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About Military
Diaries
Military Diaries are
first-hand accounts of what it's like, on a day-to-day
basis, to serve our country as part of the U.S. military.
Through these personal journal entries, each of our contributors shares a unique voice and point of view with us.
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June 3, 2005
By Sgt. Greg Papadatos
69th Infantry Regiment
I went to bed around midnight last night. I was pretty tired, having been awake for most of the previous 24 hours. At 0700 or so, I was still asleep. My roommate, who had come back from his patrol at around 2330, had stayed up for a while, but was also asleep at that time of the morning. I woke up to a loud "boom." Our trailer was shaken, as if somebody had slammed a door, but harder than usual. I sat up, wondering if somebody had punched a wall, a Humvee had crashed into the building, or if there had been an explosion. A car bomb blast two days ago, which was over a mile away from us, had also shaken the trailer. As I was waking up and gathering my thoughts, I saw my roommate sit up, clearly thinking the same things I was.
My eyes swept past an open window, and I saw dust and smoke coming in. I pointed it out to my roommate and we both looked at each other thinking, "Oh s***! They may need us." In the time it took me to sit up, he grabbed his aid bag and bolted out the door. I followed, barefoot. Other people were out, looking around, trying to get their bearings, and I started hearing people scream, "Medic!" I darted back into my room, and heard 2nd Platoon guys shouting, "Doc! Silberstein!" (That's my roommate, the 2nd Platoon medic). I fumbled for my flip-flops, wasting a small eternity of time (maybe 10 or 15 seconds), then grabbed my small aid bag and keys, and ran out. SGT Allsop was at my door, shouting, "They need medics over there,” pointing in the direction of the Internet trailer. I told him to lead the way, and he took off like a gazelle. I attempted to follow, and ran around the next row of trailers. I could hear a lot of people shouting, "Medic!"
The Internet trailer was intact. Behind it was a tent building that I'd never been in, and had never really paid much attention to. It was, unbeknownst to me, a gym, set up and used by our artillery unit. As I found out later, it was staffed by a female civilian, working for MWR. Half of the tent was gone, both the cloth and the aluminum structural supports, and half was still standing. The concertina wire that had been around it was in disarray, with weights and debris mixed in with it, and a crowd was gathering within. I heard someone shout for a medic off to my right, away from the crowd and the tent. I turned toward the shout, asking, "Where? Show me some survivors! Where?" Some people then pointed back toward the crowd I'd just turned away from. Dorks. I found a spot to step over the wire, and made my way into the crowd.
I heard someone else shout "Medic!" I turned to see one of our line medics, SPC Phil Aubrey, running in at top speed with a full medic bag on his back. I didn't see him after that, and I didn't see my roommate until some time later.
There was only one patient in the middle of that cluster, and there were already several medics there. At first, all I could see was that the patient was black, with dark skin and a broad, flat nose (even for a black person). As I looked for a place for myself, I stepped past a civilian firefighter -- the base fire department is composed of civilians -- and he said, "I'm a paramedic." I told him, "So am I," and found a spot. I put down my bag, put on gloves, and tried to determine how I could help.
They were trying to start an IV, and I heard somebody ask for Hetastarch, so I took out mine and spiked the bag. They got the line and connected a bag of saline, which someone else had ready. They started calling for suction, but I didn't have any in my small bag. Civilian firemen passed over a portable suction unit. They called for a Combitube, and I passed them one that was on the ground at my knees, spilled out of somebody's aid bag. I passed in the syringes necessary to inflate the balloons. (The Combitube has two balloons that hold it in place.) I saw somebody trying to put an Israeli dressing around the patient's abdomen, and saw that there was a small evisceration in the area of the bellybutton. I also saw blood on the left arm, and lots of blood on the face and head.
Initially, I asked if anybody knew who the patient was. "Does anybody recognize this guy?" The part of the face I saw resembled one of our young medics. Then I heard people saying "she" and "her." Sure enough, when somebody leaned away, I saw that the patient was a woman, wearing a dark blue sports bra. I knew then that it wasn't anybody in my unit, but that didn't make me happy.
(continued)
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