The morning awakes. The sunlight frames a silhouette. Machines of majestic beauty line the otherwise desolate field. Machines forged for destruction. Efficient, cold, calculated, and yet mindless. Their counterparts still asleep in their bunks. Each, miles away from the serene image outside. Minutes from now they will awake and return to the union of man and machine.

Somehow, out of the chaos this chemistry creates, order will be brought to this dirty, dusty, nation, plagued by rulers both righteous and ruthless.

How? Yes

How soon is the question.

I can’t help but finally feel a sense of purpose. Years of exams on the indigent, lacking in fundamental levels of motivation to do no more than stakeout their mailboxes for a monthly welfare check, left me without reward.

Now a new dawn arises on my career. I support a patient who leaves a mark on this world. And in that mark, that shadow the soldier casts behind him as he carves a new reality for these desert people, is my contribution: the soldier’s knowledge that if he falls, I will be there. I am his support.

This buttress that I supply is riddled with a sense of obligation. Failure is not an option. For the first time in my life, falling short scares me. Not that I haven’t missed the mark on many occasions, it just that this time it counts.

As the rays of Middle Eastern light, and clouds of dust settle on these machines, I find my place amongst them. For I am the Battalion Surgeon, the medic, and “I support the line.”

This story opens as with every military undertaking, “Hurry up, it’s time to wait.”

And there we waited. In the cold outside our headquarters as we kissed, and kissed, and kissed our wives good bye.

And then inside headquarters, when we could have been outside kissing some more.

We waited at the airport.

Then at the next airport.

Oh, yeah, then another airport.

Did I mention the busses?

We waited on them too.

Twenty-Seven hours is longest damn eight hour flight that I have every been on. But we got here.

Many a book has been written on just exactly where here is. Or rather what here is.

I find it amazing how much history has been packed in the hard sandy clay beneath my feet. I walk in newly acquired boots whose leather lacks the wear that the inhabitants of this land have endured. And yet it is their turmoil, their plight, that bring my boots to their aid. By the time I leave this homeland, my boots, and myself, will have been reformed by the same environment that blows atop this surface known as The Middle East.

I missed the beautiful cities of Kuwait by about 100 miles. Instead I was planted down in a Mecca of nothing. To the north is nothing, to the south nothing, to the east nothing, and to the west another military base, then nothing. You know…you can tell a person about the desert time and time again. You can even show him pictures of the desert, and yet when he finally stands in the middle of it, he finds himself saying, “Oh shit, this the damn desert!” It brings new meaning to the term, “There’s f—king nothing here.”

I think that about sums up where I am.

Now, where am I going ?

I’ll tell you when I get there.

For now, a lot has happened in a short time. Including one very unfortunate accident. A man lost his face. Did I stutter? Because I most certainly did not exaggerate.

I have to say, I have become considerably closer to my own mortality over the past seven years. But in the last week, my mortality has gone from a quiet acquaintance who calls upon me periodically, to an alarm clock that forgot its manners, and knows no snooze.

Accidents happen…to someone else. That someone else was a Pakistani whose crime was to do nothing more than offer to help unload an M1 Abrams Tank off a flatbed trailer. The other contract worker, a Kuwaiti national was a little too liberal when letting go of the tension on the chains that held down the behemoth. The end effect was the strike of a stainless steel serpent whipping over the top of the vehicle and depriving a man of half his worldly perspective.

I was unfortunately (fortunately?) the first to respond. For all my training, I still found myself rather helpless. I was at that very moment a mechanic without a garage or a set of tools. My aid bag was without critical instruments. In hindsight those instruments would not have changed the outcome much. But still, going back to my sense that I cannot fall short, I found myself many yards away from any acceptable goal or safe zone. I did my best. I reached down a removed some debris (the remains of his jaw) from his airway, and rolled him on his side. He expressed his thanks for this by vomiting blood up my arm and shoulder. Under the circumstances I forgave him.

It seems the saddest stories have a peak of optimism just before the gut wrenching dénouement. I carried this man to an awaiting helicopter that I had called for as I arrived on the scene. For those of you that have never called in a medivac request, it usually includes a well planned out and articulated 9 line radio transmission that includes number of patients, severity of injuries, and where to land. For me, the request went more like, “Fuck the ambulance, get me a bird!” But the exact wording may have varied.

I received a report 48 hours later that the man was in stable condition and would/or was being moved to a hospital that specialized in plastic surgery, only to have that elation vanquished by the next 48 hour report that he died.

In some respects, his death was the best news possible. It’s interesting how easily one can come to accept and even be comforted by another’s demise, if their passing rids you of the more horrific idea that they may have continued to walk this earth in the shadow of morbid deformity.

I further justify his final disposition by rationalizing, that in his own faith, death during an honorable act is a privilege. One may even suggest that I should have also felt privileged to have been their during his traumatic event. For me however, “privilege” is synonymous with my mortality’s opportunity to provide a wake up call once again.

A week has gone by now and the volume of my new experiences is rivaled only by the accumulation of sand that has permeated my clothing. With the exception of the above incident, the majority of my adventure has been in learning about the lives of the men that surround me.

Regardless of their origin, education, or level of life experiences, there seems to be one underlying theme to the comradely of the American soldier. If they like you, “They’ve got your back.”

It actually brings a tear to my eye to see a group of young men joke and chastise each other one moment, only to stand fast behind each other when an outside adversary appears. So far, the enemy/dangers are role play, but in one week, they’ll transcend from the pages of ARMY briefing manuals and become the reality around which deep interpersonal relationships will form.

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