Day #42 - A Day of Mourning

This morning started off just like any other morning since my arrival here in Iraq. A few quick briefings, saw a couple of patients with minor complaints in the ER, and then headed off to the gym to try and squeeze in a quick workout. Around 10:30am there was an explosion that rocked our entire compound. As I stood in the gym I felt the shock wave pass through me and shake the building nearly knocking me to the ground. And then came the sound wave. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It was so loud that I thought a rocket may have hit on or near the building I was in. The adrenaline was pumping as I ran outside heading for the bunkers just across the street. That's when I noticed a huge cloud of black smoke rising from the ground just on the other side of our compound. After waiting for a couple of minutes to make sure it was safe I began sprinting back towards the hospital.

As I burst into the ER I was greeted by our head nurse who said we got a call from one of our units saying they were bringing in causalties but didn't know how many. We quickly began preparing for the worst as all the physicians and nurses gathered in the ER. As the first vehicle from the scene rolled up we quickly got the doors open and transfered the one patient inside to the ER. He had multiple shrapnel injuries but they were relatively minor wounds and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief as he was whisked away to the operating room in stable condition. Over the next 30 minutes were not so fortunate. The next vehicle pulled up but the faces of the soldiers inside said it all before we even got the doors open. Inside lay the lifeless body of one of our soldiers, gently being craddled by the other members of his squad. We quickly got him out of the truck and onto a litter. Two of our medics brought him into the hospital as the next vehicle was pulling up in front of the ER. Unfortunately, this same scenario was repeated again and again. Before it was over, we had pulled the bodies of five of our fellow soldiers out of those vehicles. Each time I was hoping that we would have the chance to save that soldier's life ... to do everything we could to make sure he got home to see his family again. Sadly, their injuries were so severe that we were never even given that opportunity.

Later that afternoon, the unit commander came over to the hospital and presented the one survivng soldier with a purple heart. It was a short, poignant ceremony as the injured soldier laid in his bed surrounded by his fellow soldiers from the unit. The unit commander spoke kindly of the soldiers we lost and reinforced the importance of our mission here attempting to both motivate and console those soldiers that had lost five of their breatheren today. He then turned the floor over to the injured soldier and asked if he had anything he wanted to say. He did manage to get a few words out before he broke down into tears ... "Just go out there and get those motherfuckers for me!"

It was a long, hard day after that. Just a few hours ago I watched as five caskets drapped in American flags were loaded onto a plane headed for the United States. They were finally heading back home but not in the way they and their families had imagined. Five families back home waking up to the news that they had lost a loved one today ... husbands, fathers, brothers, sons. It was a nice ceremony. One last chance for us to pay our respects to those whom had made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. And I couldn't stop the tears from welling up as I stood and watched the young men who had fought beside those killed today, embrace one another and cry for their fallen brothers.

The blast was caused by a suicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with 10,000 pounds of explosives. The driver detonated the bomb in front of the Iraqi police headquarters and next to a squad of our soldiers leaving our compound to patrol the city. I have included a few links with more information on what happened here today for those that are interested. It is amazing how fast information gets to the media. We saw the story on CNN before we even found out the details of what happened from our intel guys here in Mosul.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/10/2009-04-10_five_us_soldiers_killed_by_truck_bomb_in_mosul_iraq_deadliest_single_attack_on_u.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514022,00.html