Who is the Enemy

Being deployed is sort of surreal. From one minute you can go from goofing around with friends, with a levity that is almost like home (minus the gun strapped to you), to the next when you are fighting to save an arm or a face or a life. Even more unreal is trying to comprehend the objectives or thoughts of this insurgency we are facing.

Before I go off on dissertation about who actually is “the enemy”, let’s examine my day a few days ago. I will try to accompany the events of the day with chronological pictures I took that day.
The morning began very ordinarily. I woke up and went for a 3 mile run. I came back and hopped in the shower (which is much roomier than my last deployment, and cleaner; but I still fear that if I drop my soap I will never be able to reach it again), then back to my room for a QT (Exodus right now…just past the 10 Commandments), then over to breakfast.

After breakfast I read several books or articles and checked in at the hospital to see if anything was going on. All was quiet over there and back to my room I went until our lunch gang gathered and my traditional three lunch companions headed over to lunch.

After lunch we were feeling pretty industrious so we thought we would round up some wood and make a desk for an office that the officers had graciously been given to “do whatever you want to do with it”. So it became our mission to make it the coolest place in the hospital to “hang out” in….we’re not there yet. Ergo the gator and the construction hats.

We completed our project and placed it in the office (I was thankful that I didn’t cut my fingers off with the circular saw), just in time to have one of the medics find us and tell us that several traumas were coming in from an IED blast.
After evaluation of the traumas, it was determined that two of them needed to go to the OR. The first was an older gentleman that had been walking in the local market when the IED went off. He had shrapnel rip through his neck, chest and abdomen.



After we fixed him, we moved on to the next individual that had a hip fracture and his nose mostly ripped off from the same IED. We fixed him too. We then sent them to the local hospital now that they were out of the woods….so to speak.





So here comes the diatribe. What is the Taliban hoping to accomplish buy killing and maiming its own people? It is militarily incomprehensible. That is why there must be a spiritual answer. And for me, the only way to understand what is going on over here is summed up in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

The works of the IED makers and those that place them are evil! It has nothing to do with Islam. They are misled by the devil himself. They are motivated by evil. They listen to those who are evil and they are unfortunately guided by evil prophets/imams or whatever you want to call them.

Not that I believe in the Quran, but to illustrate my point that these people are not “good Muslims” I quote from the Quran itself, “The Prophet Muhammad (s) said: “Anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not harm his neighbor, and anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should entertain his guest generously, and anybody who believes in Allah and the Last Day should talk what is good or keep quiet (i.e. abstain from all kinds of evil and dirty talk).“ Sahih Al Bukhari, Vol: 8 Hadith 47.
Clearly these people don’t get it!

These people, as I call them, are still the same people that Christ came to die for. Let me never forget that fact!

Just Another Day

Today was the beginning of my second week here. This past week I began to settle into a preliminary groove. I am starting to get to know some of the personalities around the CSH. I have been introduced to some of the “drama” as well. But I believe that my daily testimony, and joy for what I do, should rub off on those around me. It seems that there has been a void or vacuum of leadership on the part of the surgeons in the CSH over the last few cycles. Now people are hungry for someone to fill that position and complete the picture of a high speed CSH. There just hasn’t been any driver at the proverbial wheel. Consider that changed as of now!
Its amazing how much the world longs for fellowship. Both religious and non-religious desire fellowship. Today a moderate sized group of us went, as is our custom on Sundays, to the Italian side of the FOB for lunch. I sat back and watched as we all ate, laughed, talked, and listened to one another. For 2 hours we all just “hung out”. Both enlisted and officers a like seemed to, for a brief period, forget that we were in a war zone. We talked about home, loved ones, music, movies, and of course “ragged on” one another relentlessly. It was also mentioned that the ICU was thinking of naming there new mascot….a camel spider that was caught in the ICU…any suggestions?
With full stomachs and smiles on our faces we loaded back up and went back to the other side. Once back at the CSH, we jumped out and scattered to each of our jobs again. But I think that each person that went to lunch was a little more confident in his or her abilities and purpose here. This is because they know the people they are working with, and who will be there with them when the proverbial excrement hits the rotating blades.
It is strange to think that this peaceful afternoon came after a hectic morning which began with a wakeup call to get the trauma team to the ED because there was a man there with bilateral GSW to the legs. After that case finished, we washed up and a few of us went to church then lunch…..just another day in Afghanistan. I feel so sorry for the Afghan people. They are killing themselves like we did in 1860. It is so sad. God please have mercy on us.

The Child

Last night sucked. We had a mass casuallty situation. A vehicle borne IED was detonated in a public place killing several and injuring eight people including a 6 year old boy, all of them afghanis. The first patient to go to the OR was a 65yo male who had shrapnel wounds in is abdomen, chest and neck. We explored his abdomen to look for any wounds, then opened his cardiac sac to make sure the heart wasn't bleeding. We then explored his neck to repair any injuries there. We then washed and closed the 30 open wounds that were made when the glass from the IED shredded his body. We finished that, then i when back to the ICU where the other surgeon was putting a chest tube in the 6yo boy. Apparently, a fragment ripped through his chest and out through his spine. When this occured, the lung on that side collapsed and simultaneously the child fell to the ground unable to walk, as the glass severed his spinal cord. Laying helpless on the ground and unable to take a deep breath to yell for help, the child rapidly started to suffocate. By the time the father who was not far away got to his boy, the lack of oxygen to the brain cased the brain to start swelling resulting in irreparable brain damage.
The father scooped the child up (the child dripping in blood from his injury) and carried him to the casualty collection point, all the while the child still could not breathe. It wasn't until the chest tube was placed at our ER that the child could then breathe. But by that point the damage was already done. When I got out of the OR to the ICU, the father was sitting by his sons bed, his traditional clothing soaked in his sons blood. The Father looked bewildered, sitting in the middle of the ICU with 5 other bleeding and burned patients in the other beds, and American ICU and ER nurses quickly and maticulously attending to the rapidly changing status of their new patients.
I walked over to the young boy with my scub cap, and OR attire still on. I placed my hand on his little foot and bowed my head and prayed. Fighting back tears, and thinking of my own son, I prayed that this was in God's hands and that he would care for this little child. I prayed that the family could recover from such a devastating loss, of which the father at this point clearly had no idea what was in store for the child. And I prayed for my family; to keep them safe. And I prayed that God would let me recover from seeing mankind's cruelty to one another.
As I opened my eyes, the child's father looked up at me and slightly bowed his head, to which I returned the gesture.
I then turned and walked over to my patient, made sure the the ventilator settings were correct and then left the room.
I still don't understand how mankind can be so cruel and thoughtless. My only comfort is in knowing that God cares for that kid and when he dies in a week or two after he leaves the care of an American hospital, that God will welcome him to Glory.

Amen