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Saturday, November 8, 2008
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The long wait BHS grad stationed in Iraq remembers a night - and a boy By SPC. TIMOTHY MUNNS
It is said that soldiers who go to war develop a bond like that of brothers and sisters; others it is said come home with a "thousand-yard stare."
I don't know about how these things come to be. I do know that there are things that only those who have gone to war far from home, family and friends can understand. While deployed to Balad air base in Iraq, I had nights like that. I feel that I should tell the story of one night, not because it was so unusual but because it was an example of a time that is hard to explain completely to anyone who has never gone to war.
I was stationed at Balad air base in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the largest military base in all of Iraq. I was there working as a liaison officer making sure repair parts got to where they needed to go. After my shift I would go over to the hospital on base and volunteer. This was the largest and best equipped hospital in all of Iraq. I would help in the ICU or in the ward with the kids and adults. I had become good friends with many of the staff; we all tried to make the best of our time working the overnight shift.
I had gotten to the hospital about midnight that night; it was just another night. About 2 a.m. the normally upbeat ICU crew was quiet and sitting around one bed with the lights low. Hours before a little boy had been riding his bicycle and was hit by a car in southern Iraq. Someone had called for a Medivac helicopter. They came and brought the boy to Balad Theater Hospital, the only place that might be able to help him. He came to us with massive head injuries. He was taken into surgery; the doctors and nurses did all they could for him. There was nothing else that could be done for him medically.
Now he lay in the ICU; above his head was a sign that read "Name: Unknown; Age: Unknown; Injuries: MVA." His heart rate had just jumped from 90 beats per minute to 178 BPM and his blood pressure was dropping. This is a scene that could be found in any ICU around the U.S., but this wasn't the U.S. This was Iraq.
We all knew that this little boy only had a short time left alive, but we didn't know his name, age or even if his parents knew he was with us and now he was about to die. All of us in the room left family and friends back home some months ago now. This little boy hurt, alone and dying now became our little boy. He was not going to be alone or unloved as he went through this. We were going to see him through this and on the way pour out as much love onto him as we could. The questions were whispered that weighed on us all. "How old do you think he is?" "Maybe 8 or 10." "Wonder if they found his parents?" "How much longer now?" "Not much." So we all sat, held his hands and we waited.
Thoughts floated back to home, to kids left back in the U.S. with loved ones. It stung now to think that our boy's parents weren't there with him. We weren't home with ours, but we had him and he was ours until he would be taken away from us. Tears are wiped away from time to time; no one speaks. And we wait. The quiet is interrupted by the alarms from the monitors telling us what we already knew; our boy was getting tired and was going to leave us soon. And we waited.
He is a strong boy, this boy of ours; he's still holding on. It's time to get something to drink or use the bathroom, or just get up and walk around. We take turns, our boy needs love; we all take turns sitting by him - hold his hand. He is loved here. His heart rate is dropping, now 140 BPM, his blood pressure is 50 over 30. Whispers of, "He's a fighter." Softly we agree. "At least this one wasn't blown up." But he's still a little boy; our little boy.
Prayers are said, lest a little boy die because no one asked God to heal him. "His finger moved! That shouldn't happen!" There is a burst of reserved hope. But all the checks tell us the same thing as the machines; our little boy is still dying. God answered us, he heard our prayers, but he was taking this one home with him away from war, away from this place and away from us. And we waited.
It is getting late now and our boy is still fighting. "How can no one know who he is or where his parents are," was said with anger. Anger, we were grieving, grieving for this little boy, our little boy, for his parents, for each other. We started sharing stories of other little boys who had come through our doors. Soon it was stories of boys and girls left back home. Then a funny story of an officer who had just left us to go back home; we all laughed. At that release of the tension, we all remembered our little boy was dying. There was guilt from the laughing. But little boys should hear laughing, and we all had to come back tomorrow after all of this. No, the laughing was good. And we waited.
Our shift was almost over now and our boy was hanging on. He was going to fight past our shift. His nurse stomped off to "make sure he had someone good" as a nurse from dayshift. Not that any of them were bad, but this was our boy and we were going to care for him like a parent. It had been a long night. Our shift was over now and we had to pack up and go back to our rooms; our boy would stay. We all did our duty; we had loved and cared for this little boy, our little boy until the end of our shift.
When I came in the next night, I didn't even have to ask about our boy. One of the staff came up to me as soon as I walked through the door. "Our boy hung on until 3 p.m." There was pride in her voice. Our boy was a strong one. In some small way we all hoped that he felt our love for him - that it might have comforted him. But this was war, and we had an ICU full of new faces that needed our best. Our hearts would hold onto the memory of "our boy."
SPC. TIMOTHY MUNNS is a 1995 graduate of Brainerd High School. Munns, now of Woodbury, is married to Sonja Fetters Munns, also a BHS 1995 graduate. They have four sons.
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