Nursing in a Disaster Situation: Military Terrorist Attack in Iraq

At the age of 31, Joseph Patrick Dwyer died a hero and a wounded combat medic vet after years of coping with post-traumatic stress disorder and a broken marriage through substance abuse. As for most of the soldiers who served in the Iraq war, Dwyer, too, was stricken by the September 11th tragedy and felt the necessity to fight for freedom and justice. A week into active duty in Iraq, Dwyer was photographed “as he raced through a battle zone clutching a tiny Iraqi boy named Ali” (Kennedy). The picture and the story behind it swept the nation and claimed a hero of Dwyer.

troops on a hopeless humanitarian mission pulled out of Mogadishu, Somalia. A few Americans realize that during this mission, U.S. troops had the most continuous and gruesome battle fought by American’s since the Vietnam War. The afternoon of October 3rd, 1993, soldiers of Task Force Ranger, and Delta Force were sent to capture two lieutenants of a rebel Somalian warlord and return to base. This mission was supposed to take 30 min, but instead, the soldiers were pinned down in the middle of Mogadishu market and in a desperate effort of kill or be killed. For about 20 hours, U.S. soldiers created a bloody firefight that resulted in 19 American fatalities and the death of 1000 Somali fighters. Black Hawk Down tells the story of that desperate battle, from all angles of the war.

The soldiers there helped everyone suit up for war, our uniforms on with a M16 on our side. Also, we had a bag full of bullets and more guns just in case we needed more during the battle. We were loaded to a truck to get to the battlefield, it was 3 trucks overall. I was able to fall asleep after the first hour ride and was waken up 5 minutes before getting to the destination, we were told to get prepare for anything that could happen, be alarm for anything but don’t shoot your team members. War has began.

April 19, 1995, 9:02 a.m: a bomb was set off beneath the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The bomb damaged the structural support beams and the Northern support columns. Half of the building collapsed. 168 people died (Cook 5). Eric McKisick, a district manager, recalls the incident, ¨I made an assumption that, hey, everybody is out, everybody is good, and I left at that point. It wasn't ´till much later that I saw the devastation and understood they didn't respond because they couldn't.” Not only were there a large number of casualties, 300 people were also injured, some of whom were physically impaired for the rest of their life. A child who was in the building at the time of the explosion states, “I have no recollection of that day, but I’m reminded everyday about it because of my breathing problems (Brandes, Heide, Schapiro).”

It was 115 degrees; the platoon was walking through the middle of the desert each of them with 40 pounds of gear on and an M16A2 rifle. It was summer time in the country of Afghanistan and the temperature was rising. At this point I asked myself what the hell I am doing here and why did I join the United States Army? Right when I was thinking that I felt a tug on my leg and there stood a young boy about 7 years old with only one arm, “Candy,Candy” he asked. Upon speaking with the local villagers we found out that his arm was taken from an improvised explosive device (IED) planted

It’s been 15 years since that day, but the moment still haunts me today. When we found out that a nuclear bomb was going to drop, my family and the rest of the street had no idea what to do. Everything was all over the place, seconds after the explosion happened. Houses were destroyed, cars were flipped and ravaged, and thousands of dead bodies were lying on the streets. Some of them were even our dearest friends.

It was now the sunday morning of December 7, 1941, where many military personnel had a time of leisure. Many of them either were still sleeping, in halls eating breakfast, or getting ready for church. I who had been in the mess hall having breakfast sat with a group of men, enjoying a warm bowl of oatmeal and coffee. As I took a sip of coffee I felt all my muscles awaken and gain strength ready for what this day would bring me. It was just another day of work, or that is what we all thought. The hall was full of cheerful men laughing, talking, and eating. All of a sudden we heard the sounds of planes racing through the thick air, and the crowd of people grew silent. I looked around as everyones faces grew with fear and confusion, as they ran outside to see what was going on.

These are the stories that need to be told to the American public by the soldiers who experienced them first hand. Sadly these stories only come out in books and novels and are often deemed as “true stories that never happened,” as seen in Tim O’Brien’s work. There is a clear reason for this.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” said Istar Mohamed, a mother of three who was penetrated with shrapnel in her arm hip and leg.” “You can’t imagine the devastation that happened there. After a few moments I fell unconscious from the impact of it all.”

I remember the day that it all happen. The day the battle for Yahya Khel started, the first major offensive operation for 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment (Black Knights), 172nd Infantry Brigade. I was in my rack on Forward Operating Base Super (FOB), in the early morning, I was awoken by a member the Operation Detachment Alpha (ODA) team that we shared the FOB with. He asked me “You the mortar guy?” I said I was. “Grab your gear. We have to go, we loaded your 120mm mortar and all the rounds into our vehicles. I’ll explain the situation on the way.” He said

On March 10, 2010, at 13:30 a.m., 3rd Platoon, Company D, 1-22 Infantry Battalion, was conducting a convoy operation. The purpose of the operation was to transport equipment and selected Service Members to the battalion’s main Forward Operating Base. Twenty minutes into the convoy operation, Patrick’s unit was under attack by an enemy force equipped with automatic weapon systems. During this time, Patrick maintained his confidence and began returning firing toward the enemy force. As Patrick was returning fire from the vehicle that he was in, he was struck by one round from the enemy force. The medic that was attached to the convoy operation immediately tended to Patrick’s wounds and managed to get him to a medical facility,

military’s vast experience in responding to and managing casualties from IED and/or active shooter incidents and from its significant investment in combat casualty care research into the civilian first responder environment” (DHS, First Responder Guide. 2015). In order to improve safety in response to terror events, especially those classified as international terrorism it will require that first responders to further prepare for a vast variety of potential threats. The focus of this increased preparation should not only regard the safe and effective responses of first responders to all potential hazards caused by a terrorist event; but should also include the improvement of first responder’s connections to their communities, the gathering of intelligence, information sharing, and realizing their role in domestic defense of the United States of America.

Did the nurses have to fight? No, according to henderson state university Nurses, “did not have to fight but they had to go into the combat zone to get the injured men. They

As a military war veteran, Iraq struck a nerve with me for the simple fact that I had to go there to fight a war that was really unnecessary and drawn out. When first hearing about us going to Iraq I was a little nervous, but also excited for the wrong reasons. I was excited for the fact that I could say that I deployed. I could simply show off my deployment patch and put something on my class A uniform. as well but the thought of possibly going there and losing my life was kind of disturbing. I remember getting off the plane in the middle of Zafaniyah, which was in the Baghdad, Karadah area. The compound was made up of unused connexes and made-shift bathrooms. We did however have a dining facility that was pretty efficient. There were two guard towers that were to the North and South and also there were guard shacks that was on top of the building of the post. The first time that I heard mortars and bombs going on my bottom was puckered. In my head I thought that the streets that I had once grew up in was dangerous. I would come to surely realize that-that could not be further from the truth. I came in at 25 years old, as a hard head but still disciplined. I caused trouble before leaving to come to Iraq because I thought it might be my last hooorah, boy was I wrong. I finally came to realize that there was more to the world than Hampton, Virginia. That there was much more important issues than what was going on in the streets. Life became more meaningful, and I felt as if

On November 5, 2009 at approximately 1:30 p.m., a gunman opens fire inside the base's Soldier Readiness Center at U.S. Army Base, Fort Hood, Texas. Soldier Readiness Center, is where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening (http://search.proquest.com). During the shooting the gunman killed 13 and wounded 31 others. The gunman was shot and wounded by base police during the incident. This was the first time that an attack like this has happened in a military base on U.S. soil. All the soldiers and civilians inside of the Soldier Readiness Center were unarmed at the time of