As a naval aviator, I never expected to be stationed in a place like Udairi. The rough terrain and flying conditions of the Middle East were barely on our radar in June 2006 when Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 21 (HSC-21), known as the "Blackjacks," received word we were heading to a desert base of operations. Detachment Five of HSC-21 and Detachment One of the HSC-23 "Wildcards" would launch as the third wave of Navy helicopters flying medical evacuation operations to augment Army units performing similar missions in Kuwait and southern Iraq. A year earlier, the Navy rogered up to the medevac challenge by establishing the 2515th Naval Air Ambulance Detachment (NAAD), which included units from HSC-25 and HS-15, as well as helicopter search and rescue corpsmen from units all over the world.
Our new mission was simple: Transport wounded U.S. and Coalition Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen; third-country nationals; and local civilians from the operating area, which included Kuwait, southern Iraq, and the northern Arabian Gulf, to critical care hospital facilities equipped with surgical units. The assignments were a big departure from our traditional expeditionary roles, conducting logistical support and search and rescue operations on board fast combat support ships, T-AOEs, and amphibious assault ships, LHAs and LHDs.
We learned our new trade during two summer workups, one 10-day session at Naval Air Facility El Centro and then during two and a half weeks at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, about 40 miles northeast of Barstow, midway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. At Fort Irwin the detachment integrated with the Army ground units for the first time, providing a great training opportunity. There we practiced desert landings, formation flying, alert launches, and medevac calls while our corpsmen reviewed basic first aid and medical care.
In late October 2006, the 2515th NAAD deployed to Kuwait with 6 MH-60S Seahawk helicopters, 17 pilots, 1 intelligence officer, 2 maintenance officers, 16 enlisted aircrew personnel, 65 maintenance personnel, and 7 corpsmen. We kept four of our six aircraft "green" or flight ready at all times, with one available for maintenance and one for training. As an aircraft commander, I flew with a copilot, two aircrewmen, and one corpsman. The aircrews worked in 25-hour shifts, from 0800 to 0900, which meant we could sleep or eat or train in the squadron area, but had to be ready to launch off the deck within 15 minutes of an alert.
Adjusting to 'Army-speak'
Our detachment worked through a few major adjustments with this new mission, most notably changes to our flying regimens and a transition from "Navy-speak" to "Army-speak." We abandoned, for instance, the naval aviation concept of "crew rest" and maximum 12-hour-per-day flight schedules and adopted the Army's concept of "fighter management." The Army's approach required us to manage work and sleep around missions, while on 25-hour alert status.
On our first night medevac, we were roused from a dead sleep at 0445 to collect two Marines injured in a vehicle rollover. When the radio began blaring, I jumped into my flight suit and raced to the flight line. While the crew went through its checklist, I reviewed the "Nine-Line," a standard Army form for calling in a medevac, which includes key information on location and the condition of the injured personnel.
Our MH-60s launched in 15 minutes, at 0500, and the reality of the mission set in as soon as we landed. The vehicle had crushed the femur of one of the Marines. It was pretty bad, and you could see his leg was very "loose," even though he had a blanket over him. The other Marine suffered a concussion and possible internal bleeding. We took the Marines to Arifjan, an advance care hospital about 30 minutes away in southern Kuwait.
On the way, the sun began to rise. I removed my night vision goggles to better appreciate a stunning and glorious sight, light sweeping the darkness from the floor of the desert.
Irregular Optempo
During the following six months, we transported nearly 130 individuals, mostly at night. Sometimes days would go by and nothing, then we'd have dozens of casualties. Regardless of the operating tempo, the challenge was to stay alert and ready to give 100 percent all of the time. Surprisingly, the weather was cold during much of our deployment, and it even snowed once, which may have been a first for the Kuwaitis.
Crews from our detachment transported a few Army soldiers who were victims of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These missions required an additional corpsman because IED blast injuries could be so devastating. For pilots, landings had to be quick and precise. Once in-flight, medical care for an IED victim was especially critical and never the same; the corpsmen had to work fast to triage the injuries and stabilize the victim. After the patient was transported to the hospital, our post-landing maintenance teams diligently cleaned out any fluids or biohazards left from the trauma care and prepared the helicopter for its next mission. Sadly, we were never told what had become of the wounded once they departed our care.
We had some calls that made you shake your head and ask "why"; in particular requests to transport warfighters who had attempted suicide. Some had served in combat for months, a few just for a day. Once, we landed to find a Marine lieutenant colonel who clearly was losing his battle with the stresses of war. These flights were usually quiet. We knew these fighters would not be sent back into combat.
Occasionally, a crazy moment punctuated the prevailing feeling that we were just living out another version of the movie Groundhog Day. One evening, for instance, when running "the berm," a 6.6-mile dirt road around the perimeter of the base, the sirens sounded with the announcement: "Attack . . . take cover!" After several white Army SUVs screamed past, I started to think this was not the drill siren we were accustomed to hearing, and assessed my options for ground cover; a gas station, a port-a-john, and a waste management plant. With the best-case scenario looking like the port-a-john, I picked up the pace and headed for our airfield and the safety of my squadron bunker, a half-mile away. Some time later, we learned that one of the base guards had spotted Bedouins hunting birds near the berm, and sounded the alert. The false alarm caused mass chaos for a good 30 minutes, but gave us all a little comic relief from the unrelenting reality of injury and loss.
Angels on Board
We logged one of the worst calls, a mass casualty, when a pickup truck hit and overturned a bus filled with Indian and Pakistani workers about five miles south of Udairi. Three helicopters deployed to retrieve 11 injured men, and we transported three of the victims in our aircraft.
Most of the time, I never looked in the back of my helicopter. I could tell the condition of our passengers from the tone and intensity of my corpsman's words through the headset. While inbound, just before landing, the corpsman would update the doctors at the hospital on how the injured were doing and what to expect. He might say one was critical, one was urgent or that we had one "angel" on board, which meant we had lost a casualty in flight. I think one or two victims from the overturned bus were "angels in flight."
Our crew was very close. Everyone was focused on the mission; everyone had a critical role to play. We were operating in a completely different environment, in different terrain, and testing different limitations of the aircraft. Everyone had an equal role in keeping the aircraft flying, from our most junior Sailor to our skipper. We all were especially close to the corpsmen, who gave our patients hope and kept them breathing just a little longer. They served "So Others May Live," which was the corpsmen's motto, and reflected the mission displayed on our detachment patch: Vita De Supernus, "Life from Above."
The 2515th NAAD returned to the States and to our families, friends, and squadron at NAS North Island on 5 May 2007, on board a chartered commercial jet. It was the longest flight of my life. But we came home with our entire detachment, and we arrived knowing we helped many of our shipmates, lost or injured in Iraq, return home, too.