November 1st... I can honestly say I am leaving this place soon. It is even better to say "I am leaving next month!" Everytime one of us gets upset or angry about anything here, we just repeat it over and over again... "we are leaving next month!". It has such a great ring to it...

So the rest of October was pretty routine. Things have continued to be relatively quiet in the hospital, and we continue to make definite plans for the arrival of our replacements. In case it is not yet apparent, we are leaving soon. The only small downside is that we will nto be leaving together as a unit, but broken into a bunch of smaller groups to head home. It is only a downside because we came together, it would be nice to leave together. To have a uniting moment, a farewell after having spent so much time and sweat together. Despite the horrible part of being away from home, the past year (plus) has been a remarkable experience for me in humanity. While I speak mostly of the ER crew, we really became a second family over here, and I will miss the people here quite a bit. There are memories that were made here that I will treasure... while there are definitly some that I hope to never think of again.

So we have tried to come up with some things to spice up our daily monotony here. The nurses have taken to crotcheting in the downtime - pretty sure it is an addiction as at any given moment you can find a few of them working on their yarn that they have squirreled away in some corner of the nurses station.

Of course part of October is Halloween. It was celebrated in style in the hospital. I think the Command locked themselves in their offices and closed their ears as almost everyone in the hospital wore some form of costume throughout the day, including while caring for patients. Todd's costume (one of the other two ER docs) with the mask frightened some of the local national patients who didn't quite understand, while my costume frightened just about everyone including me. Long story behind it, but the ER nurses picked out my costume while I was on leave, and I couldn't let them down... Marti's (the other ER doc) costume (The Head Chef... get it?) was also quite a hit with the locals who came to the door seeking care. Our nurses in the ER all dressed as 1920's Flapper girls, and even danced the Charlston on request. The day was alot of fun, and let people just relax a little after a really long year. It was a big boost on morale.

As for adventures this month - had a few low key ones around the IZ. Dena (Family Practice doc) and I started snooping around one of the FOB's that used to house the Ministry of Justice prior to the fall of Saddam. We had heard a rumor that the court house where Saddam, and later his cronies were tried. We found a little porthole that looked promising, but no one would pay attention to us and unlock the door, so we started to walk away. A few minutes later, two soldiers came and asked us if we were snooping around their compound, and when we said 'yes', they offered to give us a tour. Inside a very secure buildign, surrounded by lots of guards and snipers sits the highest courthouse in Iraq. They showed us around including the defendants "cage" where Saddam sat defiantly for his trial. It was pretty cool to see and actually touch that part of modern history. One of the 'quirky' things inside the courthouse is the largest Iraqi flag in Iraq - standing at 35 some-odd feet. In typical Iraqi fashion, though, when they recently changed their flag (removing some stars), rather than remove the stitching that holds the stars, or replacing the flag, they just painted over it.

During some of our morning runs, we stop in at some of the local FOBs and explore there as well. One such place on a FOB called 'Prosperity' features some stone reliefs that were interesting - including this one which is hard to make out in the picture, but has a bomb at the top labeled 'USA' falling on a pile of dismembered and broken children and babies. Just the kind of artwork one would expect in a government building... just another pointer to how sick Saddam was.

So the last field-trip involved the Prime Minister of Iraq (Maliki) who was in need of a flu-shot. He asked the CSH to provide it to him - not really sure why. But it opened an opportunity for us to go to his offices and give him and some of his advisors the flu shot. I really had no role to play, but I invited myself anyways on the premise that if they had a reaction, they would need an ER doctor. We also brought one of our ER nurses - Heather Cataldi - using the same rationale. So we were convoyed over to his residence in some Iraqi Army vehicles and taken into his reception area - given fresh squeezed orange juice, and Iraqi tea while we waited for an hour for the Prime Minister. In the meantime we talked with the National Security Advisor - a very interesting man - had been a physician after escaping from Saddam's torture chambers. Then he walked in, made some small talk for about 20 minutes, signed some laws that were in Arabic, and then rolled up his sleeve and got his shot. On the way out, we got a tour of the gardens surrounding the residence's - known as 'Little Venice' for the network of canals surrounding the area. An interesting experience without a doubt. He and his staff were very appreciative and incredibly amicable, thought he wouldn't tell us who he wanted to win the US election. Then a quick convoy back to the CSH. One of those experiences to remember for sure.

Nothing very adventurous planned for the rest of this month - except did I mention - we are going home next month. Hope to see you all then.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to upload pictures recently. I will keep trying and let you know.

Hello again from Baghdad. I have been gone for the last few weeks - back home at last with Amy and the girls! It was great, and very much needed. It was starting to get really old over here. It took a few days to get there - the Army has to make everything as painful as possible. Over a day to travel 20 miles to the airport in Baghdad flying in the usual Blackhawks, another almost 2 days to travel 250 miles to Kuwait using Air Force C-17s (much more comfortable then the smaller turboprop C-130s), and then one more day back home via Ireland and Georgia (the state) using chartered commercial airlines. The delays going home were easy to deal with knowing what I was heading towards. However, the delays on the way back to Iraq were agonizing. My arrival back home in New Jerey was exactly what you would expect in Newark, but then I walked out to Amy and the girls in the car and it was one of the greatest moments in my life. When I approached the car in the pouring rain, Sara saw me and started screaming "It's Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." waving her arms and feet at me. Naomi looked at me trying to place my face with someone she knew from long ago, but after about 20 minutes, followed Sara's lead and it was like I had never left. It was about as great a homecoming as you could hope for. Even Riley (the dog) recognized me right away when I walked in the house and started howling and running like I hadn't seen him do in about 5 years.

We spent most of my leave at home, going on day trip adventures with the girls - to the zoo, apple picking, Sesame Place, to meet up with more of the family. Met the new nephews in my family - Matthew and Caleb. Nothing too wild or crazy, but it was perfect. It was very easy to forget about this place and it was only on recalling that I was missing a year of memories with Amy and the girls, did I remember that I was gone at all. It is amazing to me how much Amy has done and how she has done it so well being essentially a single mother with two high energey kids. I would be exhausted at the end of each day - and that was with two adults! I also cannot thank enough our friends, neighbors, and family who have watched over the three of them while I have been here. It is an incredible relief knowing that you all are there for her. Thank you, thank you.

Then, all too soon, it was back on the airplane and back to Iraq. Surprise, surprise, nothing much had changed here. With one big exception... less than 3 months left. We had passed the one year mark in Iraq. The planning for our redeployment home were well on their way - even had some tentative dates for leaving.

Things here in Baghdad are nice and quiet. I have continued to try to get off of the hospital FOB as much as possible - including waking up at 4am to go running around the IZ. Don't have to worry about traffic at that time in the morning, and it is actually a comfortable temperature. My blood has definitly thinned out since coming over here as 80 degrees feels cool now.

Still have the occasional blips of intense activity, but for the most part we in the hospital are content to let the rest of our deployment fade out into the sunset. The next CSH to replace us will hopefully have a much different experience - and hopefully, they won't need a CSH to replace them after their 12 months here. (yes, I know they have a shorter deployment then us... actually the doctors and nurses only spend 6 months and then will rotate out). Either way, we only have one set of winter holidays left over here...

I hope you are all well. Please take care. Until next time...

Just another short update as things just continue to repeat themselves over and over again. Thanks for reading and commenting on the piece I wrote for Newsweek. As you can imagine, it was a very moving time for me and for everyone here. Having been here as long as we have with the same group of nurses and docs has been an incredible experience in many different ways. Good and bad. That soldier I wrote about was part of the life of two of our nurses in the ER. I can't imagine what they went through seeing their friend there. The nurses, medics, and docs that are here for the entire 15 months together have very much become a second family. We have been through a lot together - also good and bad. I have a hard time beliving I will ever experience the comraderie found here ever again, and I will definitly miss that. On the flip side... I REALLY can't wait to get home to the 'first' family.

Things continue on here, slowly marching forward towards that date 5 months from now - even closer, though, is my leave in just a few days. I just can't wait to see Amy, Sara, Naomi, and Riley again. The real test will be which ones of them remember me.

So - the pics... went out on an adventure again around the IZ. One of our nurses, Heather, had never been outside the hospital FOB. So we got a hold of a big old suburban and saw the sights. In the process, met some Iraqi Army soldiers who were guarding the Tomb of the Unknown. It was interesting trying to communicate with hand gestures that we wanted to go up to the monument - eventually, they let us pass. But I have to admit it was a little sketchy and we did not stick around for long.

Then up on top of one ofthe other FOB's, were treated to the rare sighting of the American Great White... just thought it was a funny picture in the middle of Baghdad during a war...

Also spent some time hanging out with some of the local British troops. Saw a few of their armored personnel carriers in the parking lot, and felt the need to ask to play inside of them. Then on the way back, saw some of the Baghdad Fire Department firefighters - and asked them for a joyride in theit Engine - which they obliged.

A little earlier we had a visit from one of the politician's in the news quite a bit lately. He caused a bit of a stir in the hospital. Of course, as one of the few democrats in the entire hospital, I missed his visit due to some other issues going on. One of the highlights of his visit, though was the way he got to CSH - he flew in on the Marine Osprey's - which landed here for the first time. Pretty impressive things.

Other than that, just passing time in the usual way. Marty (one of the other ER docs) is teaching herself guitar. While the rest of us hang out in the usual Army way...

Hope you are all doing well...

So things here have gotten much slower, thankfully. It's happening for a lot of reasons, but mainly because of the decrease in violence against US troops. There is... dare I say... hope in the air. Hope that things in this country will improve, that the Iraqis will forgive each other and move on, hope that the government of Iraq will be able to step up and function as it should... on its own. Enough of the soapbox, though. So the slowing down in the hospital has actually made things boring. Sure we still have busy days, but two days ago was not one of them. In fact, we proved that idle hands are not the best idea when it comes to people who have been living away from home for almost 11 months... Watch the video to see what I mean.

Moosh and Bear are the stuffed animals of two of our nurses who seem to go on more adventures then anyone else I know. They have been flown to almost a dozen different bases, explored numerous locations and slept in countless beds. Anyway, they left the bears in the ER one day, and well, we were bored and came up with somthing to do.

Other than the facial expressions (and the fact that the casualtiy is a stuffed elephant), the video is not too far off from what happens when a real person shows up here - since a lot of you wanted to know what I do on a daily basis.

There is a sequel in the works...

There really isn't all that much else to say today. Other than I get to come home for leave soon. I get to find out if the girls still remember who I am and that they really do still have a father. Sara had her third birthday party and is growing into quite the young princess. Naomi has finally grown some teeth on the bottom and wants to do everything her big sister does... including talking non-stop. Can't wait till I get to see them.

Cheers!

Month in Mosul

Well, my time here in northern Iraq is coming to a close as I head back down to Baghdad in the next few days. I am not really looking forward to the nausea creating flight between here and there, but it will be good to get back to what has unfortunately become 'normal' for me. Mosul was very different from Baghdad in a lot of ways - a lot slower pace at the hospital, not many plaes to tour around during down time, and a lot less down time. There is only one ER physician up here, so that one is always on-call. It gets a little painful. That being said, there is a lot less of the command group portion of the hospital up here, so things are a little less intrusive and you have a bit more freedom, which is very nice.

So I got to spend some time while I was here playing with some of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regimental tanks. It was like playing video games back in high school - only much cooler. Spent some time crawling through it, using the various sights to track on targets (no we didn't shoot anything, no matter how many times I begged) Got to know their regimental surgeon - who helped plan our field trip out with their armor. We then got a tour of the local FOBs and actually got to see what the city of Mosul looks like - looks like every other large Arabian city... Hot, sandy...

Their is one historical site on the FOB over here - a monastery that was built in the 400s AD - St. Elijah's Monastery - intermittently used by the local christian population over the centuries. Then taken over as an Iraqi Republican Guard headquarters - then taken over as a 101st Airborne Battalion Headquarters - now being returned to the local archeologic community. It is fenced off and guarded so random people can't get into it, but the chaplain takes guided tours through the area and talks about some of the history associated with it. Neat to see something that has actually survived that long in this place, though not surprised that it has been touched by modernity - including one of the main walls punched in by an exploding Iraqi tank.

Across the street sits a "graveyard" for Iraqi armor with dozens of destroyed/nonfunctional Iraqi tanks, artillery and various other vehicles that were damaged during the war and are just sitting and rusting now.

The were very few busy moments up here - one involved the local civilian population of a surroudning town. They had a massive IED go off - wounding over 90 people. The Turkish government (which is not too far from here) offered to care for about half of their most seriously injured. So ambulances drove about 20 Iraqi patients up the hospital here were we staged them and took care of them waiting for the Turkish Air Force medical teams to fly in and get them a few hours later. It was the usual circus show you would expect from three governments working together to accomplish a relatively simple task.

Other than that - not alot to do. I am looking forward to heading back down to Baghdad - to enjoy the rest of my sentence with the crew that I have spent the last 10+ months with. And it also means that much closer to my leave...

I hope you all take care.

Until next time...

Alright, now for the latest update. I guess these have spaced out a bit more than I planned, so I will try to be better at keeping up on these things. Not that all that much exciting has been transpiring here. Things have become routine - with a few little changes that I will get to at the bottom of this posting.

Thankfully, aside from a spike in activity two weeks ago, things have been returning to a level of boredom. Less combat by both the Iraqis and the US troops have meant that we are staying relatively quiet in the hospital. Of course, that means more time to try to find things to do and to try to stay out of trouble the best that we can. The Nintendo Wii is a big hit with daily Tennis and Guitar Hero matches. Entertaining to watch a bunch of adults become fixated on a TV screen, shouting obscenities when they lose at little video cartoon characters.

Got another chance to go combat biking and explore the rest of the International Zone. realizing that peering into these bombed out places is very voyeuristic - but really, there is not all that much else to do. Stopped by one of the local mosques. We, of course, did not go inside, but instead snuck a peek over its surrounding walls. There are still a little less than 10,000 Iraqis who live within the limits of the International Zone - so the mosques stay pretty active from what we understand. Multiple times a day, you can hear the call to prayer. It is an eery sound given that we have been conditioned by Hollywood to believe that they are essentially a call to kill the infidels, too. When you are able to get over that misbelief, there is actually almost a mystical/beautiful sound to it.

The next stop on our outing was to a FOB called Union III. It was a palace being built for the Ministry of Justice before it was gutted by a few thousand pounds of American bombs. It is now home to a few American units, some Australian troops, and a few contracting groups.

It is across the street from the FOB occupied by the Georgian Army. We had never come across anyone who had actually been inside their compound as there is very little interaction between the Georgians (who speak no English) and the Americans (who speak even less Georgian). With nothing else to do we stopped by and asked to have a peak around. Their response was perfect... "Why would anyone want to come in here?" We told them we were just out exploring, and just shocked that we had come by they hesitantly said... "OK" and opened up their gate for us. Essentially another bombed palace with very few people around. Although you could tell there used to be a beautiful garden in the back of the building where they actually had a flowering vine growing (the first flowers I have seen in Iraq). The only actual military object we found the entire time was an old Soviet era tank. As we were leaving, the Georgian soldiers gathered around and insisted that we all take pictures together. OK.

The final stop was to an area of houses that used to belong to Saddam and his friends as yet another place to throw parties - particularly his son Qusay. Also the recipient of American "largesse" in the form of high explosives. It was obviously at one point a beautiful building with a landscaped courtyard, several indoor/outdoor pools, and some classic artwork.

The rest of the month was pretty uneventful until the end when we met up with some friends who are contractors and have access to some more weapons and essentially unlimited ammunition and range time. (Paid for by you the tax-payer, of course... thank you). Spent some time firing machine guns - an awesome experience. A little bit on the warm side on the concrete, but definitely worth it. If you have the opportunity, I would definitely recommend putting some holes in paper targets this way.

And then for the big change. the 86th CSH is actually divided into two sections - the larger section (about 3/4 of the hospital) is in Baghdad, where I had been. The other 1/4 is in Mosul, which is in the northern part of the country - about 300km away. A much smaller support mission. Since we are all part of the same hospital, though, we have to cover when we go on leave. The part in Mosul only has one ER doctor (as opposed to the 3 we have in Baghdad) - so the doc in Mosul is going on leave, and I had to travel up here to backfill him. After about 18 hours (to go 300 km), we made it up here. Quite an experience. Took an armored bus (The Rhino) from the International Zone to the Baghdad Airport. Since the route goes through the 'Red Zone' it is a convoy driving at speeds you don't think are safe in a giant, overweight bus. Anyway, once there, we had the nicest of Army accommodations for the overnight until our flight left on a C-130. We were packed like sardines into the uncomfortable webbing seats, in about 130 degree heat with all our body armor on - waiting on the runway for about 2.5 hours - you thought your flight on United was rough. Most people passed out eventually. Only to be woken up as we were getting ready to land in Mosul using a 'combat landing'. This involved dropping the 17,000 feet in a few seconds coupled with tight spirals and jerking back and forth - mind you still in the hundreds temperature wise in the aircraft. No windows to get your bearing either. By the time we hit the ground - hard - there was not a face that was not a deep green shade. My biggest concern on the aircraft was not getting shot or crashing - but what the proper etiquette is when you lose your lunch -do you do it into your helmet, your rucksack, your neighbor...

Anyway, now I am here for some time. I will be returning back to Baghdad in a month or two. In the meantime, this is a very different place - living in a trailer (CHU - Containerized Housing Unit) - no place to go off and have adventures as the FOB sits right on the wall between us and the City of Mosul. The hospital abuts the airfield here, so the constant drone of helicopters and airplanes is a constant accompaniment. For those interested, you can actually see the hospital by going to Google Earth and mapping to Mosul, and then zooming down on the runway. The view outside my CHU is not quite scenic - actually just a bunker and hundreds of 'T-walls' as rocket and mortar attacks are about as common as they are in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, my girls are getting cuter - you just have to admit it - they might be the cutest ones out there.

I hope you are all having a great Fourth. Please have some beer and hotdogs for me. Actually, just have the beer and hold it for when I get home.