This story resonates deeply with me. In 2004, my combat support hospital was sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to support the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For 12 months, I worked in the ICU alongside some of the finest soldiers I have ever known. We cared for the worst injuries you could sustain in war and yet still somehow be alive. We saw many, many broken bodies. We were also the first stop along the medical evacuation pathway that families could be present to see their injured loved ones. The only caveat was we only brought over families of soldiers that were still to sick to transport back stateside…or for wounded soldiers we knew were going to die despite our efforts. I watched the tears fall from the eyes of fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, and children over that long awful year. The crying still haunts me, even now. The tears of a little girl who said “I want my daddy to get better” are seared so deep into my heart that my eyes water every time I play that memory in my head. Listening to a father cry for 3 hours straight at the bedside of his braindead son laid low by a landmine and vehicle crash. Watching a mother hold the hand of her son and cry those final tears as we withdrew life support. It was a rough year. Much like Ishi in your story, we never spent a single day in a combat zone during that mobilization. Yet many of us came home with deep emotional wounds we were embarrassed or ashamed to speak about. Not much later, myself and many of us in our unit found ourselves in Afghanistan neck deep in combat casualties for another long and turbulent year. It was only after that deployment that I felt I could talk about what happened in Germany, like I had finally paid some debt that I owed. It was faulty thinking. You don’t have be shot at or jump into bunkers to feel the full impact of war. That was a lesson I needed to learn in my life. Just like Ishi did. Thank you for this story Lucas. I look forward to what you share next.
Damn, Lucas.. I've enjoyed every one of your writings so far that I've read. You make your characters real people and ones I can connect with immediately. I've never served, but I've always had an affinity for military people, probably because my father introduced my to military history and fiction at an early age.
This story resonates deeply with me. In 2004, my combat support hospital was sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to support the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For 12 months, I worked in the ICU alongside some of the finest soldiers I have ever known. We cared for the worst injuries you could sustain in war and yet still somehow be alive. We saw many, many broken bodies. We were also the first stop along the medical evacuation pathway that families could be present to see their injured loved ones. The only caveat was we only brought over families of soldiers that were still to sick to transport back stateside…or for wounded soldiers we knew were going to die despite our efforts. I watched the tears fall from the eyes of fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, and children over that long awful year. The crying still haunts me, even now. The tears of a little girl who said “I want my daddy to get better” are seared so deep into my heart that my eyes water every time I play that memory in my head. Listening to a father cry for 3 hours straight at the bedside of his braindead son laid low by a landmine and vehicle crash. Watching a mother hold the hand of her son and cry those final tears as we withdrew life support. It was a rough year. Much like Ishi in your story, we never spent a single day in a combat zone during that mobilization. Yet many of us came home with deep emotional wounds we were embarrassed or ashamed to speak about. Not much later, myself and many of us in our unit found ourselves in Afghanistan neck deep in combat casualties for another long and turbulent year. It was only after that deployment that I felt I could talk about what happened in Germany, like I had finally paid some debt that I owed. It was faulty thinking. You don’t have be shot at or jump into bunkers to feel the full impact of war. That was a lesson I needed to learn in my life. Just like Ishi did. Thank you for this story Lucas. I look forward to what you share next.
-Shawn
Damn, Lucas.. I've enjoyed every one of your writings so far that I've read. You make your characters real people and ones I can connect with immediately. I've never served, but I've always had an affinity for military people, probably because my father introduced my to military history and fiction at an early age.