As The Sparks Fly Upward

Dave Van Echo is a former colleague of mine back at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and is currently a staff physician there, in the Hematology-Oncology Service. Although there are only around 25 Army Oncologists, it just happens that 3 of us are in Iraq, actually fairly close to each other. Dave is on a different FOB, and he wrote the following in response to my “Day In The Life” segments. I include it here, because it adds some genuine insight into the life of a military doctor in post-surge Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

SUBJECT: embrace the sand

DATE: March 21, 2008

Erik,

Welcome to the desert. Tanya told me you are here and mentioned your blog. I looked at it once but it hits too close to home, so I won’t be reading it again.

I’m loacted at FOB XXX, at a level II TMC co-located with a FST. Our sick call is not as busy as yours and Tanya’s so I do get to the d-fac 3 times a day. I think the higher-ups have discovered this so when our unit leaves we might be replaced with a level I + FST. The clinic is in a renovated 1-story building that was probably the hospital on the former Iraqi airbase. We all live in the hospital—at least I rate a private room since I am the highest ranking member of the company.

Our FOB is commanded by an American Army HQ element, but the coalition forces outnumber us 3:1. Georgians (both Republic of and State of), El Salvadorans, Poles, Lithuanians, Kazaks, and Romanians dominate the place. I don’t think even a Marine could stop a 280 lb. Georgian taking food from the d-fac. And their military health standards are somewhat looser than ours so we do occasionally see some real medicine pathology in the clinic.

All the essentials for life are located within a 1 square mile area but there is still enough open space that the occassional rocket doesn’t hit anything important. Coffee shops, barbers, theaters, and pools are still a pipe dream, but our pharmacy has been augmented to include as many different antidepressants as antibiotics to keep the natives pacified.

Try to stay happy and just give in to the sand. It will win.

Then, after an e-mail request by me to publish the above:

Yeah, feel free to post this on your blog. You may use my name. I find other docs’ stories fascinating, too. You never know where a subspecialty career in the Army will take you.

I may only be in country for 5 months, much to my family’s delight. The position was a 15-month assignment started by another doc who managed to convince his command on both sides of the ocean to let him come back early to resume some research. By the time it was approved and I got over here, the unit had only 5 months left in its deployment. I’m the senior physician in the C/26 Brigade Support Battallion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. In actual fact we are not supporting the 2BCT, 3ID because they are located closer to Baghdad. In the modern Army method of bastardizing units, the C Med Company was sent off into the hinterlands to support the coalition forces and other US units operating in Wasit province. It’s nice to be in a line unit, though — the administrative procedures run much more favorably for us then they do for our MEDCOM-controlled FST neighbors.

My brother is a proud member of the brainwashed Marines so I have a little insight into their behavior. It’s not personal. They have no respect for any medical personnel, or anyone who is not a Marine for that matter, unless you can hump a ruck farther and faster than they. I once heard them refer to a certain Navy Admiral as a boat driver whose only purpose was to deliver Marines to the fight. Let them try to fight without us, I say.

Dave

Dave’s comment about the Marines above was in response to my observation that on Al Asad, many Marines have been here a long time, and thus have gotten pretty complacent. Some are not very respectful of officers, and many are downright disrespectful of my medics, even when outranked. This was a rather great surprise to me, as my experience in the states has been very different. The Marines I’d previously met had impeccable military demeanor—the type of servicemen who just naturally use “sir” for roughly every other word in a sentence spoken to an officer. This is still true of many here on Al Asad, but there are more bad-apple Marines here than I had seen elsewhere.

This brings up a general theme in the military, one which is pretty simple to understand, and widely pervasive, not just among the Marines. It is the general disdain of the fighters (those who regularly go off the base on “missions,” wherein they may very well be risking their lives) for the medical personnel and others who stay on post most or all of the time. There is a derogatory (but hilarious) term for those who rarely/never leave the safety of the Forward Operating Base: they (we, actually, for I am one of them) are known as “Fobbits.” In further proof that the best new words are coined from the bottom up, rather than the other way around, this is a nearly perfect amalgam of the Tolkien creatures (Hobbits, who, you recall, never wanted to leave the Shire and face the big bad world outside), the acronym “FOB,” and the fact that the Fobbits tend to be a bit fatter and softer than the rest of the group (again, like Tolkien’s “little people”).

But most of us Fobbits have absolutely no choice in the matter. My predecessor, MAJ Kep Davis, was not ever allowed to leave Al Asad, and so spent his entire 6 months within a certain 1-mile radius. It is likely to be the same for me. I still owe the Army three years, and I’m pretty sure that they want to get those three years out of me. And our clinic, of course, serves an essential role on the post, and we are open 7 days a week, so we clearly need to stick around. And I have found that a brief, sharp reminder that my clinic staff and I will be respected, usually sets an errant servicemember on the right path pretty quickly.

TECHNICAL NOTE: Our internet has been up and down (mostly down) for the past 15 hours or so, and this may continue. If you don’t see a post from me, know that there is probably one queued up, just waiting for a conduit to the site. This happened last night, and thus you are getting this belated post today. Coming soon: some pictures from my trip to an actual desert oasis. (Don’t worry, mom. It’s right here on the FOB.)