead trickled water on us — and into the toilet.
I laid my flashlight on a wooden shelf to light up the shower area and immediately wished I had stayed in the dark. As soon as the water flowed, gigantic mosquitoes emerged from the grate and hovered around my head. Some things are better not seen.
Like my smallpox injection site. I gingerly removed the gauze that covered the wound and moved my arm into the light.
“Ohhhh,” I groaned, looking away. The vaccine site, which I strove to keep clean and covered while it scabbed over, appeared bright red and angry. White fluid drained from its multiple punctures. Crimson tentacles stretched in all directions from the wound, going up my shoulder and across my chest, and also down that arm. I touched the surrounding skin with my right hand. It was hot.
The cold water felt wonderful on my flushed face. I washed the wound as well as I could, cringing through the pain. Slowly, clumsily, I dressed, fever and chills hitting me in alternating waves as I laced my boots.
I walked into the passageway and found a chair in the waiting area outside the exam rooms used for sick call, the non-emergent medical care we provided to the base. Today, I would be the patient. I sat and waited.
The sun rose and the people of Alpha Surgical Company rose with it, preparing the hospital for the day. Sometime after 0700, my friend Bill, one of two physician assistants in our company, left the call room and walked down the hall to set up his morning clinic. I raised a hand in hello.
He took one look at me and stopped walking.
“Wow, you look horrible.”
“Thanks.” I managed a smile. “I feel horrible.” I peeled back the sleeve of my T-shirt and lifted the bandage.
Bill exhaled in a low whistle. “It’s impossible to keep wounds clean out here. That looks bad.” He ushered me into an exam room. My temperature had reached 103°.
Bill wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and ibuprofen. I smiled my thanks and moved to the small room we called a pharmacy, where one of the techs quickly filled a small Ziploc bag with pills.
“You’re going to need to take the day off, by the way,” Bill called over his shoulder at me as he entered an exam room.
“Thanks, I think I will.” I downed two pills with bottled water and re-entered my temporary room, which was now empty. I collapsed on my cot, boots still laced and pistol still secure in the holster that hung from my shoulders.
My eyes flew open to the sound of pounding on my door.
“Lieutenant Commander Kraft? Are you in there?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded unfamiliar. I cleared my throat and sat up. “Come in.”
A corpsman from the ward opened the door and poked his head in the room.
“The CO [Commanding Officer] sent me to find you, ma’am.”
I had no idea what time it was. I quickly ran a hand over my hair, which had dried postshower into clumps of matted curls as I slept. Thankfully already dressed, I stood — fighting dizziness — and followed him out. He starting jogging and looked back at me. Every cell in my body screamed in protest, but I caught up. He talked, out of breath, as we ran.
“Four Marines just got here — their vehicle hit a land mine out on a convoy. One has a pretty bad injury to his face. Dr. S. is not sure if he’s going to be able to save his jaw, but he’s going to the OR any minute to try. All four are still in the SST [Shock Stabilization Team].”
“Okay . . .” I waited.
“The reason we need you is that this colonel just showed up, their battalion CO, I guess. He’s standing outside the SST. He’s crying, ma’am. And he won’t leave. Our CO told us to call you.”
I stared at him.
“And this requires psych because . . . ?” I mumbled sarcastically to myself. If one of us was going to be called every time someone cried in the hospital, this had the potential to be a very long deployment.
He shrugged.
We arrived in the passageway outside the SST. The door to our makeshift emergency room was open, and scores of people wearing gloves and surgical masks moved around inside. Above the general hum of the voices of our SST personnel, another sound emerged.
A Marine was screaming.
His voice echoed through the passageways of the back of the hospital, a tortured cry made more heartbreaking by vir
tue of the fact that this nineteen-year-old man probably had never allowed himself to cry, let alone scream. Worse, his cries were contagious. His comrades had seen the gruesome injury to his face, and they heard his agony. They responded by calling to him, trying to drown out his shouts with their own words, support directed at him and exasperation directed at us.
“We’re right here, Miller.”
“You’re doing great, buddy.”
“Can’t you give him something?”
Three Marine Corps officers hovered in the doorway of the SST, close enough to hear their men in pain but helpless to do anything about it. Two, identified by gold oak leaves on their collars as majors, appeared uncomfortable and slightly nauseated. The colonel stood between them. He was impossible to miss.
At least six-four, he towered over everyone around him. His dark hair was peppered with silver. He turned in my direction, and I could see that his blue eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks tear-streaked.
A litter team exited the SST and carried the Marine past the colonel, and he clearly saw the extent of the man’s injuries. He watched as the stretcher turned the corner to the operating room.
The colonel turned to face the wall and placed a palm against the concrete, arm straight. He slowly lowered his head, and his big shoulders trembled as he began to sob.
I moved toward the three men, struck by the fact that both majors kept their distance from their leader but still watched him intently and with genuine concern. And suddenly I understood. Their concern was not for him.
As a commanding officer, the colonel was responsible for the welfare of these Marines. Several had been injured, one critically, and he could not change that. He was not in control, and control was usually the one thing he always had. He would have preferred to be injured himself rather than hear one of his men scream in pain. His anguish was palpable.
But he was not supposed to show it in public.
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and turned to walk into the SST. I moved in front of him, blocking his entrance.
“Sir,” I said, extending my hand. Surprised, he stopped and looked at me. “I am Heidi Kraft.”
He shook my hand. The two majors approached out of curiosity.
“Why don’t we just move over here, gentlemen.” I turned them as a group and herded them toward the open door of the waiting area, away from the SST. One of my psych techs, Petty Officer Gob, stood nearby. I mouthed the word Kleenex to him, and he disappeared. The colonel hesitated, looking back toward the SST, where the moans of his Marines could still be heard.
“Please, sir.” I locked eyes with him. The majors were already in the waiting room. “Please, come with me.” Reluctantly, he followed me.
As we entered the waiting room, my face was on fire. I felt weaker every moment, my knees threatening to buckle beneath me. I handed the colonel a roll of toilet paper and sat across from him, leaning forward so that I could speak quietly. The majors sat across the room.
“Sir, I am one of the combat stress people here. Our surgical team asked me to help get you information. I will find out how your one Marine is doing in surgery and get you a status report on the other three.” He nodded, tearing off some toilet tissue to blow his nose.
“When can I see them?” he asked.
“Once they are stabilized. Not before.”
He lowered his eyes. “I understand.”
I moved my face closer to his, my voice nearly a whisper. “Sir, I want you to know that my team is here if any of your people should need us.”
He looked directly at me. I was certain he could hear the hammering of my heart and that he knew I had trouble focusing on his face. Please, God, don’t let me pass out here in front of this colonel, I thought. A brief look of understanding crossed his face. He nodded.
“Thank you, Heidi.”
On any other day, he probably would have called me Lieutenant Commander Kraft or, much more likely, Doc. I smiled.
Two days later, my smallpox site looked better and my fever had broken. I felt like myself again and had the energy to walk to breakfast with Jason, our psychiatrist and my partner in our surgical company’s Combat Stress Platoon. As we walked, I told him about my encounter with the colonel.
“To be honest, I’m not one hundred percent sure it happened that way,” I admitted. “I was really feeling strange. Karen told me we ended up sending the guy with the jaw injury to Baghdad, since that level of repair was beyond our capability here. And she said the other three ended up being okay. So it appears those Marines were, in fact, actually here. But the whole thing still feels like a dream.”
Jason nodded. Ever the psychoanalyst, he asked what, if the whole thing had been a dream, it might have been trying to tell me.
“I don’t know . . . something about the definition of leadership, I suppose. Maybe that you couldn’t pay me enough to be a Marine officer?”
I grinned at him. We entered the chow hall. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. I understand now how terrifying it is to be sick or in pain out here. It’s this completely scary, helpless, confused sensation. I never want to feel it again.”
“The same sensation that every injured Marine who comes in here is feeling,” Jason mused.
“Exactly.”
“Good morning, Heidi.”
The voice startled me, at once familiar and dreamlike. I turned to see the colonel, holding an empty tray as he entered the line behind us. I smiled at him.
“Good morning, sir.”
That colonel said good morning to me in the chow hall nearly every morning for the next seven months.
And he always used my first name.
HOME
Brian and Megan started day care.
My father, a retired Navy submarine officer, composed an e-mail to me every day during my deployment and his extended stay with my husband and children. After about two weeks, the Internet cafés on our base actually functioned and we had figured out our schedules enough to find the time to stand in line for those precious thirty minutes on the computer. By the time I logged in for the first time, I had twenty messages waiting from him.
This labor of love included detailed accounts of the daily activities of our twins. Before I left, I begged him to do just that. Now, I found the words sent a shooting ice-pick sensation through me as I read. No one could have prepared me for the intensity of the pain. He wrote:
We are all getting up early each morning after Mike leaves for work, and have established a good morning routine.
The twins are starting to get the hang of the spoon — Meg cares about it more than Brian, who would still rather use his fingers. We take them in to school around 0830 each morning and pick them up before naptime, around 1100. They are adjusting very well to half days. Don’t worry about us here — we’re all doing fine.
Keep your head down.
Love, Dad.
Damn the Rockets
By just a little more than two weeks after our arrival in Iraq, we had unpacked our medical equipment, set up the hospital, and fixed the duty schedule. Helicopters landed on the dirt pad behind our building, delivering Marines wounded in firefights and by explosions from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Final traces of the desert winter still lingered, and we used our cozy sleeping bags at night and wore fleece shirts under our utilities in the morning. (By noon they were history.) We should have enjoyed the sensation of cold while we had it. It would vanish within weeks of our arrival and would not return for seven months.
One evening in the middle of March, I sat on a cot with Jason. Together we leaned against the concrete wall and composed a plan on his laptop to assist with mental health coverage at another base. Bill and Steve, Jason’s roommates, lay on their perpendicular cots watching Mystic River on Bill’s computer. It was 2100. Outside, the moonless night was endless and black.
The first explosion was remote. It sounded similar to the distant booms produced by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD) or by the firing of artille
ry. I looked up, and Jason stopped typing. His fingers had no sooner returned to the keyboard when another blast shook the air, closer this time. I became aware of a strange twisting sensation in my abdomen. Steve and Bill lifted both their heads in unison.
“What the fuck was that?” Steve asked, eyes darting to Jason and me. We all scrambled to our feet and rushed to the front hatch of the men’s barracks. A small group of officers from our company had formed at the glass doors at the entrance. Everyone peered into the darkness in the direction of a hazy orange light on the horizon.
“Something exploded over there.” Todd, our oral surgeon, pointed to the distant glow. Two more faraway detonations intensified the orange hue, and then it disappeared.
We waited. For that full minute of silence, every muffled breath I allowed myself to take sounded loudly in my ears. Finally, we dispersed and returned to our rooms, murmuring nervously to one another that it must have been artillery. Jason picked up his computer and placed it in his lap. We both leaned back against the hard concrete wall. Steve and Bill got comfortable again and resumed watching the movie.
The next second, I was jarred to the core. My teeth rattled at the impact. Something splintered against rock and dirt in a tremendous, sickening crack. The concrete walls shuddered, and the windows vibrated violently in their sills. The muscles surrounding my heart gripped it relentlessly in one instant, released it and trembled in the next.
“Flak and Kevlar!” someone bellowed, barely getting the words out before another staggering impact knocked me away from the cot as I was struggling to stand. My knees buckled and I crumpled to the deck. Jason, Steve, and Bill donned their ballistic body armor, Kevlar helmets, and 9mm pistols.
Crack. The ground quivered again, and although the walls of the concrete structure seemed to waver, they held fast. Crack. I instinctually covered the top of my head with my forearms despite the fact that nothing was falling on me. From my hunched position next to Jason’s cot, I looked up at him.
Rule Number Two Page 2
