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FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq, Oct. 2, 2008 – Pfc. Serena Norman took some ribbing from her father and three older brothers -- all combat-arms Army veterans -- when she decided to follow their footsteps into the military. Army Pfc. Serena Norman, a medic with Company C, 589th Brigade Support Battalion, 41st Fires Brigade, tends to Iraqi children during a mission in Kut, Iraq, Sept. 19, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Bishop  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Her family expected her to be the one to go straight to college in pursuit of a medical...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — During a recent air assault operation in the Diyala province, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division medical team once again demonstrated its excellence. The group, which consisted of one physician, three physician assistants, one mental health provider, a preventive medicine officer and numerous skilled combat medics, delivered seamless and exceptional medical care, despite harsh conditions. Several of the team members flew by helicopter, carrying everything needed to set up a rapid aid station with them. A rapid aid station is able to provide immediate treatment for any injuries sustained during the early phase of an...

Kandahar tourniquet developed to save livesMonday, August 18, 2008Project Number:08-0556Kandahar, Afghanistan – Afghan soldiers can now save lives thanks to a medical prototype developed by Coalition forces. The Kandahar tourniquet, created for the Afghan National Army (ANA), will improve the survival rate of soldiers suffering serious injuries and massive hemorrhage. Imagine a dismounted infantry company mentoring team moving through a village in the Zhari District of Afghanistan. The team is weighed down with weapons, ammunition, radios, night vision devices and personal protective equipment. Every soldier is trained to deliver tactical combat casualty care and is equipped with advanced wound dressings,...

A US army medic who became a symbol of American heroism and integrity in the Iraq war has died of an apparent drugs overdose.

Today it was announced that in keeping with honoring the wounded and ill of our Armed Forces, the Silver Star Families of America will begin issuing certificates of appreciation to military medical personnel.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cristina Williams, the medical officer for Marine Wing Support Squadron 274, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), checks the vital signs of an Iraqi schoolboy here May 15, 2008. Photo by Lance Cpl. Jessica Aranda. AL ANBAR PROVINCE — Medical personnel attached to Marine Wing Support Squadrons 172 and 274 visited a local village to participate in a cooperative medical engagement here recently. CME missions are dedicated to providing health care to local nationals who lack adequate facilities while simultaneously raising awareness on the people’s health conditions to the Iraqi government.“The Marine Corps is often involved in special...

/29/2008 - ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- A single doctor, a retired Air Force colonel, arrived here without much fanfare May 18 and left four days later. He left in his wake improved sight for many Iraqis and priceless training for Nasiriyah General Hospital physicians in Nasiriyah, Iraq. He traveled with a few bags and a 50-pound box containing a microscope. A specialized, portable, eye-surgery microscope he used to treat people who may not have otherwise afforded it. He also carried 200 prescription glasses and 300 sunglasses to hand out freely to those in need. He performed his wonders at...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq, May 5, 2008 – Coalition forces conducted a medical assistance mission in Byda village, near Kut, Iraq, May 2. Capt. (Dr.) Frederico Gomez, a dentist with the Salvadoran Cuscatlan Battalion, extracts a tooth during a medical assistance mission in Byda village near Kut, Iraq, May 2, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Daniel T. West  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The mission is part of an outreach program to provide for outlying villages in Iraq’s Wasit province that have seen little or no coalition presence, said Army Lt. Col. Rob Jones, deputy team...

WASHINGTON, May 5, 2008 – As the reigning Miss Utah and as a combat medic who has deployed to Afghanistan with her National Guard unit, Sgt. Jill Stevens said her experiences as a soldier have helped her in her civilian life. In an interview on the “ASY Live” program on BlogTalkRadio.com, Stevens said her experience from November 2003 to April 2005 taking care of up to 40 patients on any given day at the Bagram Air Base medical aid station gave her the determination and adaptability that are paramount to her success in other aspects of her life. "Being...

KARMA, Iraq — A convoy of humvees, 7-ton trucks, and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles pull up to a sheik’s home. As they arrive, local citizens, already lined up, wait outside the gate to receive aid through the teamwork of the local government, Iraqi Security Forces and Coalition forces. On April 12 and 13, Marines of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, alongside Iraqi doctors, conducted a cooperative medical engagement to provide medical care to Iraqi civilians in the Gnather and Lahib villages. On the first day, Iraqis eagerly waited as Marines from Company F admitted them one at...

BAGHDAD — Shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, there was a desperate wail at the back gate of B Company’s compound in Sadr City. A woman had been badly burned and her relatives were begging for help. With little in the way of emergency services and travel hampered by blocked streets, nightly curfews and sporadic firefights, a steady trickle of Iraqis has been turning to the American soldiers here for medical care. Medics who have trained for combat have attended to a seizure victim, an infant brought in by an anxious father and a boy wounded by gunfire. On Thursday, they...

“We’d fly in under fire to save one of the guys,” says RAF pilot Dan Padbury. But as we approach he is told to hold his Chinook helicopter close by while US special forces fight the Taliban on the ground and clear the airspace for an assault by “fast air” – military slang for the jet fighters that are about to attack. The battle rages on. Meanwhile, we are kept in an extreme holding pattern. In fact, the Chinook is circling so low that you could almost stick your hand out of the open windows and touch the ground. There...

CAMP STRIKER — Over the last week, the Multi-National Division - Center combat aviation brigade has provided valuable support to the Iraqi Security Forces who are battling Shia extremists in the al Hillah area. More than 100 medical evacuation missions have been conducted to get ISF and civilians immediate medical care. Capt. Michael Kelly, aero-medical evacuation helicopter team leader with Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, flies MEDEVAC missions south of al Hillah and toward al Kut, in areas where fighting between ISF and criminal groups have picked up in recent days. “We assist enemy, Iraqi Army and Iraqi...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Working with Iraqi civilian and U.S. military medical personnel, Coalition forces in Busayefi hosted a Combined Medical Engagement March 29. “We just came into this area and we’re trying to build a relationship with the people,” said 2nd Lt. Josh Duke, medical platoon leader, 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment. More than 260 Busayefi residents, including 115 children, were treated at the makeshift health clinic for aches, pains, rashes, nausea and other minor illnesses. They were seen by two Iraqi civilian doctors or one of two U.S. Army doctors. Busayefi is an area once dominated by...

The President today spoke about the National President's Challenge. The President also met with Bahamas' Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, Barbados' Prime Minister David Thompson, and Belize's Prime Minister Dean Barrow along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He then departed from the White House to spend the Easter weekend at Camp David.Pray for President Bush -- Day 2744 The Vice President visited Afganistan today. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashviliand Thailand Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama today. Today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

Texas teen in Afghanistan becomes 2nd woman soldier since WWII to earn Silver StarBy: FISNIK ABRASHI - Associated Press |Sunday, March 9, 2008 9:14 PM PDT ∞ CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan -- A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor. Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which...

CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan - A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor. Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the...

The nation's third-highest medal for valor. Texas girl (Lake Jackson, near Houston). A nineteen year old kid (I'm allowed to say this at my age and I am not objectifying her). Under gunfire and mortar fire, she helped move wounded comrades to safety, at times shielding them with her own body. Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees. "We stopped the convoy. I...

CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan — A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor. Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, March 6, 2008 – An 82nd Airborne Division medic who hospital officials here credit with saving a French soldier’s life in November says the treatment he provided was just “simple stuff.” But there was a lot more to it than stopping bleeding and pushing fluids. As a convoy of more than 20 vehicles snaked its way through a creek bed in Tag Ab Valley on Nov. 10, small-arms and rocket-propelled-grenade fire interrupted the patrol’s five-day mission of searching for high-value targets in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province. Army Spc. Nicholas Colgin, a medic with Bravo Company, Division Special...

A touching new movie about the school and how its graduates help heal our brave wounded warriors and about some of their courageous patients... Very few folks have heard of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU-HS), but it's a place we all (including the moonbats) should know something about. USU-HS is the military school that trains MANY of the docs & nurses who treat our wounded heroes from the battlefield to Walter Reed and other military hospitals around the globe. Its main campus is located on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD....

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, March 3, 2008 – Despite advances in body armor and medicine, many soldiers would hesitate to expose themselves to a hail of bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. And not every soldier would risk his life to help a soldier from a different army. Army Staff Sgt. Joseph Peer, an 82nd Airborne Division Special Troops Battalion medic from Glendale, Ariz., deworms an Afghan child during a medical outreach event in a village near Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, July 14, 2007. Peer is credited with saving the lives of two Afghan soldiers who were wounded in Kapisa province...

Rawalpindi, 25 Feb. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - A suicide bomber on Monday struck the garrison city of Rawalpindi, killing the Pakistan army's top medic, Lt general Mushtaq Baig.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 12, 2008 – Doctors and medics here received a new tool to aid in the treatment of wounded servicemembers on the battlefield. The tool is a little too big to carry in a medic’s aid bag, and it comes equipped with armor and a crew-served weapon. The newest configuration of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle -- the MRAP ambulance -- was shown to the Combined Joint Task Force 82 staff yesterday. Having the MRAP ambulance brings survivability to the battlefield, Army Lt. Col. Coll Hadden, the forward MRAP joint program manager, said. Hadden said the vehicles...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2008 – Utah Army National Guard Sgt. Jill Stevens’ “personal combat zone” has shifted from Afghanistan to Nevada, from a minefield to a beauty contest, from combat boots to high heels. Utah Army National Guard Sgt. Jill Stevens, who is competing in the Miss America pageant as Miss Utah, plays with children while serving as a medic in Afghanistan in 2004. (Photo courtesy of Sgt. Jill Stevens)   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 24-year-old Stevens also is Miss Utah, and she is a contestant in the Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas, which will...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Jan. 11, 2008 – Afghan national security forces and coalition forces yesterday wrapped up a two-day operation that provided free medical and dental services to villagers in remote sections of the Nahr Surkh district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. An Afghan woman receives medicine from a coalition medic after a checkup. Afghan and coalition forces offered free medical and dental services to villagers in remote sections of the Nahr Surkh district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Jan. 9–10, 2008. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The combined medical team treated more than 80 patients...

CAMP STRIKER, Iraq, Jan. 2, 2008 – Today’s Army is an interdependent network of soldiers who are as unique as the jobs they do, with more than 150 military occupational specialties available to choose from. When a unit deploys to a combat zone, the soldiers within it depend on each other more than ever, along with their occupational knowledge, to keep operations running smoothly. Army Staff Sgt. Craig Sotebeer, an emergency care medic with the Medical Troop, Regimental Support Squadron, 2nd Stryker Regiment, inspects the contents of his combat lifesaver bag at Camp Striker, Iraq, in preparation for a...

RICHMOND, Va. - As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet, which could have helped control the bleeding on his wounded leg, and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath. "It really kind of frustrated me," Rose said. Once he returned to the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in...

NANGARHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 12, 2007 – Army Pfc. Sarah Becker has spent most of her year deployed as an Army medic gaining the respect of soldiers across Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. Army Pfc. Sarah Becker, 173rd Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), Special Troops Battalion, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Military Police platoon, greets local children before teaching a first aid class conducted Dec. 1, 2007, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Photo by Pfc. Daniel M. Rangel, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “It’s a very prestigious thing to be called ‘Doc’ when you’re around people that you work with,” said Becker, of 173rd...

Soldier Journals Her Run at Miss America Nov 19, 2007 BY Beth Reece Sgt. Jill Stevens of the Utah National Guard is a top contender for the 2008 Miss America competition, which takes place Jan. 26. Catch print and video coverage of Sgt. Stevens' journey through pageantry and the Army's ranks at www.army.mil/gijill Photo by Beth Reece WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Nov. 19, 2007) - One of the Army's own will take a shot at the "Miss America 2008" title Jan. 26 in Las Vegas and a new Army Web site that goes live today will follow her progress. A...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 15, 2007 – The 514th Medical Company from Fort Lewis, Wash., held the first event of a basic medical skills training series with four Iraqi soldiers Nov. 11 at Camp Liberty here. The Iraqi soldiers and their American counterparts, spent the day together reviewing proper techniques and procedures for safely moving a casualty from the point of injury to the transport vehicle and then on to the medical treatment facility safely and efficiently. The training also included each step of the basic trauma assessment that should be executed prior to casualty movement. Army Capt. Rodemil Fuentes, commander of...

Two soldiers from Alaska were among four killed in Iraq on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee, the U.S. Department of Defense said today. Staff Sgt. Carletta S. Davis, 34, of Anchorage and Sgt. Derek T. Stenroos, 24, of North Pole were serving with a unit from Fort Drum, N.Y., post spokesmen said in a written statement. They died during combat operations in Tal Al-Dahab, Iraq. Davis was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). Stenroos was assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat...

JALALABAD AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Nov. 2, 2007 – A new partnership between U.S. and Afghan doctors here is helping the Afghan physicians do a better job of treating their own citizens. Army Spc. Amy Long, an x-ray technician with Company C, Brigade Support Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, prepares to screen an Afghan man Oct. 8, 2007, at a forward operating base near the northeastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. At right, another local man sits on a litter waiting for an assessment at the 555th Forward Surgical Team clinic. Photos by Spc. Gregory J. Argentieri, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2007 – A veteran Air Force combat medic helped to transform the way wounded troops are treated and evacuated during a recent deployment to Afghanistan. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte is participating in the Defense Department’s “Why We Serve” public-outreach program. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Tech Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte recalled the previous practice when unarmed battlefield medics were flown in to treat and evacuate injured servicemembers usually after an area had been cleared of the enemy. However, DeCorte emphasized, “When you have a wounded soldier on...

Unexploded Rocket-Propelled Grenade Impales Army Private in Afghanistan By RUTH REISS [snip] One RPG skidded past Lt. Mariani's vehicle. All of the vehicles had to quickly get out of the "kill zone." But before they could get to safety, two rockets hit Pvt. Moss' Humvee. Staff Sgt. Eric Wynn, 33, the soldier in the front passenger seat, felt one slice through his face. Moss remembers the truck practically lift up. He was thrown up against the Humvee and then moved to return fire. "I smelled something smoking and I looked down ... and I was smoking," he said. Wynn turned...

VICTORY BASE COMPLEX, Iraq, Aug. 27, 2007 — Since the beginning of the war Americans have provided basic medical care to Iraqis, but more and more Iraqi medics are treating their own countrymen. Members of Task Force Vigilant, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y., coordinated with Iraqi medics and doctors to conduct a combined medical engagement outside Victory Base Complex, Aug. 24 "Today is a good day to show the Iraqi people we can help them. It is my job to help them and I am glad that I am able to." Dr. Zetad...

Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal. The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary's three authors write in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. "In medicine, you can't force treatment on a person who doesn't give their voluntary informed consent," said Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston University, one of the authors. "A military physician needs to be a physician first and a military officer second, in my opinion." As of...

A combat medic’s job is to save lives. They are armed, but their real weapons are the syringes, bandages and medicines and the knowledge how to use them if any of the soldiers they are responsible for are wounded. In Iraq it is never known when an attack will leave GIs wounded, but when on convoy duty each soldier — to include the medics — is on heightened alert, Spc. Rudy Nuñez said Monday. He is home for a two-week leave from patrolling the streets in Sadr City, a place in Baghdad that has been described by the media as...

Austin woman sought a way to connect with soldiers. In the middle of a 120-degree Iraqi day, with 40 pounds of armor strapped to his body and most of life's indulgences half a world away, Pfc. Floyd White Jr. finally realized just how sweet grape Kool-Aid can taste. Part of what made it so sweet was that it came from Central Texas. The Kool-Aid was sent by an Austin woman, a civilian, the type of person White said he sometimes feels disconnected from as a soldier. "It is an awesome feeling," he said in an e-mail, "when a soldier has...

PISMO BEACH, Calif. - As a child of 1970s California, Derek McGinnis felt that riding waves was like a birthright, and losing his left leg to a suicide bomber in Iraq wasn't going to stop him from surfing again. So, he rallied nearly a dozen other wounded-in-action amputees he met in a military hospital and brought them to one of California's last old-fashioned beach towns. For some of them, the roiling ocean was a second home. The closest others had come to riding waves were movies. McGinnis brought determination. "I have a board and (have to) make sure I keep...

8/11/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- During a 24-hour shift that began at 7 a.m. on Aug. 7, an Air Force surgeon treated 18 patients with injuries that varied from a crushed foot and multiple improvised explosive device penetrations to gunshot wounds through the thigh and head. For Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Steve Barnes, the surgeon of the day, this meant nine operations, five of which were performed on Americans, three on Iraqis and one insurgent. "I volunteered to come to Balad for both personal and professional reasons," said the trauma surgeon instructor based at Cincinnati's University Hospital in...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan, Aug. 11, 2006 — When a suicide bomber slammed and ignited his missile-laden vehicle into the Humvee in front of Staff Sgt. Eric Mathiasen, the Air Force medic exploded into action. He said he did not think about his wife or two children, or that there was unexploded ordnance lying about. He just grabbed his medical bag and sprinted toward the blast area. "While I was running to the wounded guy, I just hoped I could help him," Mathiasen said. "I just hoped I wouldn't screw anything up." He had questioned his abilities before...

8/7/2006 - FORWARD OPERATING BASE TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- When a suicide bomber slammed and ignited his missile-laden vehicle into the Humvee in front of Staff Sgt. Eric Mathiasen, the Air Force medic exploded into action. He did not think about his wife or two children, or that there was unexploded ordnance lying about. He just grabbed his medical bag and sprinted toward the blast area. "While I was running to the wounded guy, I just hoped I could help him," Sergeant Mathiasen said. "I just hoped I wouldn't screw anything up." He had questioned his abilities before this...

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo (Army News Service, Aug. 8, 2006) – The new Combat Medic Advanced Skills Training is ensuring medics understand the difference between garrison and combat trauma care. Medics at Camp Bondsteel recently participated in the new course, taught via video teleconference by the Army’s Medical Department Center and School at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. The weeklong course tested student medics through a simulated combat scenario that involved treating Soldiers wounded by IEDs and small arms fire. Qualified instructors measured medics’ skills during a culminating field exercise, and medics were also given a written test to...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi army medic on Sunday told a U.S. military hearing of the horrific scene that confronted him in a tiny home south of Baghdad where he found the naked and burned body of a 14-year-old girl allegedly raped and murdered by American soldiers. The medic testified on the opening day of a hearing to determine whether five U.S. soldiers must stand trial in the March 12 rape-slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killing of her parents and sister in the town of Mahmoudiya. It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged...

Israeli firm working on blood pack to save lives In about two years? time, Israeli soldiers may carry with them to the battlefield packets with their own powdered blood, as though it were powdered soup. A Nes Tziona-based company is working on a revolutionary product that could change the future battle field, IDF Medical ..officers say. The idea is to take a soldier's blood, freeze it in laboratory conditions, take out the ice crystals leaving only the blood components. It will look like freeze-dried coffee in a little bag, said Lieutenant colonel Amir Blumenfeld, head of the IDF medical corps?...

MANAMA, Bahrain - U.S. military medical personnel, either on standby or already aboard ships, will act as first responders in the assisted departure of American citizens from Lebanon. One U.S. Navy physician and two corpsmen from Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) Kuwait, are aboard the civilian cruise vessel Orient Queen as it ferries passengers to the safety of Lanarca, Cyprus, said Capt. Vernon Morgan, force surgeon at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain. The U.S. Air Force has also stationed one physician and two medics at the entry points where American citizens are arriving in Cyprus. A 23-member Air Force...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (June 28, 2006) -- When many people think of a field hospital, often scenes from the popular sitcom “M.A.S.H.” come to mind. For the sailors of Bravo Surgical Co., 2nd Medical Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, a field hospital is serious business. “We are setting up an mock (Surgical/Shock Trauma Platoon) you would see set up as a quick reaction force,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Michael D. Whaley, the lead petty officer for Bravo Surgical Co. “This SSTP can provide everything from surgical to basic care and ancillary services such as X-ray and...

Lawyers for some of the seven Marines and a Navy medic charged with murdering an Iraqi man are questioning the credibility of their Iraqi accusers, suggesting they may have been motivated by money or sympathy for the insurgents. The defense attorneys said they will also try to get the troops' incriminating statements thrown out. The lawyers are starting to put together their strategy now that they have been given copies of the Pentagon's investigation into the April 26 killing of Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania. Authorities say Awad was kidnapped from his home and shot during a search for insurgents....

National media medic Dr James Wright has been dealt a double whammy that could affect his charity work. Sticky-taped to the inside of the front door at Dr James Wright's extremely modest red-brick Sydney house is a crisp $100 note. It's for emergencies, to be used when some hard-luck case turns up in the middle of the night or if a charity knocker catches him empty-handed. When it's gone it is replaced with another one, taped in the same spot. You get the impression the family gets through a lot of tape. Money, the media medico explains in the excitable...