February 27th, 2010 by WhiteRose
The Other Victims of Battlefield Stress; Defense Contractors’ Mental Health Neglected
by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica – February 26, 2010 1:48 am EST
On the one-year anniversary of her husband’s suicide, Barb Dill breaks down at her husband’s tombstone. Wade Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, took a contractor job in Iraq. Three weeks after he returned home for good, he committed suicide (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / Redding, CA / July 16, 2007).
REDDING, Calif. — Wade Dill does not figure into the toll of war dead. An exterminator, Dill took a job in Iraq for a company contracted to do pest control on military bases. There, he found himself killing disease-carrying flies and rabid dogs, dodging mortars and huddling in bomb shelters.
Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, was a different man when he came back for visits here, his family said: moody, isolated, morose. He screamed at his wife and daughter. His weight dropped. Dark circles haunted his dark brown eyes.
Three weeks after he returned home for good, Dill booked a room in an anonymous three-story motel alongside Interstate 5. There, on July 16, 2006, he shot himself in the head with a 9 mm handgun. He left a suicide note for his wife and a picture for his daughter, then 16. The caption read: “I did exist and I loved you.”
More than three years later, Dill’s loved ones are still reeling, their pain compounded by a drawn-out battle with an insurance company over death benefits from the suicide. Barb Dill, 47, nearly lost the family’s home to foreclosure. “We’re circling the drain,” she said.
While suicide among soldiers has been a focus of Congress and the public, relatively little attention has been paid to the mental health of tens of thousands of civilian contractors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. When they make the news at all, contractors are usually in the middle of scandal, depicted as cowboys, wastrels or worse.
No agency tracks how many civilian workers have killed themselves after returning from the war zones. A small study in 2007 found that 24 percent of contract employees from DynCorp, a defense contractor, showed signs of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, after returning home. The figure is roughly equivalent to those found in studies of returning soldiers.
If the pattern holds true on a broad scale, thousands of such workers may be suffering from mental trauma, said Paul Brand, the CEO of Mission Critical Psychological Services, a firm that provides counseling to war zone civilians. More than 200,000 civilians work in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the most recent figures.
“There are many people falling through the cracks, and there are few mechanisms in place to support these individuals,” said Brand, who conducted the study while working at DynCorp.”There’s a moral obligation that’s being overlooked. Can the government really send people to a war zone and neglect their responsibility to attend to their emotional needs after the fact?”
The survivors of civilians who have committed suicide have found themselves confused, frustrated and alone in their grief.
“If I was in the military, I’d at least have someone to talk to,” said Melissa Finkenbinder, 42, whose husband, Kert, a mechanic, killed himself after returning from Iraq. “Contractors don’t have anything. Their families don’t have anything.”
Some families of civilian contractors who have committed suicide have tried to battle for help through an outdated government system designed to provide health insurance and death benefits to civilian contractors injured or killed on the job.
Under the system, required by a law known as the Defense Base Act, defense firms must purchase workers’ compensation insurance for their employees in war zones. It is highly specialized and expensive insurance, dominated by the troubled giant AIG and a handful of other companies. The cost of it is paid by taxpayers as part of the contract price.
But the law, which is designed to provide coverage for accidental death and injury, blocks payment of death benefits in the case of almost all suicides. Cases linked to mental incapacity are the lone exception, judges have ruled.
A joint investigation last year by ProPublica, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that contract workers must frequently battle carriers for basic medical coverage. While Congress has promised reforms, there has been no discussion of changing the law when it comes to suicides involving civilian defense workers.
The military, by contrast, allows survivors to receive benefits in cases in which a soldier’s suicide can be linked to depression caused by battlefield stress.
Hundreds of soldiers have committed suicide since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, according to studies by the Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In response, the Defense Department has become more active in trying to prevent suicide than its hired contractors, military experts said.
The military is “aggressively trying to reach people and do intervention beforehand and set up suicide awareness programs,” said Ian de Planque, a benefits expert at the American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans group. “Awareness of it has increased. I don’t know that it’s transferred over to the civilian sector at this point.”
Birgitt Eysselinck has spent years trying to prove that her husband’s death in Iraq was related to stress from his job with a company specializing in the removal of land mines and explosive ordnance. So far, courts have sided with the insurance firm, Chicago-based CNA, in denying Eysselinck’s claim. (CNA declined to comment, citing privacy reasons.)
Eysselinck, 44, said that neither federal judges nor insurance adjusters understand that civilian contractors face many of the same risks in Iraq and Afghanistan that soldiers do. Her husband, Tim Eysselinck, endured mortar attacks and frequently traveled across Iraq’s dangerous highways, she said.
“There is a huge percentage of contractors who are silently suffering,” Eysselinck said. “That obviously puts them and their families at risk. Communities are bearing the brunt of this, especially the families.”
* * *
Wade Dill was working at a local pest control company when he decided to take a job with KBR in Iraq in late 2004. The money was good – almost $11,000 a month for handling extermination and hazardous material disposal, more than double his normal salary.
“He said this was our opportunity,” Barb Dill said. “He could start a college fund for our daughter, pay off the mortgage and have a nice retirement. He told me at his age, 41, he didn’t know if he had enough years left in him to give us what he wanted.”
Wade started that December, working on bases in central and northern Iraq. Violence was ever present. A base near Mosul was shelled frequently. He told Barb that a mortar landed close enough to temporarily deafen him. Once, he called her sobbing.
“My husband never cried, ever,” she said. “Marines don’t cry. A young man, a soldier, had put a pistol to his head and blown his brains out. And Wade had to go in and clean up after they removed the body – he had to clean up brain matter and blood. It really upset him.”
Barb Dill noticed a change in her husband when he returned home for a visit in December 2005. The couple had been high school sweethearts, married for 15 years. They had troubles, but had always worked them out. Now, he seemed moody and often angry, lashing out at her and their daughter, Sara.
“He would say hateful things to me and our daughter – things he had never said before.” Dill said. “This was a man that loved his little girl and his wife. He always called us his girls.”
When Wade returned for another visit in June 2006, he abruptly quit his job and began acting erratically, Dill said. He ripped the wiring out of appliances, smashed mirrors and poured lighter fluid on their furniture.
After a few weeks, Wade took a room at a local motel. On July 15, he asked Barb to come see him. Their conversation spiraled into a confrontation. Frightened and angry, Barb sped off in her car. The next day, the Shasta County coroner’s office called to tell her that Wade’s body had been found in the room.
“He told me that he was sick and needed help,” Dill said. “I told him to get help and then we would talk. The last time I saw him was in my rearview mirror.”
Dill soon found herself in financial difficulty. Her husband had always taken care of the bills. He had spent lavishly with his higher salary, buying two BMWs during trips home. Now, Dill discovered the couple was $300,000 in debt on their mortgage and car loans.
She plunged into depression, struggling to cope with her daughter’s grief and the sense that she had failed her husband in his time of need. She sold the cars and nearly lost her home after falling behind on mortgage payments.
She suffered mostly by herself. Except for a handful of Web sites, no support groups exist for widows of civilian contractors. The federal government offers no counseling for civilians returning from work in war zones.
Dill said that she felt abandoned by everyone: her husband’s employer, the insurance company and especially the federal government, which oversees the Defense Base Act system through the Labor Department.
“Shouldn’t our government be responsible for the companies they hire?” Dill said. “Shouldn’t our government take care of its own people, who are doing jobs our government, ultimately, wanted them to do?”
* * *
Survivors of civilian contractors whose death is related to their work in Iraq have the right to apply for compensation benefits that pay up to $63,000 a year for life.
Dill applied, asserting that her husband’s PTSD made him an exception to the rule against payments in suicide cases. Her claim was denied by AIG, KBR’s insurance provider.
She protested, sending her claim into a dispute resolution system run by the Labor Department. Her case is still grinding its way through the system, which can take years to produce a final result.
Experts hired by the family and the insurance company differed on what led to Wade Dill’s suicide.
A psychiatrist hired by her attorney found that job stress in Iraq was one of the factors that drove Wade to suicide: “The bottom line is that the combination of physical separation and work-related stress resulted in increasingly emotional distance, greater distortion of the relationship, increasing emotional intensity, and a pattern of increasing erratic behaviors that culminated in suicide,” wrote Charles Seaman, an expert in PTSD.
A Labor Department examiner recommended that AIG pay the claim, but the company refused. AIG and KBR declined comment about the case. In court filings, AIG has argued that the Defense Base Act does not cover suicides.
AIG attorneys also have said that Wade Dill’s actions were related to marital and family problems. A psychiatrist hired by AIG testified at a hearing in San Francisco in January that he had performed a “psychological autopsy” on Wade Dill based on interviews with his family and court documents.
The psychiatrist, Andrew D. Whyman, said his evaluation led him to conclude that Dill suffered from depression and that his suicide was unrelated to the violence he witnessed in Iraq.
“Take out the Iraq experience, (the suicide) would have happened,” Whyman testified. “He had a choice. … He could have chosen not to do that.”
Barb Dill insists her husband came back from Iraq a changed man.
“No matter how strained our relationship could get at times, we always pulled out of it with no problem,” Dill said. “Iraq changed all that.”
Now, she said, she is trying to hold her life together. A final decision in her case is not expected for months.
“We’re just slowly sinking,” she said. “It’s hard to be strong.”
Watch a preview of ‘Disposable Army,’ a documentary currently being produced by Mark Crupi, which contains interviews with Barb Dill and T. Christian Miller.
Disposable Army: Read the complete coverage of injured defense contractors and their struggles to receive promised medical care.
Write to T. Christian Miller at T.Christian.Miller@propublica.org.
Posted 5 months ago at 10:01. Add a comment
February 1st, 2010 by WhiteRose
By LINDA A. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
Quickly giving morphine to wounded troops cuts in half the chance they will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a provocative study that suggests a new strategy for preventing the psychological fallout of war.
Researchers at the U.S. Naval Health Research Center led the study of about 700 troops injured in Iraq from 2004 through 2006.
“It was surprising how strong the effect of the morphine was,” said study leader Troy Lisa Holbrook, an epidemiologist at the naval center. The findings were published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
Whether the Pentagon will adopt the practice on the battlefield remains to be seen. Dr. Jack Smith, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy, said in an e-mail that the “very interesting findings” are “likely to stimulate further research.”
About 53,000 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated for PTSD, a disorder in which someone who has endured a traumatic event keeps re-experiencing it and the fear it caused. Patients often have trouble with work, relationships, substance abuse and physical ailments.
Researchers have been testing ways to treat it, and the new study looked at whether fast and strong pain relief can help prevent it.
It was unclear whether it was the fast pain treatment or something specific to morphine that made the difference.
But researchers theorize that simply easing pain might reduce the severity of the psychological trauma, or that prompt relief might alter the way the brain remembers the attack or injury – in essence, causing the mind to file away the episode as less traumatic.
Troops in the study initially were treated at military medical facilities in Iraq, mainly for wounds caused by roadside bombs, bullets, grenades or mortar fire. A few dozen had burns or were hurt in crashes or falls. The decision on whether to give morphine was up to the individual doctor, based on the patient’s condition.
Of the 696 troops in the study, 493 – about 70 percent – were given morphine, most within an hour of injury. Two years later, 147 of them had developed PTSD. Of the 203 not given morphine early on, 96 developed PTSD.
That worked out to a 53 percent lower risk of developing PTSD for those treated early with morphine. No other factor, such as the nature or severity of injuries, had much effect on the chances of developing PTSD, Holbrook said.
“These are provocative and thought-provoking findings that should lead scientists to investigate the underlying mechanisms” in future studies, said JoAnn Difede, a PTSD researcher at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Difede and Barbara Rothbaum, who heads the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory University School of Medicine, said that until more research backs up the findings, the study probably won’t lead to many more patients in civilian emergency rooms getting morphine.
“At this point, I don’t see it having a huge impact” for civilians, Rothbaum said.
A second study in the journal found that Army wives were more likely to develop depression or sleep problems the longer, or the more times, their spouses were sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.
That study, by researchers at the University of North Carolina and elsewhere, examined medical records for outpatient care of about 250,000 wives of active-duty soldiers from 2003 through 2006.
Compared with wives whose husbands stayed home, those whose husbands were deployed for up to 11 months were 18 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression and at least 20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with sleep disorders, anxiety and acute stress.
For wives whose husbands were deployed for more than 11 months, problems were even more common: They were at least 24 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety, and about 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with acute stress or sleep problems.
The researchers didn’t have data showing whether husbands were deployed or at home when the wives were being treated for mental health problems.
That meant the scientists couldn’t conclude whether those problems were caused by worries about the spouse’s safety and the difficulties of being a single parent, or by stress caused by the returning spouse’s psychological problems or other behavior changes.
“I suspect that if you look at the Reserve and National Guard wives, the toll might be even worse,” because they have less social support than families living in a military community, Rothbaum said.
She said the effects of deployment on children also need to be studied so the military can figure out how to provide more help to families.
—
On the Net: http://www.nejm.org
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks ago at 18:03. Add a comment
December 15th, 2009 by WhiteRose
As much time as I spent over there, I hate to think about how many times I drove through the smoke from so many burn pits. But as of today, I believe that I was one of the lucky ones and have not contracted any illness from it. My prayers to all those suffering from this.
Open burning has since been banned but many may face long-term effects.
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Updated:12/15/2009 12:41:38 AM MST
Backing away from steadfast official denial, the U.S. military’s senior health protection official said Monday that some service m embers might suffer long-term medical problems as a direct result of exposure to smoke and fumes from open-air burn pits scattered throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.
Physician Craig Postlewaite, director of Force Health Protection and Readiness Programs, said that while scientific evidence has yet to prove the link, the personal stories of veterans coming forward to report long-term health problems have convinced him of the connection.
“We feel at this point in time that it’s quite plausible — in fact likely — that there are a small number of people that have been affected with longer-term health problems,” Postlewaite said Monday in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.
As recently as last month, Postlewaite had maintained the Defense Department’s years-old position on the issue, telling Stars and Stripes that “only minor, temporary effects have been identified with the burn pit smoke.” In July he told the Military Times that an assessment of the burn pit at the largest U.S. facility in Iraq, Joint Air
Base Balad, found “no indication of any long-term health risks in personnel.”
It was the sight and smell of the Balad pit that led an environmental engineer from Hill Air Force Base to write a memo calling the acres-large inferno “an acute health hazard.”
In the memo, Air Force officer Darrin Curtis warned that dozens of toxins, including arsenic, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, were going up in smoke at the Balad pit. U.S. service members and contractors were burning hundreds of tons of weapons, chemicals, plastics — and even amputated limbs from the nearby theater hospital — each week.
Curtis’ memo set off widespread speculation that smoke from the Balad pit, and possibly others, was to blame for myriad health problems faced by returning veterans. But Curtis, who has since separated from the Air Force, told The Tribune he didn’t intend to be a whistleblower — he only wanted to help loosen the bureaucratic purse strings holding back money for a long-promised incinerator.
“It wasn’t one of those ‘God and country’ things,” Curtis said. “I wasn’t trying to sacrifice myself. It was 2006. We’d gotten there in 2003. It had been forever and these things weren’t getting fixed. My understanding was that there were different allowances for money depending on whether something was a health issue or wasn’t a health issue, and I wrote the memo just so that everyone would know it was a health issue.”
READ THE REST HERE
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 09:14. Add a comment
January 10th, 2006 by WhiteRose
Guess we never think of it much, the things that change your life from one day to the next. Somehow I never thought that day on September 11th that the world would change as it has. And for some it didn’t, only for those who have somehow even in the smallest way be touched by the sands of a distant land they may or may not have seen.
How such small degrees of seperation in this world there are. A man boards a plane, his intent is to destroy it, and a few years later a woman finds herself wondering why someone does not speak to her suddenly, that someone went to work or to fight in the land where that man who destroyed the plane came from. All because of his actions, she is there wondering what happened.
Small wounds, vastly different from those inflicted on 9/11, to the troops, the contractors, the families, but wounds non the less.
Would those wounds have happened had that man never got on that plane?
Would the two never have met? Never had loved? Never had suffered that broken heart? Would it have been better that way?
For the people who have not been touched by this war, they will never understand how deeply it is felt in the hearts and souls of those that have felt the hot winds blow across their cheeks, even from thousands of miles away. We are forever changed. We have no way of undoing it, only the hope that someday We will understand and make peace with it and with each other.
Cindy you are a my hero. Of all the people I have ever known, your courage to go through the things you have, you are amazing. You found your break in the clouds and you sailed through to see the other side. May I find my own break in the clouds someday and see what things you have.
A bend in the road there, a stop taking two minutes longer than it should, an internet search, a simple hello……..fate……we never know what will change us or when……only that when it does it may twist us inside out, give us unmeasurable joy or unbearable sorrow…..a man gets on a plane, who knew?
Posted 4 years, 6 months ago at 19:07. Add a comment
December 19th, 2005 by WhiteRose
WOW! The last 36 hours have been something! First let me start with the book. As most know, and have seen the entry, Free Press Publishing sends out a catalog to the book stores so they can order the books they and to put in their store for the next season. Well, night before last, I received 3 copies of the catalog from my editors office. This is sooooo cool! I know I have been working on this book for several months now. Terry and I have been emailing each other almost daily as well write each chapter. Liz and I have emailed about the cover design and what pictures to include. We all have been working very hard on the book. But I have to say, it all didn’t seem real to me. I mean, we all do things in our lives that we think would make a good book or movie topic, but nothing ever happens to it. Then to have several someone’s actually tell you that you should write a book about something you did, that you see as just part of your life and who you are….. WELL, that is totally cool. As each step of this book has been taken, I have become more and more aware of the fact that this is really happening….. it isn’t a dream! But the other day……..well, that really brought it all home for me. When I got those catalogs and opened to the paged marked, and saw the catalog entry with my name on it……….. I was speechless! Now most of ya know, my being speechless is not something that happens very often, but I was, for a few seconds. When the guys in the office saw that I had quite talking in mid-sentence, of course they all wanted to know what it was that I had gotten. I smiled and turned the book around and showed them the page. As much as they have heard about the book and have known that I was doing it, I think they felt as I did about it. Holding this in my hands, made it real for not only me, but for them as well. Some of these guys are new friends and some I have known since I worked for KBR. You would have thought that it was happening to them. I got hugs, hand shakes and a lot of teasing! I was told I have to make sure they ALL get autographed copies! I think I am going to get writers cramp very quick when this thing finally does come out! Anyway, after I made it home, I took the catalog out and really looked at it. There is my name, in print, with a picture of what the cover is going to look like. “WOW! This is so cool! This is really happening!” was my thought. It still blows my mind!
Posted 4 years, 7 months ago at 14:35. Add a comment
December 18th, 2005 by WhiteRose
Free Press, June 2006
Cindy in Iraq: A Civilian’s Year in the War Zone
It’s one of the least covered stories in the Iraqi war. Now, the writer of the popular “Cindy in Iraq” blog narrates her harrowing experiences during a year driving trucks as a civilian contractor for Halliburton.
Cindy Morgan was on the front lines of Iraq––not enlisted in the military, but in a job just as dangerous: as a convoy commander leading groups of fifteen to thirty trucks through perilous territory. Having promised her three sons that she would always tell them the truth about what she was experiencing, she started her blog “Cindy in Iraq” as a way to stay in touch with family and friends back home. “Cindy in Iraq” soon became a valuable resource for families of contractors, and those thinking about becoming contractors, as well as a telling story of the disturbing realities facing brave civilian workers.
Here, we see Cindy’s story in full detail—how, after thirteen years’ experience as a truck driver in the U.S., as well as orientation by Halliburton, she still was shocked by what she faced. Unarmed, with virtually no training, one of the only female truck drivers, she became a moving target for insurgents, constantly at risk of being ambushed, shot at, kidnapped, or executed.
Cindy’s journey in Iraq also became a voyage of self-discovery. Having left an abusive husband, she went to Iraq because she was “tired of surviving her life and not living it.” She went to Iraq to find out “who I am and what I am made of here….Honor, integrity, pride and humanity can all be discovered.” As Cindy relays her experiences, both she and the reader are transformed.
Cynthia I. Morgan drove a big rig across the U.S. for thirteen years before venturing into Iraq in 2003, where she was a civilian convoy commander in charge of up to thirty trucks delivering supplies to American bases throughout the war-torn country. After seven months back in the U.S., she returned to Iraq. She lives, usually, in Tennessee.
September 2006
Free Press
Biography and Autobiography
6 x 9, 256 pages
8 pages of black-and-white photographs
Carton quantity: 20
EAN: 978074328640452500
0-7432-8640-5
$25.00 hardcover
$34.50 in Canada
Posted 4 years, 7 months ago at 17:44. Add a comment
May 11th, 2005 by WhiteRose
Unlike my first mission, this one was uneventful to be so eventful. No, we didn’t see any bombs or bullets this trip, but it was plagued with problems, one after another. There were some very good points to it though as you will find out later. Some questions I had of did I do the right thing on one mission with KBR were answered. And now that I have your attention. I am going to make you wait to find out what that was.
I believe that the rain has finally stooped. Two weeks ago we were rained on, but this mission it seems the weather got hotter and hotter every day. Our convoy’s are made up of DOD’s and TCN’s. Most of the TCN’s are good people and know what they are doing, so this makes the trip much easier. I wish I could say that for the TCN’s of other companies and other convoys. Just across the border, we started to pass A PWC convoy. Now you have heard me describe the TCN’s at times as being like 6 year old’s trying to get to the front of the ice cream line? Well, the PWC convoy was this way. They were cutting into our convoy and passing their own guys to get to the front. I forced one of them back into his convoy when he jumped in front of me. He gave me this shit eating grin as I passed him, but I think he lost it, when I waved him back into his line as I moved my truck over. I learned when I was here the first time, that this is just about the only way some of them will listen to you.
The next day was uneventful. I saw several old friends at Scania and was able to catch up on others. So many people that I knew from before are gone now, either back to the states, or to other companies. They are still doing mostly night missions north of Scania. But with us having dedicated escort units, we run when the military says for us to run. That means day, night, or when other convoys(KBR) are not moving. We hit Sword right at day light. Now remind you, this is the first time I have been back across the road that my last ambush happened on. The whole trip up, I had wondered how I was going to deal with it. The other ambushes, I had been back across the road in the same direction within, a few weeks. This one was months. I can’t say that there was not a lot of anxiety, but I can’t say that all was right. I was nervous. Eight months of reliving that night in my head had made this trip a very important one to me. I knew that if I couldn’t handle this trip, I would not be able to handle any other and I would have to come home, or just run around Kuwait. With us leaving camp that morning as late as we did, it was daylight by the time we got to the road. I was nervous, but I was calm. I have told many people that I am the type of person that doesn’t panic during the situation, I do it afterward.This time was no different. I was calm and alert.
All was quiet as we made our way north. Well, not really quiet, it was the beginning to what would be rush hour for Baghdad, but there were no bombs, bullets, RPG’s, or mortars. Just rocks up by Taji. I can handle that. I made it through the area in good condition and stronger in my resolve. Now I have that behind me and can go on doing what I love doing, supporting our troops.
Now, here is what I was eluding to at the beginning. We got to Anaconda. I unstrapped and unchained my load, pulled into the TDC yard and got off loaded. Then I was told that about 12 of us were going to get cans (containers). So I pulled around to where they directed and me proceeded to set the pumpkins(these hold the cans to the trailer) on my trailer. I was having a problem with one and was fighting with it when I heard this man yell “CINDY!!!!!!!” When I turned around, at first,I didn’t recognize who it was riding in the truck, hanging half out the window, yelling and waving at me. Then I recognized the voice. It is a voice that I will never forget. The last time I had heard this voice over here he was across the radio, telling me that he was hit and I was telling him he had to drive that truck to the safe zone. Yes, It was Roy Hawkins! I had talked to him several times while we were both in the states, but had not gotten to see him. I yelled to him,”Come see me!” The driver of the truck he was in came to an abrupt halt and Roy dove out. He came running towards me with open arms. When he got to me he picked me up, twirled me around and gave me the biggest hug I have had in a very long time. I thought he was going to squeeze me in two. We both laughed and hugged several times in the few minuets that we had to talk. He showed me the scares on both side of his knee where the bullet went in and out of his leg. I have to say, those were nasty scares, but in a weird way, very beautiful. Beautiful, because if I was getting to see them, then I was getting to see the man they were attached to. I can not tell you how great it made me feel to see Roy and for him to have the reaction he did. His reaction and his telling me that he was glad that I was back and this is where I belong, tells me that he feels that I did right by him when he was shot. Everyone else, including myself, could tell me I had done good. But the one that mattered most came from Roy. You can not believe or maybe even understand the emotions that run through me even now, as I write about seeing him. I smile and cry at the same time, but I am at piece with the events of that night, now.
I did find out that Robert Rowe, my driver that was shot from the last ambush has not returned to Iraq. I have been looking and asking for him. I guess, I will have to do it the same way I found Roy in the states. Call Halliburton’s EAP people and ask them to give him my phone number and ask him to call me. If I can get in touch with him, it will take care of the unfinished business I felt I had over here and I can go on and have more adventures running the roads of Iraq in support of our guys and gals.
Ok with all that done, we started our trip back south in the very early hours of the next day. During the briefing we found out that the convoy 5 minuets behind us the day before coming through Baghdad was hit hard. It was the convoy the 2 Americans were killed on Saturday. I have to say, I know that we all took a deep breath and then thanked God that we had had no delays that morning. Then we left camp. For the most part, the ride was quite. Not even any rocks this time as we passed Taji. But this soon became the trip from hell. One of our gun trucks rolled over, and landed on its side, skidding down the road. The guy in the turret is a very lucky man that it didn’t go all the way over. One soldier did get 6 stitches in his head. We pulled into Scania and he was stitched up and we pushed out again. Down what used to be dirt Tampa, its all paved now. Then another of our gun trucks, blew the engine. We hooked a tow bar to it and kept on moving. A few miles later, we met a convoy of TCN’s caring hooch’s. Now these are wide, and they don’t need ALL of the road. But as I have told you before, the TCN’s are not always the best of drivers. One took a little more of the road than he should have. One of the DOD’s got off the pavement and that kicked up a lot of dust. The TCN behind him freaked out and slammed on his breaks. That caused the military brown truck behind him to hit him. They are going to have to use the truck for spare parts now. It will never be driven again. The two soldiers that were in it are ok. But we had to sit on the side of the road for several hours while recovery came out of cedar to tow the truck into camp.
All this left us with only two gun trucks the next morning when we wanted to push on to Kuwait. I would run Cedar to Kuwait without escorts. It is the safest part of the trip. But they wouldn’t let us run with only two gun trucks. So we sat in camp till that afternoon waiting for a gun truck to come up from NAVISTAR. That made for a very long day. After we got to Kuwait we still had to unload. It was midnight before I got home. But I had my temper pushing me that day.
My being one of two female drivers, everything I do is being watched. IAP didn’t hire females to drive for a long time. The other woman is….well……she is not very feminine looking, if ya know what I mean. Most passing her in the hall or going down the road, do not know that it is a woman. I, on other hand, can not hide that I am a female. That brings a bit more upon my shoulders. There are lots of guys that are living in the dark ages and feel that women do not belong over here. As a matter of fact, one of these Neanderthals said as much to my face and in front of 4 of our escorts. Well, ya’ll know me. I let him have it. He told me that I couldn’t do my job. That because I was a woman that I couldn’t strap and chain down loads. I looked at him and said, “Do what!” “I have strapped and chained every load I have hauled, by myself. I have also unstrapped and unchained everyone of my loads.” He tried to go on and tell me that women are not as strong as men that there will be some loads that I can not do. Now, in part, I have to agree with him, the part that women are not as strong as men. The thing is, we all unstrap and unchain our own loads. But we all help each other strap and chain them down when we get loaded. No one does just their load. I do not sit in my truck and let the guys do it for me. I have and never will let anyone do my job for me. And if or when the day comes that I am not strong enough to chain down my load, I will not sit in my truck and let a man do it for me. I will allow him to HELP me do it. Well, I need to calm down again. Just thinking about it pisses me off. Then this guy had the nerve to come ask me, right before we pushed out of Cedar, if he was going to be called into the office when we got back. I told him no, I was not like that. What happens on mission, stays there. I did tell one of my flat mates and he said something to this guy’s flat mate and I got an apology this morning from him. I don’t think he really meant it, but I got it.
Well, this has been a long email and I have a dinner date with several of the guys. We are going to Applebee’s and then maybe down to Fahaheel for a bit. We are talking about going jet skiing tomorrow again, but i am not sure if we will since we went yesterday. I hope all of ya’ll are doing well.
Posted 5 years, 2 months ago at 16:07. Add a comment
