Also see:
Story Iraq: Toasting the Veterans
America's Shame
Here's a more positive story:
"Back from Iraq, Arlington nurse practitioner recalls a healing mission" by Sam Allis/Boston Globe November 11, 2007
Back in September, Anthony Pasqualone was first assistant to surgeons performing traumatic amputations on soldiers at a military hospital in Al Asad, a town in the bloody Al Anbar Province of Iraq.
"We saw the outcome of war. We treated mutilated bodies," Pasqualone says. "We cut off arms, legs, elbows, hands. A lot of this came from IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. Al Asad is the starting and end point of a convoy route that's about 120 miles long. It's a four- or five-day event, because they're shot at a lot and hit with IEDs."
Today, Pasqualone is the grand marshal of the Veterans Day parade in his hometown of Arlington....
Mosul was also the hairiest. Located in the city, the hospital came under mortar attack two or three times a week. The enemy forces were mere blocks away and could lob mortars into the compound with ease. One projectile went through the roof of the building and out a side window without exploding....
Soldiers often focus on the medical plight of children, too. I got an e-mail from Pasqualone in early September about a 7-year-old Iraqi girl named Sarah Hussein Mansour who was suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She needed the kind of treatment available at Children's Hospital Boston. He called there but was told the hospital couldn't take her because it was already doing other pro bono work. He tried other hospitals without success. I ask him what happened to Sarah. She died.
I ask Pasqualone who his heroes are and he says: "The kids who go outside the wire. Those are my heroes. Nineteen- and 20-year-olds who go out looking for bad guys, night after night. The greatest honor of my life was taking care of our boys."
The Army, Pasqualone says, has been the high point of his life.
Civilians have no sense of living with a unit in a war zone," he adds. "Unless you do it, you can't understand. It's a family thing."
Pasqualone and his unit probably won't get called again before he retires at the mandatory age of 60. But he's up for a promotion to full bird colonel in January. If he gets it - and I'm betting he does - he must extend for another three years.
Would he go back to Iraq?
"In a heartbeat," he says. "If I got a call to go back, I'd say: 'You don't have to say any more. I'm yours.' There's a need. What am I going to do, say no?"
Ya gonna say no to the draft, kids?
Maybe this will help you make up your mind.
You'll be better off going to war: Story Iraq: Always With Them
