Page 33 - Total War on PTSD

clearing operations. Two soldiers in the vehicle were killed, and two others were injured, one with life-threatening injuries. One of our Navy Battalion doctors, a renowned orthopedic surgeon from Seattle Washington, who spent most of his time at the Role III hospital in Kandahar, spent nine hours in surgery in the operating room, beginning the moment that the soldier arrived, trying to save his arms and what remained of his hands. The patient would be airlifted to Germany later that night for additional surgery and treatment.
The base commanding officer, General Hodges, contacted our command requesting that our CO, Commodore Donald Hedrick, and I, as Command Master Chief of the Task Force, assist him in presenting our soldier with a Purple Heart as soon as the patient had recovered from surgery and before his flight to Germany was scheduled to depart. Captain Hedrick was in Kabul, Afghanistan, and would not be back for two days, so I represented the command alone.
General Hodges had a standing policy that every wounded soldier within his theater of command was to be presented with a Purple Heart Medal as soon as possible following their injury and that no injured soldier was to leave the theater for further care without his or her Purple Heart medal. He was determined that no Soldier was going to be subjected to bureaucratic snafus that might hold up or deny them a medal that they deserved. The level of medical care and life benefits were more significant for these soldiers than for those who were not wounded in combat—benefits that they would need down the road.
The General asked me to stand beside him as he presented the award. There were a lot of people there that evening, including a nurse that I recognized who usually accompanied me to the rooms of our wounded and injured soldiers whenever I visited the Role III Hospital.
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