Attack on Camp Liberty

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I went to bed around midnight last night. I was pretty tired, having been awake for most of the previous 24 hours. At 0700 or so, I was still asleep. My roommate, who had come back from his patrol at around 2330, had stayed up for a while, but was also asleep at that time of the morning.

I woke up to a loud "boom." Our trailer was shaken, as if somebody had slammed a door, but harder than usual. I sat up, wondering if somebody had punched a wall, a Humvee had crashed into the building, or if there had been an explosion. A car bomb blast two days ago, which was over a mile away from us, had also shaken the trailer. As I was waking up and gathering my thoughts, I saw my roommate sit up, clearly thinking the same things I was.

My eyes swept past an open window, and I saw dust and smoke coming in. I pointed it out to my roommate and we both looked at each other thinking, "Oh s***! They may need us." In the time it took me to sit up, he grabbed his aid bag and bolted out the door. I followed, barefoot. Other people were out, looking around, trying to get their bearings, and I started hearing people scream, "Medic!" I darted back into my room, and heard 2nd Platoon guys shouting, "Doc! Silberstein!" (That's my roommate, the 2nd Platoon medic). I fumbled for my flip-flops, wasting a small eternity of time (maybe 10 or 15 seconds), then grabbed my small aid bag and keys, and ran out. SGT Allsop was at my door, shouting, "They need medics over there,” pointing in the direction of the Internet trailer. I told him to lead the way, and he took off like a gazelle. I attempted to follow, and ran around the next row of trailers. I could hear a lot of people shouting, "Medic!"

The Internet trailer was intact. Behind it was a tent building that I'd never been in, and had never really paid much attention to. It was, unbeknownst to me, a gym, set up and used by our artillery unit. As I found out later, it was staffed by a female civilian, working for MWR. Half of the tent was gone, both the cloth and the aluminum structural supports, and half was still standing. The concertina wire that had been around it was in disarray, with weights and debris mixed in with it, and a crowd was gathering within. I heard someone shout for a medic off to my right, away from the crowd and the tent. I turned toward the shout, asking, "Where? Show me some survivors! Where?" Some people then pointed back toward the crowd I'd just turned away from. Dorks. I found a spot to step over the wire, and made my way into the crowd.

I heard someone else shout "Medic!" I turned to see one of our line medics, SPC Phil Aubrey, running in at top speed with a full medic bag on his back. I didn't see him after that, and I didn't see my roommate until some time later.

There was only one patient in the middle of that cluster, and there were already several medics there. At first, all I could see was that the patient was black, with dark skin and a broad, flat nose (even for a black person). As I looked for a place for myself, I stepped past a civilian firefighter -- the base fire department is composed of civilians -- and he said, "I'm a paramedic." I told him, "So am I," and found a spot. I put down my bag, put on gloves, and tried to determine how I could help.

They were trying to start an IV, and I heard somebody ask for Hetastarch, so I took out mine and spiked the bag. They got the line and connected a bag of saline, which someone else had ready. They started calling for suction, but I didn't have any in my small bag. Civilian firemen passed over a portable suction unit. They called for a Combitube, and I passed them one that was on the ground at my knees, spilled out of somebody's aid bag. I passed in the syringes necessary to inflate the balloons. (The Combitube has two balloons that hold it in place.) I saw somebody trying to put an Israeli dressing around the patient's abdomen, and saw that there was a small evisceration in the area of the bellybutton. I also saw blood on the left arm, and lots of blood on the face and head.

Initially, I asked if anybody knew who the patient was. "Does anybody recognize this guy?" The part of the face I saw resembled one of our young medics. Then I heard people saying "she" and "her." Sure enough, when somebody leaned away, I saw that the patient was a woman, wearing a dark blue sports bra. I knew then that it wasn't anybody in my unit, but that didn't make me happy.

I wasn't doing much, because there were too many people there, and I was starting to feel kind of useless. I took a moment to look around, and I could see that there was still smoke and dust hanging in the air. There were plate-shaped weights and hexagonal dumbbells of various sizes scattered all over the place, some of them damaged. The wooden sign-in desk was a collection of splinters near me -- the woman must have been near the desk. The metal weight racks and universal machines were twisted wreckage, many of them in a big clump on her other side. There was broken glass on the ground -- good thing I hadn't run over barefoot. There was a chaplain from another unit standing near me.

People starting shouting, "If you're not a medic, back up! " I stayed put, of course. Somebody addressed the crowd on the other side of me, telling them to start clearing away the debris around us. It was a large crowd of soldiers desperate to help in any way possible, so weights started FLYING out of there. It's lucky they didn't kill each other with them. I finally had to move back as a litter was brought in, and the patient was rolled onto it. I tossed my bag of Hetastarch into the space between the patient's legs, hoping that the flight medics would see it and piggyback the bag onto the saline. After the litter was lifted clear and carried away, I could see the puddle of blood left behind, where the patient's head had been.

I gathered up my medical gear and stuffed it into my bag. I found a small, expensive flashlight, and asked whose it was. Somebody said it belonged to one of the medics, so I had him hold onto it. I saw a man digging through debris in a small hole in the ground, which was obviously the point of impact. I started to tell him that he should wait until the hole had been photographed and examined by the appropriate experts, and somebody told me, "It's okay. He's the brigade's surveyor."

My personal guess is that the explosion was from the impact of an HE (high explosive) 82mm mortar round, which had passed through the cloth ceiling and detonated on the ground. I haven't heard the official findings yet.

I picked my way out of the concertina wire, and saw my battalion's chaplain and surgeon. The doctor asked me how many patients there were, and I told him that I'd only seen the one, and she'd been evacuated already. I also told him what the patient's injuries were, noted that she'd been alive when carried away, but said I thought she was going to die. I headed back toward my room, and saw that the area had already been cordoned off with engineer tape. As I stepped under the tape, I saw the battalion's PAO (public affairs office) man, with his camera. I told him that I wanted copies of his pictures.

Walking away, I ran into people I knew, milling around and wanting information. I stopped to talk in front of the Internet trailer, which is the side away from the former gym, and told them that the woman had been alive when she was carried away, but didn't look good. I asked the guy who had been working there if the trailer itself was damaged. He didn't think so, but we both walked around the other side to see. Some electrical wires torn were down, but nothing else. As I walked back to the front, I realized that our unit's chain of command hadn't gotten around to shutting down our Internet service yet, but would probably do so shortly, so I ran in, logged on, and sent a quick, one-line message to my mother. "Mortar attack. Some casualties, but I'm unhurt." I hit the "Send" button as quickly as I could, and waited for the acknowledgement. Got that, and started typing a second message, but then the sergeant in charge came in and ordered me off, none too politely. I signed off and shut down.

I went back to my room and found my roommate already back. He'd gone in another direction, and seen two patients. One was walking wounded, and one was buried in weights. He ran into the same problem I had -- too many medics around one patient. He stuck around until they were evacuated. We talked for a while, and then I went back to sleep.

When I was going to the Aid Station for my 1500-2300 QRF shift, I made a short detour to the site of the gym tent, with my camera. The remains of the tent had been taken down, and the concrete pad that it sat on was being swept clean. There was a pile of twisted wreckage in one area, and a collection of equipment on the opposite side. It looked like the latter was stuff that had been salvaged, more or less intact, from the side of the tent away from the blast. I took a couple of pictures and a panoramic video, but I'm sure that the pictures will not do justice to the scene.

Some people that I met on the way to work told me that the civilian woman had died. I told them that I wasn't surprised. I was also told that a man in 2nd Platoon had been outdoors and near the gym, and was knocked to the ground by the blast. He reportedly got up and ran away at an impressive speed.

At the Aid Station, I couldn't confirm the rumors that the woman had died, but the doctor told me that he wouldn't be surprised. Apparently, she had been taken to our Troop Medical Clinic (TMC), which was the nearest helipad. Our doctor went there as well, and the TMC doctors told him that she had... well anyway, they described her injuries, and he told me about them. Possible to survive all that, but not easy and not likely.

The casualty died after evacuation. She was a Department of the Army Civilian (DAC) from the Army Field Support Command a component organization located at Rock Island Arsenal, IL of the Army Materiel Command.

Yes, we heard about this last week. I worked at Camp Liberty the first half of '04 and know a lot of the soldiers and civilians there.

There was a death in this incident and it was in the gym. And it was a civilian contractor.

May God bless and comfort her loved ones.

Camp Liberty is in the Abu Ghurayb area

It's actually in the Baghdad Int'l. Airport (BIAP) area. It's in the part of Baghdad going towards Abu Ghraib, but not really that close.

Oh, OK. I went and looked. They're a little off. Abu Ghraib is at least 15 miles or more from Camp Libery (formerly Camp Victory North.) The airport, however, is just under five miles from Liberty.

Liberty is closer to downtown Baghdad than it is to Abu Ghraib. We got to hear the noises from both sides when I was there.

Just released

News Release On the web:
http://dod.mil/releases/2005/nr20050610-3603.html
Media contact: +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact:
http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.html or +1 (703) 428-0711

No. 579-05
Jun 10, 2005
IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DoD Identifies Department of the Army Civilian Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Department of an Army civilian who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ms. Linda J. Villar, 41, of Franklinton, La., died June 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries sustained when a mortar struck her forward operating base. Villar worked for the U.S. Army Field Support Command, Fort Stewart, Ga.

For further information related to this release, contact Army Public Affairs at (703) 692-2000.

Since you identified the casualty I might as well enter a personal note. Linda Vilar was an attractive and smart woman who I worked a couple of action items with by telecon.
RIP.

I'm sorry for your loss and pray for your comfort.

Every time this happens, it hurts all of us here. We heard about it last weekend and it was, and is, quite sobering.

Abu Graib is right over the wall from part of BIAP, IIRC. It's sort of the sparse edge of Abu Graib.

Right outside the west edge, where Camp Striker and those other little FOBS north of it are.

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