Archive for April, 2009

My R&R will be ending soon, and I will be returning to my daily routine in the sandbox.  R&R creates special opportunities for quality time so I don’t worry so much about money, which is nice.

Here I sit, in MY living room, laptop in hand, relaxing a bit.  Yes, I have made it to my mid-tour leave!  I made it home a few days ago and have done a lot of things since then, not even really seeing my house except to sleep.  The family and I have spent a lot of time together, and except for my strange sleeping habits on this side of the world (8pm falling asleep till 4am) they have had no complaints.

A MEDEVAC mission comes down, an Urgent litter.  A C-Spine fracture related to a rollover MVC.  The weather is bad, but MEDEVAC is still Amber.  Thunderstorms and blowing dust are all over the area.  Nothing else is flying because of the weather, but we take the patient.  We load the patient on my bird and eight people risk their lives to make sure he gets to the best care available.

I was perusing my older journal entries tonight and I came across this.  Its an older article dating back to 2005.  I was considering re-enlisting at that time and coming back in as a flight medic.  Since that post I have re-joined the army, been to Iraq twice, and accomplished my goal of being a flight medic.  I have also had another child and watched my first grow up some.  The comments in that article made some valid points as well.  Most have, in fact, come to pass. 

I just found it interesting to look back at what I was thinking back then and all the changes that have occurred since then.

We had a two stop MEDEVAC last night, one patient to each of the major theater hospitals north of us.  One patient had spinal and neck fractures and was being sent up there for further treatment and evacuation, the other was going for routine medical stuff.  As usual the call came right around dinner time.  We ran up the birds, loaded the patient, and were off without dinner again.  Due to the timing, we were able to squeeze in a little daylight flight though before switching to NVGs. 

I haven’t been saying a lot about what I have been actually doing since getting here.  I am not really sure why exactly.  Last time I reported from Iraq it was full of little stories and narratives about what I was experiencing.  Maybe its because the experience is so different this time compared to last time?  Maybe I don’t think its as interesting or report worthy, I don’t really know.  Anyway, I am going to give it a shot now and run down some of the things we have been doing.