The Angel Walk
May. 29th, 2016 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barefoot_bardTitle: The Angel Walk
Rating: M (Suitable for ages 16 and above)
Disclaimers: All names given in this story are fictional and any relation to actual persons, living or dead, is purely incidental.
Story summary: A Military Policeman learns about the realities of combat medicine while on guard duty. Mosul, Iraq, 2007.
Author's Note: Any factual errors that occur within are my own. This story is inspired by tales brought home by former colleagues after their deployment to Iraq. It is, I think, a fairly fitting Memorial Day piece
The first time I saw it, I remember I had no idea what was going on. Up until the word came that a MEDEVAC was on its way in, the day had been unremarkable. Well. As unremarkable as a day on a FOB in the middle of Iraq can be. I had only been in Mosul two months when I volunteered, stupidly as it turned out, to stand guard over an Iraqi insurgent who'd been blown up by his own IED while he was laying it. It was definitely not the most exciting job ever but it was better than manning the gate. I'd already learned to hate that. So I sat outside the curtained-off bed space inside which the unconscious insurgent lay and watched the slow bustle of activity in the ER as it ebbed and flowed around me.
It all seemed dead boring at first. Not much was going on, aside from a brief airborne exchange of paper planes. Then a radio squealed with a message that brought everyone to a momentary halt to listen. An instant later, there was a controlled explosion of movement. I stayed put, watching it all with wide-eyed fascination. It was as incomprehensible to me as watching football. But everybody seemed to know what they were doing so I stayed put, safely ignored and out of the way. It wasn't like anybody really cared that there was an armed MP hanging out in the corner, anyway.
Inside five minutes, two rickshaws came in, pushed in a hurry by soldiers wearing PT belts across their chests. They were in a hurry. I stood up quickly to push my chair backward, out of the way, as the litter teams pounded past, a swarm of medical staff closing around them before they were halfway across the floor. Somebody was screaming amid the clash of quick, decisive voices. The noise moved smoothly to the trauma bay, a partitioned-off area at the back of the ER where the messy work of treating tattered bodies could be carried out in a slightly more secure environment. I stayed where I was, not sure what to do or even if I was supposed to do anything. Not that anyone so much as glanced at me as they hustled past.
The screaming stopped after a minute or two, but the collision of urgent voices, the beeping of monitors, and the clatter of equipment went on. Something heavy hit the floor and was unceremoniously kicked clear out of the trauma bay, where it wouldn't be underfoot. It was a boot, I noticed. Just one boot. What the hell? Where was the other one? I stared at the boot for a long moment before noticing it was stained with blood. My stomach shrank a little when I realised that part of it was also missing. Shit. I pulled the chair back into the aisle and sat heavily down. I hadn't expected that.
"X-ray! Stand clear, X-ray!" There was a pause, followed by a long beep, then the din of voices began again. A soldier in scrubs hustled out of the trauma bay and disappeared through the doors at the back of the ER. He was back in two minutes carrying two X-ray plates. Throughout all of this, I sat in bewildered silence, my rifle between my knees, trying to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing. Nobody could tell me for sure what was going on. For that matter, nobody seemed inclined to talk to me at all unless I address them directly. Only two medics and a PAD tech were unoccupied, seemingly deliberately so. The senior medic eventually told me, when I asked him, that the two patients were Marines who'd been blown up in Al-Asad.
One of the Marines emerged from the trauma bay after a while, covered with bandages and doped all up with morphine. He was wheeled to a bedspace further down the ER and left there, the monitors attached to him gently beeping. The senior medic busied himself over there and didn't come my way again. The other medic and the PAD tech stayed where they were as well, but they were absorbed with discussing something on a laptop screen at the desk in the middle of the ER. How they could be so oblivious to what was going on confused the hell out of me. For that matter, why weren't they in there helping? There was a US Marine fighting for his life in the trauma bay and these troopers were acting like nothing was going on at all.
I looked in on the would-be IED layer I was guarding but he was completely spaced out. He wasn't going anywhere for a while. So I, needing to do something, stood up, chow-slung my rifle, and made myself walk across the floor to the folding table on which all the necessary materials for making coffee were laid out. It was funny, I supposed, that I too was acting like everything was normal. But in my defence, I guess I felt obliged to put on an act so I didn't stand out. For sure, I felt like a turd for pouring myself a cup of coffee when a few feet away, there was a life and death struggle going on. It could not be normal. It felt so disrespectful. But I did it anyway, even though I had no intention at all of drinking this coffee. It just... I don't know. Except that I think doing this was better than sitting over there and doing nothing.
Boots slapped hard over the tile floor and I looked up in time to see a PFC with blood all over her ACUs, down even to her boots, come flying out of the trauma bay, a crumpled piece of paper in hand. She galloped down the length of the ER and out through the doors at the far end in less than ten seconds. Her passage caused the others to look up briefly from their respective distractions, though I noted that the senior medic ducked his head back to his charting with a slight shrug. The other medic and the PAD tech, on the other hand, cut their own work short and stood up, the PAD tech doing so with a sigh.
"Better get the Reaper packet, I guess," he said, picking up his soft cap. Without a further word, he left the ER, using the same door through which the blood-covered medic had gone. I stared after him for a moment, feeling confused and increasingly uneasy. Something was clearly not right. The atmosphere in the ER was suddenly chilly despite the ongoing din from the trauma bay. As I thought about it, I figured out why. It was so obvious. A medic sprinting out of a trauma bay, covered in blood. A PAD tech abruptly departing as well, off to get 'the Reaper's packet'. What was I, stupid?
"Is he gonna make it?" I asked the junior medic, who had come to the coffee table to make himself a cup.
"Make a hole!" The blood-covered medic bellowed, racing back into the ER with a careless bang of the door and the thunder of boots on tile. She clutched a red Coleman travel cooler that was plastered with biohazard stickers. She barreled straight up the floor and into the trauma bay, yelling "Blood!" as she went.
The junior medic coolly poured the industrial-strength coffee into a large paper cup and sighed. "Probably not," he replied. He dumped a liberal amount of sugar into the cup, gave it a stir, and wandered away.
Probably not. I shuddered. The disinterested tone in which he'd spoken disturbed me as much as the reality that the Marine was not expected to live to see tomorrow. How could anyone be so callous? Wasn't this a hospital, where the providers of care were supposed to care? I looked around the ER and didn't see much that convinced me that anyone here did actually give a shit. It was unbelieveable. Weren't these people supposed to be the best medical practitioners in the US Army?
The PAD tech was back, carrying a thin manilla folder. He was also now wearing blue Nitrile gloves. Without a word or a glance around, he too disappeared into the trauma bay. I looked around the room again and noticed that the two medics were huddled up in the bedspace the first Marine had been taken to and were talking in hushed tones. I couldn't make out the words. But did it even matter? I was already determined never again to volunteer to stand guard over a wounded insurgent again. Not if doing so meant being here.
Boots scuffed sharply over the tile floor and a raspy voice, pitched strangely low, barked out, "ER! Atten-huh!"
I brought my heels together with a thump immediately, reacting out of sheer instinct. It was then that I realised the trauma bay was now utterly silent. No voices, no beeping, nothing. Down the ER, the two medics were standing at attention in front of the wounded Marine's gurney, squarely blocking his view of the aisle. The curtains around his bed had also been drawn closed. When had that happened? More to the point, what did it mean?
A second later, I got my answer. The first person to emerge from the trauma bay was a nurse in a heavily-splattered plastic gown. She marched rather than walked and her face, I saw, was pinched and red. Behind her came a rickshaw, guided by two medics at either end. The rickshaw was covered by a green wool Army-issue blanket with the U.S. stamp in the middle facing upward. Nobody needed to tell me what was under there. Just like nobody needed to tell me - or anyone else - what to do next.
Even though I was already at attention, I straightened my back. My right arm flexed, coming up at a slow and measured pace until my hand was at the level of my ear, the extended fingers angled just right so the very tip of my middle finger just touched the end of my eyebrow. I was not the only one. As the rickshaw rolled slowly through the ER, the two medics standing in front of the wounded Marine's bed likewise saluted, just as slowly and precisely as I had. The rickshaw passed through the doors at the far end and then was gone, and just as slowly and precisely, we dropped our salutes. I couldn't say exactly how I felt in that moment, as I relaxed my stance. This was something I'd never experienced before. I did know, though, that I didn't like this indescribable feeling and I'd be happy as hell if I never felt it again.
"Hey. Is that anyone's?"
I jolted slightly and turned. A chubby doctor was looking at me and pointing at my coffee cup, which was still on the table behind me.
"Uh - " I began, but the doctor was already grabbing the cup, obviously not interested in whatever I might give him for an answer. He had walked off before I could protest. But, as I watched, he took the cup over to a nurse who was sitting on the floor in an empty litter bay, still wearing her protective plastic gown. She was surrounded by a medic, two other nurses, and the doctor, the latter offering her the coffee cup. There were tears streaming down the nurse's face, I realised, but she made no sound normally associated with somebody who was crying. She simply clutched the coffee cup while the medic carefully used a pair of scissors to cut the plastic gown off her. In only a second, the gown was gone and one of the crouching nurses hugged her friend. The coffee spilled but nobody noticed.
I watched, transfixed. This was not at all what I'd expected, whether to see or to feel. Tears began to well up in my own eyes as the reality of everything began to set in. Keep it together, Shannon, I told myself, but it was useless. A Marine had died. The team who had tried to save him were grieving now because they had not. I'd had no part in any of it. And yet, suddenly, I felt as thought I too was somehow responsible for the failure. I too felt that same yawning sense of defeat and loss as they did. One of our own was gone and there was nothing any of us could do about it now but mourn.
"Hey trooper. Dupree? You supposed to be guarding Ahkmed over there?"
"Uh - yes, sir."
The nurse who'd addressed me jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Then get your ass back over there and guard him. This is an ER, not a sideshow."
I moved, unslinging my rifle before reclaiming my place on the hard plastic chair outside the Iraqi's bedspace. Tears were starting to trickle down my face now, though, so I stood up again and shoved the chair into the bedspace itself. All I wanted was to hide behind that curtain, which seemed like the greatest barrier in the world to me just then. I couldn't help replaying the last few minutes in my mind and the tears just kept coming. I swiped them away at first, but then gave in and just let them fall. There was no making them stop. Not until, finally, my eyes felt as dried out as the desert that surrounded the FOB.
Later, I learned that what I'd seen was called, unofficially, the Angel Walk. It always went that way, every time a servicemember died in the hospital. It didn't mattered what country or nationality or branch of service. Each uniformed casualty received the same respect. It was a mark of how deeply the medical teams cared. I respected them hugely for that, and for how they could do it again, and again, and again, without losing an ounce of their motivation. How did they do it? I didn't know. But theirs was a strength that I, PFC Shannon Dupree, did not have.
I did not volunteer for another shift like that again. I couldn't. Once, I decided, was enough.
Rating: M (Suitable for ages 16 and above)
Disclaimers: All names given in this story are fictional and any relation to actual persons, living or dead, is purely incidental.
Story summary: A Military Policeman learns about the realities of combat medicine while on guard duty. Mosul, Iraq, 2007.
Author's Note: Any factual errors that occur within are my own. This story is inspired by tales brought home by former colleagues after their deployment to Iraq. It is, I think, a fairly fitting Memorial Day piece
The first time I saw it, I remember I had no idea what was going on. Up until the word came that a MEDEVAC was on its way in, the day had been unremarkable. Well. As unremarkable as a day on a FOB in the middle of Iraq can be. I had only been in Mosul two months when I volunteered, stupidly as it turned out, to stand guard over an Iraqi insurgent who'd been blown up by his own IED while he was laying it. It was definitely not the most exciting job ever but it was better than manning the gate. I'd already learned to hate that. So I sat outside the curtained-off bed space inside which the unconscious insurgent lay and watched the slow bustle of activity in the ER as it ebbed and flowed around me.
It all seemed dead boring at first. Not much was going on, aside from a brief airborne exchange of paper planes. Then a radio squealed with a message that brought everyone to a momentary halt to listen. An instant later, there was a controlled explosion of movement. I stayed put, watching it all with wide-eyed fascination. It was as incomprehensible to me as watching football. But everybody seemed to know what they were doing so I stayed put, safely ignored and out of the way. It wasn't like anybody really cared that there was an armed MP hanging out in the corner, anyway.
Inside five minutes, two rickshaws came in, pushed in a hurry by soldiers wearing PT belts across their chests. They were in a hurry. I stood up quickly to push my chair backward, out of the way, as the litter teams pounded past, a swarm of medical staff closing around them before they were halfway across the floor. Somebody was screaming amid the clash of quick, decisive voices. The noise moved smoothly to the trauma bay, a partitioned-off area at the back of the ER where the messy work of treating tattered bodies could be carried out in a slightly more secure environment. I stayed where I was, not sure what to do or even if I was supposed to do anything. Not that anyone so much as glanced at me as they hustled past.
The screaming stopped after a minute or two, but the collision of urgent voices, the beeping of monitors, and the clatter of equipment went on. Something heavy hit the floor and was unceremoniously kicked clear out of the trauma bay, where it wouldn't be underfoot. It was a boot, I noticed. Just one boot. What the hell? Where was the other one? I stared at the boot for a long moment before noticing it was stained with blood. My stomach shrank a little when I realised that part of it was also missing. Shit. I pulled the chair back into the aisle and sat heavily down. I hadn't expected that.
"X-ray! Stand clear, X-ray!" There was a pause, followed by a long beep, then the din of voices began again. A soldier in scrubs hustled out of the trauma bay and disappeared through the doors at the back of the ER. He was back in two minutes carrying two X-ray plates. Throughout all of this, I sat in bewildered silence, my rifle between my knees, trying to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing. Nobody could tell me for sure what was going on. For that matter, nobody seemed inclined to talk to me at all unless I address them directly. Only two medics and a PAD tech were unoccupied, seemingly deliberately so. The senior medic eventually told me, when I asked him, that the two patients were Marines who'd been blown up in Al-Asad.
One of the Marines emerged from the trauma bay after a while, covered with bandages and doped all up with morphine. He was wheeled to a bedspace further down the ER and left there, the monitors attached to him gently beeping. The senior medic busied himself over there and didn't come my way again. The other medic and the PAD tech stayed where they were as well, but they were absorbed with discussing something on a laptop screen at the desk in the middle of the ER. How they could be so oblivious to what was going on confused the hell out of me. For that matter, why weren't they in there helping? There was a US Marine fighting for his life in the trauma bay and these troopers were acting like nothing was going on at all.
I looked in on the would-be IED layer I was guarding but he was completely spaced out. He wasn't going anywhere for a while. So I, needing to do something, stood up, chow-slung my rifle, and made myself walk across the floor to the folding table on which all the necessary materials for making coffee were laid out. It was funny, I supposed, that I too was acting like everything was normal. But in my defence, I guess I felt obliged to put on an act so I didn't stand out. For sure, I felt like a turd for pouring myself a cup of coffee when a few feet away, there was a life and death struggle going on. It could not be normal. It felt so disrespectful. But I did it anyway, even though I had no intention at all of drinking this coffee. It just... I don't know. Except that I think doing this was better than sitting over there and doing nothing.
Boots slapped hard over the tile floor and I looked up in time to see a PFC with blood all over her ACUs, down even to her boots, come flying out of the trauma bay, a crumpled piece of paper in hand. She galloped down the length of the ER and out through the doors at the far end in less than ten seconds. Her passage caused the others to look up briefly from their respective distractions, though I noted that the senior medic ducked his head back to his charting with a slight shrug. The other medic and the PAD tech, on the other hand, cut their own work short and stood up, the PAD tech doing so with a sigh.
"Better get the Reaper packet, I guess," he said, picking up his soft cap. Without a further word, he left the ER, using the same door through which the blood-covered medic had gone. I stared after him for a moment, feeling confused and increasingly uneasy. Something was clearly not right. The atmosphere in the ER was suddenly chilly despite the ongoing din from the trauma bay. As I thought about it, I figured out why. It was so obvious. A medic sprinting out of a trauma bay, covered in blood. A PAD tech abruptly departing as well, off to get 'the Reaper's packet'. What was I, stupid?
"Is he gonna make it?" I asked the junior medic, who had come to the coffee table to make himself a cup.
"Make a hole!" The blood-covered medic bellowed, racing back into the ER with a careless bang of the door and the thunder of boots on tile. She clutched a red Coleman travel cooler that was plastered with biohazard stickers. She barreled straight up the floor and into the trauma bay, yelling "Blood!" as she went.
The junior medic coolly poured the industrial-strength coffee into a large paper cup and sighed. "Probably not," he replied. He dumped a liberal amount of sugar into the cup, gave it a stir, and wandered away.
Probably not. I shuddered. The disinterested tone in which he'd spoken disturbed me as much as the reality that the Marine was not expected to live to see tomorrow. How could anyone be so callous? Wasn't this a hospital, where the providers of care were supposed to care? I looked around the ER and didn't see much that convinced me that anyone here did actually give a shit. It was unbelieveable. Weren't these people supposed to be the best medical practitioners in the US Army?
The PAD tech was back, carrying a thin manilla folder. He was also now wearing blue Nitrile gloves. Without a word or a glance around, he too disappeared into the trauma bay. I looked around the room again and noticed that the two medics were huddled up in the bedspace the first Marine had been taken to and were talking in hushed tones. I couldn't make out the words. But did it even matter? I was already determined never again to volunteer to stand guard over a wounded insurgent again. Not if doing so meant being here.
Boots scuffed sharply over the tile floor and a raspy voice, pitched strangely low, barked out, "ER! Atten-huh!"
I brought my heels together with a thump immediately, reacting out of sheer instinct. It was then that I realised the trauma bay was now utterly silent. No voices, no beeping, nothing. Down the ER, the two medics were standing at attention in front of the wounded Marine's gurney, squarely blocking his view of the aisle. The curtains around his bed had also been drawn closed. When had that happened? More to the point, what did it mean?
A second later, I got my answer. The first person to emerge from the trauma bay was a nurse in a heavily-splattered plastic gown. She marched rather than walked and her face, I saw, was pinched and red. Behind her came a rickshaw, guided by two medics at either end. The rickshaw was covered by a green wool Army-issue blanket with the U.S. stamp in the middle facing upward. Nobody needed to tell me what was under there. Just like nobody needed to tell me - or anyone else - what to do next.
Even though I was already at attention, I straightened my back. My right arm flexed, coming up at a slow and measured pace until my hand was at the level of my ear, the extended fingers angled just right so the very tip of my middle finger just touched the end of my eyebrow. I was not the only one. As the rickshaw rolled slowly through the ER, the two medics standing in front of the wounded Marine's bed likewise saluted, just as slowly and precisely as I had. The rickshaw passed through the doors at the far end and then was gone, and just as slowly and precisely, we dropped our salutes. I couldn't say exactly how I felt in that moment, as I relaxed my stance. This was something I'd never experienced before. I did know, though, that I didn't like this indescribable feeling and I'd be happy as hell if I never felt it again.
"Hey. Is that anyone's?"
I jolted slightly and turned. A chubby doctor was looking at me and pointing at my coffee cup, which was still on the table behind me.
"Uh - " I began, but the doctor was already grabbing the cup, obviously not interested in whatever I might give him for an answer. He had walked off before I could protest. But, as I watched, he took the cup over to a nurse who was sitting on the floor in an empty litter bay, still wearing her protective plastic gown. She was surrounded by a medic, two other nurses, and the doctor, the latter offering her the coffee cup. There were tears streaming down the nurse's face, I realised, but she made no sound normally associated with somebody who was crying. She simply clutched the coffee cup while the medic carefully used a pair of scissors to cut the plastic gown off her. In only a second, the gown was gone and one of the crouching nurses hugged her friend. The coffee spilled but nobody noticed.
I watched, transfixed. This was not at all what I'd expected, whether to see or to feel. Tears began to well up in my own eyes as the reality of everything began to set in. Keep it together, Shannon, I told myself, but it was useless. A Marine had died. The team who had tried to save him were grieving now because they had not. I'd had no part in any of it. And yet, suddenly, I felt as thought I too was somehow responsible for the failure. I too felt that same yawning sense of defeat and loss as they did. One of our own was gone and there was nothing any of us could do about it now but mourn.
"Hey trooper. Dupree? You supposed to be guarding Ahkmed over there?"
"Uh - yes, sir."
The nurse who'd addressed me jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Then get your ass back over there and guard him. This is an ER, not a sideshow."
I moved, unslinging my rifle before reclaiming my place on the hard plastic chair outside the Iraqi's bedspace. Tears were starting to trickle down my face now, though, so I stood up again and shoved the chair into the bedspace itself. All I wanted was to hide behind that curtain, which seemed like the greatest barrier in the world to me just then. I couldn't help replaying the last few minutes in my mind and the tears just kept coming. I swiped them away at first, but then gave in and just let them fall. There was no making them stop. Not until, finally, my eyes felt as dried out as the desert that surrounded the FOB.
Later, I learned that what I'd seen was called, unofficially, the Angel Walk. It always went that way, every time a servicemember died in the hospital. It didn't mattered what country or nationality or branch of service. Each uniformed casualty received the same respect. It was a mark of how deeply the medical teams cared. I respected them hugely for that, and for how they could do it again, and again, and again, without losing an ounce of their motivation. How did they do it? I didn't know. But theirs was a strength that I, PFC Shannon Dupree, did not have.
I did not volunteer for another shift like that again. I couldn't. Once, I decided, was enough.