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Afghanistan Journal:
A Reporter At War
‘Taking bullets for me’
By KEITH KLUWE
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-JOURNAL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (April 14, 2003) — Two service members were killed and one seriously wounded in an ambush March 29 in southern Afghanistan. Four gunmen on motorcycles, believed to be Taliban fighters, escaped after firing on the reconnaissance patrol.
In addition to the Army Special Forces soldier and Air Force tactical air controller killed, a Special Forces soldier named Tom was critically wounded. They were the first U.S. combat casualties since Sgt. Steven Checo of the 82nd Airborne Division was killed by hostile fire in December.
Tom, whose full name is not being released, was shot in the right side, destroying one of his kidneys, perforating his diaphragm and puncturing his lung. Another round went through his right hand. Another round grazed his head. He also was cut over his left eye.
The Forward Surgical Team here saved his life in the operating room at Kandahar Air Field. They removed his damaged organ, closed the hole in his diaphragm and lung. They operated on his hand and closed the wounds above his eye and on the side of his head.
Once his surgery was done, the Critical Care Aeromedical Transport Team stepped in to move Tom to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
Capt. Russel Frantz, the officer in charge of aeromedical operations at Kandahar Air Field, and his crew were responsible for putting Tom in the air evac system, coordinating his movement.
"Some people on the medical side tend to distance themselves from their patient because it helps them focus on their injuries," Frantz said. "I didn´t know (Tom) but it still hit home because he is one of our own."
Frantz also was thinking about Tom on a different level. Both are husbands and fathers.
"To me, my family is everything. I imagine his family is everything to him too. He is very fortunate to have a second chance. I don´t know if he prays, but he probably should start."
On the plane, members of the air evac crew brought different skills and emotions to the flight. Lt. Col. Wendy Tomczak, the senior clinical adviser in the Operation Enduring Freedom theater, was an Army nurse in Vietnam and an Air Force nurse in the Gulf War.
"Tom was the first American casualty I´ve moved since Vietnam," Tomczak said. "It was a mixture of feelings for me. There is the officer and the nurse in me, who treated a young man that was badly hurt and that was very touch-and-go.
"The other part is the mom, thinking Tom is two years older than my son," she continued. "It made for complicated feelings looking at it from two different angles at the same time."
A Special Forces team from Tom´s unit wanted to ride on the aircraft with him and their friends who were killed.
"We usually don´t take passengers with human remains on board, but the guys came on board and asked us to reconsider," Tomczak said with tears in her eyes. "They said they would be honored to go back with him and I couldn´t tell them no."
Technical Sgt. Dean Altman, the most experienced air evac crew member on the C-17 we flew on, oversaw the loading of the two caskets 20 feet from Tom.
"My main thing was to not let (Tom) see what was happening, if he was awake enough to see it," Altman said. "He didn´t know (two of his friends had been killed), but even if he did know, you don´t want him to see the caskets. It´s better that way."
Tom´s doctor, Maj. Daniel Smith, said Tom was very critical and had just about every line and every tube a patient could have.
Staff Sgt. Larry Minor monitored Tom´s breathing and drainage as his cardiopulmonary technician.
"It feels good to actually do the job we have been training for," treating U.S. combat casualties. Minor´s team has moved injured Afghans in the past, but this was his first combat casualty mission. "That´s why I´m here, to help that one guy survive."
Capt. Kristen McCabe was Tom´s nurse. Strapped to the floor standing next to Tom on takeoff, she is the person Tom saw the most on his flight from Afghanistan to Germany.
"I almost got possessive of him. I didn´t want to give him over to the team in Germany. He kept telling me thank you," she said, crying.
"All I did most of the time when he said thank you was give him a sip of water. He was out there taking bullets for me, and my family, and he was thanking me."
Keith A. Kluwe
109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan
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