I’m mostly ashamed of my service.
Was just an E-4 and later E-5 reserve medic, so I did what I was told and was a pretty good medic, though attached to a combat support hospital, not a combat arms group. My combat support hospital ran medical support operations for Camp Cropper, Abu Ghraib, and Camp Bucca; the 3 internment facilities (prisons) run by the US during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I spent probably 95% of my deployment at Bucca, middle of the desert in southern Iraq. An escaped detainee would probably die of exposure during 10 out of 12 months or so. I’m guessing. Some of my time working in the hospital, and some of it being assigned as the medic to a prison compound. Making sure every detainee had access to sick call, including dental and vision. Proper care for the elderly and diabetics and hypertensive and every other malady. This was less than a year after the big photo abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, so we were watched closely. Everyone was kinda walking on eggshells. Didn’t matter much to me, I wanted to do my work well, and go to sleep when my shift was up, I wanted zero conversations with my command and zero investigations from anyone. Fair enough, did my job and gave a lot of these detainees the best healthcare they’ve ever seen. Sometimes I treated US soldiers, Marines, airmen, and contractors, and I still am proud of my work with those guys, but that’s about it. A couple years after I left there, the whole OIF thing got shut down, and the prison operations were passed over to the new interim government. Something like that anyways. The detainees were mostly let go. Thousands and thousands of them that we neatly put together so they could introduce themselves to their new neighbors. They probably never would’ve met each other otherwise. We almost forced them to meet each other. A bunch of these guys stayed close to each other after that and formed the senior leadership of a new organization called ISIS. I helped make sure those guys were healthy. I wonder if, and how many people would have avoided horrible violence if I’d been bad at my job, or treated every sick call patient like a malingerer.
I smile and nod and say thanks when family or people from work thank me for my service, because I don’t want to get into it. I have little doubt though that there’s have been more love and less beheadings if my whole combat support hospital would’ve just stayed home.
I am proud to know there’s at least 2 soldiers that were alive in 06 that wouldn’t have been alive without my work, and I helped a lot of other good folks through issues far less deadly, but urgent nonetheless. But the other 11 months and 20 something days out of 12 months is all regret and guilt. I would’ve served my country and the world better if I had never gotten out of bed. I had no choice though. I was a specialist and briefly sergeant before my contact was up. Do my job or face UCMJ, and this following the ****show at Abu G, I would almost certainly be locked up for any abuse or neglect.
I’m not sure I’ll even really hit “ post” here. The psych doc at the VA is the only one I’ve talked to about it and he just makes sympathetic noises and throws pills at me. Nice fella though.
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