Superman wears a red cross ... on the side of his Black Hawk
By Spc. Nathan Hoskins, 1st ACB, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs
Jul 21, 2007 - 3:59:09 PM
Blackanthem Military News, CAMP TAJI, Iraq — It doesn’t matter that the
weather conditions have grounded every other aircraft around Baghdad.
It doesn’t matter that there are hostile forces near the landing zone.
The 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division’s medical evacuation
crews take off in their helicopters because they have a mission: to
save a life.
The Soldiers of Company C, 2nd “Lobo” Battalion, 227th Aviation
Regiment, feel that their job is worth the extra risks and worth the
extra effort to get up in the air, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeremy
Turner, a MEDEVAC pilot for Co. C, who hails from Rockwell, N.C.
It wasn’t a particularly busy day on the airfield due to the weather
when Co. C got a call recently. There were two Soldiers from 1st
Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st
Infantry Division, a task force attached to the 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne
Division, who needed to be evacuated due to serious injuries sustained
in an improvised explosive device attack, he said.
Just three days prior, the MEDEVAC team suffered the tremendous loss of
one of their comrades. Sgt. William Brown, a MEDEVAC crew chief, was
killed during an indirect fire attack.
Brown was tending to an aircraft when enemy fires came in, killing him
instantly. With the loss of their friend still weighing heavy on their
hearts, the pilots and crew chiefs of Co. C still had a job to do.
“The job has to get done. (Sgt.) Brown is missed every day, but there
are many more men and women out there like him that expect us to be
there,” said Turner.
Still, even with this tenacity to fly into the unknown and save
Soldiers, there are some conditions that are just too dangerous to fly
into, and this was one of those days … or was it?
A minimum distance of three miles of visibility is what is necessary
for other pilots to take off, but this day there was only about a
half-mile visibility due to a dense dust storm, grounding all MEDEVAC
birds from Balad to Kuwait, said Turner.
Although the dangers were a reality, there were still Soldiers in the
field at risk of dying without their aid, so Turner and his chain of
command discussed it, he said.
With permission all the way from the brigade commander, the mission was green-lighted, said Turner.
Even when poor visibility limits other aircraft, the MEDEVAC team will
risk themselves day or night, said Reno, Nev., native Lt. Col.
Christopher Joslin, the Lobo commander.
Flying in miserable weather and in hostile skies is normal for the MEDEVAC teams, said Turner.
“That’s where soldiers usually get hurt. It’s never on a sunny day,
right by the beach. They’re out there doing the fighting, we’re there
to try and make sure they make it back in from the fight, if we’re
called,” he said.
Within mere minutes after getting the go ahead from their command,
Turner and his crew were up and on their way to the scene, said Turner.
One of the super-human traits of a MEDEVAC team is being able to run up
their aircraft and be in the air in 10 minutes or less, said Joslin.
“Most aviators that fly UH-60 (Black Hawks) outside of the MEDEVAC
community doubt that (timeframe) is really possible,” said Joslin. “The
only crews I have ever seen do that are MEDEVAC crews and the chase
crews that have been trained by MEDEVAC crews.”
Ten minutes later, the Black Hawk was landing at its destination to
pick up the wounded Soldiers. Less than 10 minutes after that, they
were landing at the local Combat Support Hospital, said Turner.
One of the two Soldiers delivered to the hospital, required extensive
surgery to address his wounds. The pair survived the hazards of war
because of the MEDEVAC’s timely response and selfless service, said
Capt. Jared Purcell, the public affairs officer for Task Force 1-26.
“During combat operations over the last year, Air MEDEVAC units have
risked their lives to save the lives of TF 1-26 Soldiers,” he said.
“They move to the sound of the guns, and do what it takes to get to the
patient.”
The Soldiers of Co. C see the bloodiest part of battle nearly every day
– it’s their job. Even so, there has to be a release, a time to put it
all away and focus on things a little less dark, said Turner, who was a
Navy Corpsman for 11 years before joining the Army and flying MEDEVAC
helicopters.
“I’ve, unfortunately, gotten hardened to (the sight of the injured and
dead). It still catches up and hurts every once in a while, but you
just can’t dwell (on it),” he said.
Although this mission had a happy ending – both Soldiers survived – others don’t end so well, said Turner.
The medics are the ones who are affected the most because they do all
they can to save the patients’ lives, but sometimes it’s to no avail,
he said.
“(The MEDEVAC members) won’t talk about the impact on themselves when
the injuries are so bad that, despite their best efforts, they cannot
save the patient, or (they) arrive only to find that the patient has
already died,” said Joslin.
Soldiers are not the only ones who benefit from the expertise of the MEDEVAC teams, said Joslin.
“Hundreds of Soldiers, Iraqis, contractors, civilians and even the
enemy, would not be alive today if it were not for the extraordinary
individual and collective feats we ask these American heroes to do on a
daily, routine basis,” he said.
The terrorists who fired the mortars that killed Brown would get the
same treatment as a Soldier who was trying to protect the innocent
Iraqis.
After picking up and dropping off their patients, the MEDEVAC team will
sometimes head on to other missions that came up while they were out,
or they’ll just head on home to wait for the next call.
In most cases, the crew never knows the eventual outcome of the patient they dropped off.
However, if Turner could say something to one of the hundreds of lives
he has helped save, he said it might go something like this: “Good to
see you and thank you for you’re sacrifices … can I buy you a beer?”
Joslin refers to his MEDEVAC teams as “the closest thing to angels on
earth,” but Turner, like most modest heroes, won’t admit that what he
does is special.
“We’re just regular people doing our job – saving Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and even civilians … is our job,” said Turner.
