The Milbloggies

I couldn't figure out what was going on when I started receiving congratulations today - I'm such a dork I didn't realize the winners had been announced.

Thanks to all of you who voted for Soldiers' Angels Germany as best Milblog in the US Civilian Category. To tell the truth, I'm kind of embarrassed that people actually voted for me.

I'd like to give a shout out to a couple of dear friends in the same category, including Pam at Iraq War Today and The Gunn Nutt, who are both better bloggers than I. At the Milblog Conference we'll have one of the guys shoot the award and then split the rubble four ways, ok? (just kidding, JP!!!)

Ok, enough of this award business. Carry on.

Medical Warriors

I've been getting some emails about the first installment of a 5-part NBC News Special called Wounds of War. Although I don't get American TV here, Bonnie sent me the link to the piece on the MSNBC website. From what I know and have seen personally, this is the real thing and quite well done.

It's not often you have the opportunity to witness the work of these Medical Warriors: the Docs at the CSHs and in Balad, and the Heroes of the Flight Line and the Critical Care Aeromedical Team. So be sure to watch.

Inside a flying intensive care unit
Feb. 27: One of the keys to the success of military medicine is quickly getting wounded personnel into fully equipped hospitals. NBC's Robert Bazell reports on how that's accomplished in Iraq. - Nightly News
Watch the video
The accompanying article is informative and worth a read, too.

For the seriously wounded the goal is not necessarily to fix the problem, but to keep the patient alive and stabilize him or her long enough to get to the next stop on the journey home.

For example, doctors, nurses and medics in Iraq worry far less about infection than they would at a hospital in the U.S., although the staff works to keep everything as clean as possible. The wounds themselves are often the filthy aftermath of bomb explosions. In addition, Iraq’s ever-present dust is always blowing, sometimes even into the operating room. When infections occur it is usually three or four days after an injury. By that time, the patient is thousands of miles away.

It is the same with treatments involving surgical repair of bones and internal organs.

“Often you can’t fix everything at once,” says Dr. Darryl Pugh, an Army surgeon in Baghdad from Ft. Belvoir, Va. “Sometimes we do a little bit here, then the guys down the road in Landsthul and Walter Reed do the rest. It’s a very different kid of medicine.” ...

After they are stabilized at the outlying CSH’s, the patients travel by helicopter to the hospital at Balad where they are re-checked and treated further, if needed. From Balad they take the C-17 flight to Germany and then onto the U.S. ...

Medivac helicopters make dozens of runs a day from the field and between hospitals. C-17s take off almost every night. Everyone knows that, at any moment, bad weather, mechanical problems with the aircraft or a surge in casualties can cause a backup, leaving some very sick troops unable to be moved. When that happens, one doctor told me, “We have to make some very tough decisions.”

Usually the operation runs smoothly, resulting in a survival rate of 96 percent among those who make it to the first hospital — the best in U.S. military history.

Along for the ride in a flying ICU
Raw video shot by NBC News on a C-17 flight from Balad Air Base in Iraq to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.
Watch the video

I may update this later, but wanted to get it posted during lunch...

Update: So my lunchtime blogging sucks. This was actually the second part of this 5-part series.

Here's the first video about the Medical Warriors of the CSHs, Saving lives in field hospitals.

Greyhawk's Mom...

...is celebrating her birthday today.

Go over and wish her all the best.

A Marine and his Sergeant Major

In an update to this post, here is the latest publicly available information.

Marine locked in fight for life

MARION TOWNSHIP -- A U.S. Marine from Bellefonte who was seriously wounded in Iraq is "still fighting" for life at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where his family and fellow Marines are keeping vigil, his father said.

Marine Cpl. David Emery Jr.'s, legs and left arm were shattered on Feb. 7 in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq's Anbar province. Emery, 21, nicknamed "D.J.," also suffered a severe abdominal wound, including a severed artery that caused his kidneys to shut down, his family said. He is on a ventilator and is also suffering from pneumonia.

"I still can't believe it's happening," said his father, David Emery, who made a one-day trip back to his Marion Township home before returning today to Bethesda. "I keep thinking it's a bad dream I'm going to wake up from. But I keep having it." ...


While staying in Bethesda near his son -- the family is being housed by the Marine Corps -- David Emery attended a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for the Marine he thinks saved his son's life.

David Emery said his son's sergeant major, Joseph J. Ellis, of Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, appeared to have realized that a man pushing into a crowd near Ellis and David Emery Jr. was an insurgent. Emery said he was told by Marine Corps officials that Ellis got between the suicide bomber and his son. Ellis was killed by the bomb.

"I think of him as a hero," David Emery said of Ellis, a 40-year-old Marine from Ashland, Ohio. "He saw him pushing his way through the crowd. He moved to get this guy and probably saved my son's life."

Ellis was buried in Arlington on Wednesday.

Joseph Ellis was a 23-year Marine veteran who achieved the highest enlisted rank of Sergeant Major serving mostly in reconnaissance units. He served in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, and later in Hawaii, North Carolina and Camp Pendleton.

"He just wanted to make a difference," his wife Rachael Ellis said. "Anytime he was asked to go somewhere, even times when he didn't have to, he would. He wanted to be there for his troops."

More at the Arlington Cemetery website.

Godspeed Sergeant Major Ellis, a hero amongst heroes.

Our prayers for DJ and family continue.

Update 28 Feb: FbL has a post about Sergeant Major Ellis.

Update 26 March: Prayers for DJ

Click to read more stories about DJ here at SAG.

Anyone else find it strange...

...that the results of a Washington Post "investigation" about Walter Reed were published a week before this story?
(emphasis added)

Administrative Issues Cited at Walter Reed
Report From Long-Running Army Probe Notes Problems; Official Orders Fixes

The preliminary findings of a nine-month Army investigation confirm problems in the administrative procedures at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other hospitals, and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey has ordered the service to begin fixing them, a spokesman said yesterday.

Just askin'.

"They are our heroes"

Bert Brady works to ensure soldiers get a warm greeting when they return from Iraq or Afghanistan. (ABC News)
Click to watch video
(The video is not work safe if you are weepy like me.)

Person of the Week: Bert Brady

Feb. 2, 2007 — Just about every morning for the past year, Bert Brady has been getting up, having a cup of coffee and heading over to the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. But this ritual has nothing to do with travel. He's at the terminal to welcome home American troops as they return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I went 300 days last year," Brady said. "They are glad to see us, and we are tickled to death to see them because they are our heroes."

Brady, a 69-year-old veteran, is a member of the Welcome Home a Hero program at his local airport. He makes sure every soldier that comes through Dallas gets a special homecoming.

Thanks to Sandy for sending the link to this heartwarming story.

The Voice of Reason

"I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next."
- Joe Lieberman in today's Wall Street Journal

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq--or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts.

...the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago--with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security--and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have already made up their minds about America's cause in Iraq, declaring their intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see whether our new plan will work.

Gathering of Eagles

Groups to Announce Plans to Protect Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Rally for Troops

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 -- Spokesmen for three veterans organizations which are urging their members to rally in Washington, D.C. on March 17, 2007, to protect the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) from antiwar protesters will be holding a press conference at 9:30 a.m., Thursday, February 22, 2007, at the National Press Club to announce their plans to protect The Wall and rally for America's servicemen and women serving in Iraq.

Word has been spreading like wildfire across the country in the veterans' community about the plans of an anti-American group to hold an antiwar rally on Saturday, March 17, 2007 at, according to their announcement, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Constitution Gardens.)

The Gathering of Eagles was formed by Vietnam veterans to protect the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from being desecrated as the Capitol was at an antiwar march last month. While there is no way to accurately gauge attendance, it is expected that thousands of veterans, their families and other patriotic Americans will gather that day to protect The Wall and other war memorials.

In addition to Rolling Thunder and the Military Order of the Purple Heart, participants in the Gathering of Eagles rally include Move America Forward, which is organizing a cross-country caravan that will bring Gold and Blue Star parents and veterans to the Gathering of Eagles, and FreeRepublic.com.

SOURCE Gathering of Eagles

Milbloggie Voting is Now Open

From Milblogging.com:

Congratulations again to all the nominees that placed in the Top 5.

You can now vote for one milblog in each category. This is the final phase so please participate... Keep in mind, you must be signed in to vote.

The charts also include the results from the Nomination phase. As of now, the charts are sorted by the number of nominations, but there is a column called “Votes” that displays the current number of votes. The Voting will close on February 27th at 8 PM EST.

Winners will be announced next week. And each winner who does attend this year's Milblog Conference, will be presented an award.

To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to this, but somehow Soldiers' Angels Germany has been nominated and has gotten a few votes since the voting opened earlier today.

Thanks to everyone who has nominated and voted for this blog. I'm very moved.

What moves me much more however, are the many emails I receive each and every day from readers who want to help support our soldiers. Those are the type of "votes" that really count. Thank you.

Anyway, if you haven't voted yet, and would like to, go here. Soldiers' Angels Germany can be found in the U.S. Civilian category.

You'll have to register in order to vote, but don't worry - you won't get any spam or anything.

I've got some very good friends (and in my opinion much better bloggers) in the same category - so vote for them if you think they're better! (I did.)

IED searches ongoing for Marines of 'Joker'

Marines from Golf Company, a part of the California-based Battalion Landing Team 2/4, currently operating in the city of Barwanah, conduct a sweep and clear operation through the city...

The search yielded no caches but the key object on the list of things to find, an IED placed in front of a bombed out Iraqi Police station, was found. A 155mm artillery round and one 120mm mortar round were found 'daisy-chained' together and were fully prepped to be used against the Marines patrolling the streets of Barwanah.

The kill radius of a 155mm round is 100 meters. Have you ever seen what one can do to the human body?

I have.

Well done, Golf Company and the rest of BLT 2/4.


Source: Marine Corps News