By John Thurber

The morning of April 28^{th started like any other morning. Up, out of bed, dressed, and at the TOC all before the crack of dawn; this morning’s mission, same ol’ same ol’, battlefield circulation. Today would have me flying a "full bird" colonel up north, to Lake Dokan and back. Today’s crew consisted of CW2 Rolando Carpio (Pilot in Command), 2LT Kaci Pennington (Pilot), SGT Cliff Rodgers (Crewchief – left side) and of course, myself (Crewchief – right side). Our aircraft, LongKnife 76 (UH-60L, 00-9626865), we were to be chalk 2 of a flight of 2. After our morning Intel and flight brief, we headed back to the Bravo CP in order to grab our gear, grab a quick bite to eat, and of course, attempt to find coffee (being up that early always makes me grumpy and lack of coffee can seriously complicate the grumpiness).}

We headed out to our trusted "steed" with all of our gear, equipment, and weapons (and my coffee), just as the sun was beginning to crest the distant horizon and was bringing it’s light to our already started day. After the pre-flight checks were done and everything was stowed on board, we cranked the engines to life and lifted off into the morning sunrise. After picking up a few military and civilian passengers from Speicher 3, we headed to Tikrit, to the "Danger 1" pad at Saddam’s old palace. As we were crossing the city skyline of Tikrit, I noticed something that seemed odd to me- thick black smoke, rising from one of the city streets. Very soon would we all learn just what that smoke was from. After landing at the "Danger Palace" complex, we dropped off some of our passengers and picked a few more up, to include the colonel. After getting everyone in the back strapped in and secure, I reconnected myself to the aircraft’s ICS system, just to catch the trail end of a radio call. The call was asking if there was any aircraft in the area available to do a "Cas-evac" mission.

A Cas-evac, or Causality Evacuation, is an immediate evacuation of wounded personnel, evacuated via ground or air. Cas-evac’s are usually done by the first available means of transportation, again either via by ground or air, sorta a first come, first serve basis. Cas-evac’s are often confused with or compared to, "Med-evac". A Med-evac is a totally different mission, it involves the use of Med-evac aircraft, that of course being an aircraft that is specifically configured to carry wounded personnel, and the Med-evac always have flight medic on board as part of the crew.

After what seemed like a few minutes (actually seconds) the decision was made that we would we do the Cas-evac. Both Cliff and I began to off load all of our passengers. As we took them off the aircraft, we explained to them that we had a change in mission, and that we would be right back to get them. We climbed back in and got ready for take off. Since I had reported the smoke to Rolando, it was decided that we would be the aircraft to get pick up the wounded, for two reasons, one; I knew where the smoke was coming from, and second; because in the event that one of wounded was the unit that we were about to support’s medic, I would take over the duty of looking after, and treating if necessary, the patient or patient’s (this decision was made because back in the "real world", I’m nurse).

Once airborne from Danger 1, I called out the "rough" heading and distance to where I saw the smoke. After about 45 seconds in the air, I heard over the radio that the unit we going to assist, was "popping" smoke to mark our landing zone. I immediately noticed red smoke coming from an open field at my 2 o’clock position, about 800 meters from the aircraft. Kaci, who was flying at the time, acknowledged my call about the red smoke, and put the aircraft into a descending right turn in preparation to land the aircraft. We landed on a side street, adjacent to the field.

As soon as the aircraft settled to the ground, I hopped out and informed the crew that I was disconnecting from ICS and was going to go get the patient(s). I ran across the field we had landed next to and up to a cluster of US humvee’s. The first person I ran across was a young 2LT (I never did catch the guy’s name). He told me that they had two wounded personnel that needed to get out, one was able to walk, the other was on a litter. I asked him if they had medic available to come with us, he told me yes, and than replied to him, "ok, lets go". I grabbed one of the litter handles at my feet, and on the count of three all four us picked up the litter, and began moving back to the helicopter. As we got closer to 865, I was able to see Cliff standing the right side, guiding us in. As we came under the blades, I saw Cliff escort the one walking wounded soldier around to the other side of 865 in order to seat him while the litter team and I were busy loading the litter on board. Once the litter was on our floor, the rest of litter team departed from the aircraft back to humvees some 100 or so meters away. I collapsed the handles of the litter on my side and saw the Cliff was some difficulty with his side, so I closed the right side cargo door and went around the nose over to left side to assist Cliff. As I was helping Cliff get the handles collapsed, I noticed the young medic that had came with us. He was kid no more than 18 or 19 years old. He looked confused, shocked, scared, or maybe a little of all three at once (reminded me of the way I probably looked on my first night as a new nurse in a busy ER dealing with my first trauma patient). I leaned in, and grabbed the front of his body armor and said to him; "Stay focused, sit back here where you need to, in order to treat this guy (pointing at the litter patient), we’ll be at Speicher in less than 5 minutes." As I climbed back out of the cabin, I looked down into the eyes of the young man on the litter, I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks, and instantly I went from Blackhawk Crewchief to Nurse. Remembering one of the core values my first term instructor instilled in us, compassion for our patients. I leaned down so he could hear me, and I too could hear him, sobbing. I grabbed his hand quickly and told him that he was going to make it, that we would have him to the hospital in less than 5 minutes, he looked up and tried to smile (against the pain). When I let go, I gave him the "thumbs up" (universally known in helicopters that when the crewchief gives you the thumbs up and you give it back, you are telling us that you are ready), the kid gave it back to me as I was closing the cargo door. I saw that Cliff had already gotten back into his seat, so I ran back around the nose, plugged back into my ICS and told Rolando that I was climbing back in. No sooner than I had both feet inside, I announced that I was ready. I was still turning around and getting back on my gun when Rolando called out; "clear up, left and right", both Cliff and I called clear, than Rolando announced over the radio; "1,1 correction, LongKnife 76 is off, in route to Speicher" as we lifted off.

The flight back to FOB Speicher’s Combat Support Hospital or CSH (pronounced "cash") took less than 5 minutes. As soon as we entered Speicher tower’s airspace, we announced that we were in bound with an urgent Cas-evac, and our control tower cleared us direct to the Speicher CSH pad. As soon as we landed, we were met by a team of medics who helped us unload the litter and our ambulatory patient. While Cliff stayed with the helicopter, I walked in with the medics to the ER. I was met by the department’s charge nurse, who started flooding me with questions regarding the two patients (same questions that I’m used to asking), I gave a real brief report on what I knew about the two patients and then handed over the medic that flew with us. The medic was still somewhat in shock has to all that happened, so I explained to him to tell her everything that happened and what treatment and medications were given to each patient. As I turned to walk out of the ER, I took one look back; the charge nurse was busy writing down her report from the medic, while other nurses and two attending doctors were busy with our two wounded passengers. On my way back to the heli-pad, a medic stopped me and said "thanks", I just looked at him and said, no problem that’s what we are here for. I got back in 865, we lifted off from the CSH pad, went over to refuel, and than flew back to Danger to pick up the "displaced" passengers and continued on with our assigned mission. The rest of the day went smooth.

The next day I went on leave for two weeks, and I left knowing that the 20 minutes or so we spent that Thursday morning, quantified the whole mission to Iraq for me.

On a final footnote, the two wounded soldiers, both recovered from their injuries and returned to duty. The fatality that day was the suicide bomber who drove his car into their checkpoint.