Fall Into Me and A Story From My Milsupport Friend

"Fall Into Me - Sugarland"

God you have to love and respect those dedicated medical professionals serving in some mighty bad places across this old world.

I received a humorous story from one of my milsupport people vie his wife, a blogger friend. He is a surgeon in Afghanistan in a forward operating zone.

He reports that they're busy, but doing okay. Lots of patients from the local community. At one point, all of his patients in the hospital were children with burn wounds.

His wife, a nurse, commented, “I don't know how much you know about burns, but the debridement process is dreadful. These poor kids have to go through that everyday to ensure they don't get a bacterial infection. So that's what he and the team does, and hope to God that the kids are so doped up they don't feel it.”

The team loves what everyone has been sending. Everything is a morale booster. We are not sure when he will be coming home. The 82nd Airborne has been extended 3 months. Bummer. Not sure what Medcom will do, so we will wait.

Anyway, he sent this story along.

"Last night we had an interesting patient at the clinic. He is one of the local leaders and enjoys the respect and loyalty of a large following. Injured and initially treated elsewhere, he came here by helicopter for the remainder of his care.

It was late and he was very tired but people kept filing into the clinic, each wearing the standard third-world camo with sandals. I was startled as I looked up from my examination to see some thirty to forty well-wishers, crammed Kalishnikov-to-Kalishnikov (AKA weapons) into the tiny clinic, analyzing my every move.

"Late. Him rest," I tried in my primordial Pashto.

"Yes-yes, of course," they murmured. No movement.

Now through my translator, "Tell them the man is tired and must rest. Everyone who is not family must go now."

"Absolutely... good," they agreed. Nobody moved.

They continued to watch, commenting quietly to each other. A bit frustrated, my translator made another attempt. Nothing.

Finally a well-dressed young man squeezed over to me and spoke apologetically in quiet, perfect English, "I must tell you, Sir, your patient has three wives and twenty-seven children. We are, all of us, family."