Griffin, morphine, and phone calls. (530 hits)
Category: Politics -> IraqRating: 0.8 on 11 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Parkinsuns (View user info) at 2005-03-03 07:38:41 EST
A few months ago I had found myself caught in long conversation with a most interesting person. He was a veteran of the Second Gulf War, one of the first to be exact. His unit was the first to enter the land claimed by Iraqi on March 20, 2003. I noticed that he still didn't seem settled from the action as he talked about it, but the conversation led to one particular story. Of course the name has been changed, but otherwise I've attempted to recreate it the way he told it to the best of my ability.
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"Are you getting used to this yet?"
SPC Griffin, Michael A. leaned forward and shifted his helmet off one of his ears to try to hear over the pinging of small arms fire. The question was repeated in a raised voice, forcing the message across. The young medic gave a nod so transparent that anyone within a 5 mile radius knew he wasn't. Doc leaned back against the stretcher he was sitting on and laughed under his breath. Griffin couldn't help but smile, Doc's presence always calmed him when he needed it most. Doc was almost twice as old as Griffin (or simply 'G', as Doc put it), with almost infinite more experience.
Doc always joked about how screwed up the army was. When he was a medic the army saw it fit to send him to Iraqi for "Desert whatever-the-fuck you wanna call it, it was the fucking Desert". Imagining more for himself, Doc went through a Physicians Assistant (PA), then continued to work his ass off and got in medical school. The army then decided to strike again. They decided his energy was better spent in what he referred to as "Round Two".
Suddenly he his attention was fixated on a noise. Actually, there was no noise, there was surprising silence. The pings had stopped; the guns were no longer firing. All that was heard was a few quiet voices on the radio and the sound of engines idling. Doc and G looked at each other with a puzzled faces. Slowly G crawled up to the periscope to see if this battle was over.
What he saw were several humble cars were pulled off the side of the road. Some were on fire, others ridden with bullet wholes, all surely with either its passengers now casualties of war or shivering in fear on the floorboards.
A silhouette from the dunes in the distance stood up and fled towards the horizon. A three shot burst rang out, and the silhouette went down.
The convoy lurched forward. The outskirts of a town started to form around the street. By the time he sat back down, Doc was already laying down to go to sleep. G followed the example.
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Michael's company was nestled up for the night in a newly requisitioned building. The aid station was set up in record time, as the crew was becoming quite accustomed to it. The US wounded were moved in and placed on one side of the building. G helped carry the last patient in from the holding area outside. They made small talk as Griffin slowly introduced another dosage of morphine into his veins. The man's tibia may have been covered only with a field dressing and ace wrap, but he'd make it home.
Chuckles filled the room as narcotics made it easy to find funny subjects to discuss. Laughter abounded so much that G found himself getting loopy, a sort of contact high from the sprits of the men. So much in fact, that he paid little notice to the Iraqi wounded being carted in from outside. It took nearly double the amount of American injured, all moaning and crying in pain, for their noise level to demand attention. One man's left leg lay tied in a sheet next to his hip. He had burns on a bloody stump which told the tale of blast damage removing his leg. When the carriers put him on the ground, the movement caused the man to scream in pain, reaching down at air that was once occupied by his leg, as if his leg were still there.
Doc had one rule above all others. It may have been a cold rule, perhaps even an immoral one. He never refused them care, never took their injuries for less than he would anyone else's. He never saved medical supplies for a possible American casualty that might require them. His rule was much simpler than that. The enemy does not get pain control, ever.
The first guard of the patients fell on G that night. His duty was two fold; give medical care as needed to the patients, and prevent any injury to them, on both sides. Duty put him on a stool between the two groups of patients with his 9mm stuck into his hip hostler. The natives stirred constantly in pain, moaning and crying as they struggled to get some relief. The Americans, most awake from drug-induced sleep earlier in the day, talked to the guard for entertainment. In the middle of a conversation, someone from the Iraqi side shrieked in pain after attempting to move.
Without even thinking, G shot over his shoulder "Shut the fuck up, you SAND-NIGGER!"
The conscious applauded in approval, and begged for more. The guard liked the way he could entertain his patients so easily. He got up, poked a few of the Iraqi's in their barely protected wounds, resulting in cries of pain followed by babble of either cursing or prayers to end their lives. The men enjoyed the spectacle so, and even began to wake up the others to watch in enjoyment.
He continued on person to person, at first just enticing them to show their pain, and gradually began to insult them. He called them almost every insult he'd learned in his time, and always got the same reaction of a human being living through hell they could not escape from.
That was, until he found one patient, charred skin covering most of his torso, who simply wept. He may have been weeping for hours now, no real way to tell. Already with adrenaline in his veins, and the men cheering him on, the guard gathered up mucus from his mouth and spat it into the man's face. He got no reaction, the man simply just continued to weep.
"Hit him! Hit him! Kick em!" the men cheered from the other side of the room. He studied the man for a moment, His face smacked of the terrorist and supports of Saddam that had been hurting his friends ever since they entered the country.
He mumbled "Fuckin' Towel head" as he gave the man a swift kick into his ribcage. The sound of bones breaking woke the guard up from his rounds of torture. Griffin looked down at the man once more, who still only continued to weep.
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The next morning an interpreter from head-quarters visited the station to start a history of the captured. Griffin was present when the weeping man was interviewed. He wasn't an Iraqi by citizenship; he was a merchant from Lebanon. He had worked all his life to earn enough money to send his eldest son to college in Baghdad in hopes of a better life for his children. With the news of the upcoming invasion by the Americans, the man had driven down in an attempt to rescue his son from the situation.
He went to where he figured would be the safest way, to the Americans. He thought if he ran into the arms of freedom, his family would be safe. Days before he gathered his family and began driving south, towards the advance of Griffin's unit, with all they could pack into their small car. Upon seeing the convoy heading towards him, he parked on the side of the road and got out to flag down help. As he did show, the ambush took place.
During which time his car was hit by some sort of explosive round, and his family burned alive inside. He attempted to save them, but caught a round in his calf that prevented him from making it there in time. Instead of the aid from the greatest nation on earth, his family was now dead and he soon would suffer a grueling death from infection secondary to his burns. The man also endured three broken ribs but divulged no information about how he received them during the official interview.
The man was the first non-American of the war to receive morphine.
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Griffin was later screened by mental health and recommend to be shipped back with his family to receive further evaluation. He was later removed from service with honor, under the condition that he attends sessions designed for dealing with the memory of war and living a normal civilian life.
I talked to him recently, and he's doing just fine. We chatted about finding a regular job, and how he's moving on. Right as the conversation was coming to a close, the acoustics changed slightly, signaling that he had moved into a different room. In a whispered tone that I could barely make out, he said "I wish we could be what we want to be. Someday, God will forgive America."
He hung up moments later, and we haven't spoken since.
User Reviews
Submitted by Joemama (user info) at 2005-03-03 20:46:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
War has not changed much since....... Southeast Asia.
It was the same before that war, I was told,
and from what I read, its still the same-o-same-o.
War is to be avoided if at all possible.
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2005-03-03 14:51:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hoowaaa
Submitted by Val (user info) at 2005-03-03 10:35:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate the goddamn Army.
Fuck.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2005-03-03 10:14:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
It was very difficult for my grandfather to talk about his time in WWII. The feelings running through your body while in such a situation must be unparalleled.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-03-03 10:03:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Good story, well written.
Typically, when you deal with enemy wounded, there is an interpretor present.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-03-03 09:36:35 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Bull Shit
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-03-03 09:28:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
he's a fucking scumbag who deserves to die.
Submitted by Parkinsuns (user info) at 2005-03-03 09:17:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Hrmmm...I get the feeling this is going to be my least reviewed post.
O well, I'm glad somebody got some enjoyment out of it.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-03-03 08:20:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Moving
Submitted by grandturismo (user info) at 2005-03-03 08:10:42 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-03-03 07:58:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2