Canby Herald Online

Letters from Iraq

Warrant Officer Scott Anderson, 30, of Canby sends stories from Iraq via e-mail to the Canby Herald, describing how he and his fellow Oregon National Guard troops live their lives while on deployment.

• Published: 11/11/2009 10:08:08 AM
• Last Updated: 11/11/2009 10:33:51 AM

Letters from Iraq
Medevac pilot Scott Anderson of Canby with his helicopter in Iraq

This report, "A Day in the Life of a Medical Evacuation Company," is first in a series, telling of daily life for Oregon National Guard troops in Iraq. Scott Anderson, a medevac pilot-in-command with the Oregon National Guard, grew up and lives in Canby with his wife, Stephanie, and son, Anthony. He and his brother, Sgt. Nick Anderson, 27, were deployed to opposite ends of Iraq at the beginning of the year. Now, however, both are based at Camp Anaconda, 45 miles north of Baghdad

The sun begins to rise over Joint Base Balad, Iraq, around 4:30 a.m. Oregon’s soldiers of Charlie Company 7-158 will soon be pouring their coffee, drinking their Red Bulls and preparing for another work day in the 120 degree heat.  They have now settled into their routine and begun counting the days until they will be able to return home to their friends, families and loved ones. 

The learning curve from flying peace-time rescue missions in Oregon to flying combat medical evacuation in Iraq is quite steep, but the soldiers of Charlie Company have set the bar and are performing like seasoned experts.

The Oregon National Guard company first arrived in Kuwait on April 17, after spending nearly three months at Fort Sill, Okla.

In Kuwait, members of the outgoing Medevac company greeted the Oregon soldiers with open arms, and were more than helpful in assisting them with taking over the mission. 

The breakneck pace the crew worked to set up operations didn’t slow down when we took over the Medevac mission. Since we have taken over flying combat missions, the soldiers of Charlie Company have flown hundreds of missions and have transported more than 500 casualties.  The casualties have varying degrees of injuries, falling into four distinct categories: urgent, urgent surgical, priority and routine. 
Urgent and urgent surgical patients are the most seriously wounded and must be transported to a hospital within a minimum of two hours or they will most likely face a loss of life, limb or eyesight. Priority patients must be transported to a hospital within two hours or they will be upgraded to an urgent or urgent surgical status.

When the soldiers are on “first up” status, they are on alert status for 48 hours. Any time a medevac mission comes in, they have to be in the air within 15 minutes of receiving the mission. Keep in mind, it takes about 10 minutes to start one of the helicopters. They launch on all urgent, urgent surgical and priority missions. When we are on “second up” we are in a more relaxed posture, but we cover for “first up” crews during breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a 90-minute break to allow for exercise and personal hygiene. Most training flights are flown by second up crews as well. 

Routine missions are flown every night. There is a medical resource officer who coordinates the movement of the routine patients to the various hospitals in Iraq. Air crews fly from base to base picking up and dropping them off. These routine missions are usually always flown under the cover of darkness to maximize the safety of the patients and aircrews. It is much harder to hit what you can’t see. Along with flight crews, Charlie Company has a support staff that is unparalleled in its occupational specialties. From maintaining the aircraft and managing the logistical requirements to handling all the personnel actions, their support soldiers are the glue that keeps it all together.

The grueling work schedule is not the only story here. There are quite a few differences here on the base versus the bases the unit has previously deployed to, like in Afghanistan.  For example, the base here has numerous Internet and telephone cafés, allowing soldiers to contact home for free. 

Soldiers can also defeat the hot sun on their days off by going down and taking a dip in one of Saddam Hussein’s Olympic-sized swimming pools. The pool is large enough to have separate lanes for swimming laps, a water basketball court, two water volleyball nets and a three story high dive. The area of the pool is also lined with sand volleyball courts, horseshoe pits, a Frisbee golf course, and a line of barbecue grills. 
The base also has a 700-seat movie theater where they play first run movies and all are free. At the post exchange you will find a Burger King, Cinnabon, Subway and a Pizza Hut. There is also a Taco Bell down the road and they are all set up in large storage containers that you would expect to see on the back of a rail car or being towed behind a semi-truck. 

The soldiers are no longer living in tents, but rather in 12-foot-by-12-foot two-man housing units. For a fee, soldiers can have Internet hooked up in their rooms. The chow halls are also a welcome change. The food is quite good and it’s all-you-can-eat. The chow halls have the main line meals, short-order meals and a healthy bar, as well as sandwich, taco, potato and dessert bar. On your way out the door you can also stop by the Baskin Robbins man and grab some ice cream before you go back out to face the heat.  The soldiers of Charlie Company. also operate their own coffee shop, as stated above, called “The Cascade Café.”  They even held a grand opening the night of May 15.

As one of the pilots and a part-time professional entertainer, I perform a magic and comedy show for all from around the base who show up.  One might think that the Army is going to have to start fighting a new “Battle of the Bulge” with all of these comforts.  However, these amenities help with alleviating the day-to-day stress of deployments.

Although the threat is not as high as it has been years past, it is still there. Aircrews still receive tracer fire while flying at night and insurgents continue their harassing attacks on the bases with sporadic rocket and mortar fire.  Many of us were given a harsh reality check while smoking cigars outside our coffee shop when two 107mm rockets came in whistling right over our heads and impacting close enough to make our whole compound shake. 

Some of the soldiers have already been recommended for the “Combat Action Badge,” a badge signifying one who has been involved in a direct engagement with enemy forces. Medevac missions range from transporting the severely wounded, i.e., gunshot, head injury, IED blast patients, to flying urgent blood runs around the country for critically injured soldiers, down to picking up a soldier who needs emergency dental work that can’t be provided at their current location.  

Regardless of who is hurt and how bad they are hurt, the Oregon soldiers of Charlie Company 7-158 Aviation will be there to pull them out, provide them with immediate life saving interventions, and move them to a higher echelon of medical care — as simply stated in their motto, “So others may live.” 

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