911doc's Journal

10:58am: All About Alek
I haven't posted in a while, but today was Alek's last day in third grade...he brought home a poster he'd made in class complete with a picture of himself and Brian and I...I thought it would be fun to reproduce here, complete with his unique spelling....as an aside, his cursive handwriting looks much better than mine!

All About Alek

I am nine years old.
My favorite animal is a cat.
My favorite color is red.
My favorite food is octupus.

This year at school I learned how to make a circuit in Science class. In math class I lerned to multiply by 9's. In my homeroom I learned how to do SRA (note: SRA is an independent reading program.)

My favorite place is France. I go during the summer time because my dads know a friend that has a little house that we rent during the summer. My dads and I parasail and we eat french food.

My favorit thing to do is to play baseball because I play different positions. To me it is really fun. I have been playing for 4 years.

When I grow up I will be a baseball player because I relly like to play baseball. I would like to have a family and kids so I am not lonely. I would like to live in New York City.

If I only has one wish I would wish for more wishes. Then I wouldn't have to think so hard about only one wish. That is why I would wish for more whishes.

3:50am: Anniversary
Today I celebrate 12 years with Brian!!!!!! I am a very lucky guy.....

11:31am: A follow up story to the one about Cpl Smith and HM3 Kirby....also turns out Kirby's cousin is Joe Worley, a corpsman I knew from my last deployment in Iraq who lost his leg in Fallujah...anyway, here's the story....


The road to recovery for U.S. marine wounded in Iraq

By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: February 25, 2007

Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded marine in Iraq and his own wounding by a sniper on Christmas were covered by The New York Times, has returned home to Georgia and expects a nearly full recovery, he and his family said.

He returned escorted by a police honor guard early this month, after his discharge from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and four operations during five weeks of care.

Petty Officer Kirby, 23, was struck by a bullet in the left side of the face while near a bunker on the roof of Outpost Omar, a Marine position in Karma, a city in Anbar Province.

His injury mixed the worst of luck with an uncanny stroke of good fortune.

The bullet, which he said was an armor-piercing 7.62 millimeter round fired from a Dragunov-style sniper rifle at a range of 400 to 600 yards, passed through his head and exited at the side of his mouth. In traveling this path, it did not strike his brain, spinal column or major veins or arteries, he said.

Immediately after the bullet's impact, Petty Officer Kirby remained conscious and could walk. He communicated by writing notes. But his condition deteriorated, he and officers in his battalion said, from blood loss and trauma to the roof of his mouth and the base of his skull.

Although officers in the unit to which he was assigned, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, initially thought he had lost his ability to speak, since undergoing the operations he has recovered a voice that is only slightly slurred.

"I'm doing a lot better than most people would expect," he said by telephone from Hiram, Ga.

Petty Officer Kirby had been assigned as a trauma medic to the battalion's weapons company. In early November he was the subject of an article that described his work and prayers to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a machine gunner in the vehicle's turret who was shot through the skull by a sniper in Karma in late October.

Lance Corporal Smith, 19, survived, and is undergoing treatment and full days of intensive therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis. His father, Bob Smith, said by telephone that while his prognosis is unclear he has made significant progress.

The bullet, the same type that struck Petty Officer Kirby, destroyed the top regions of both frontal lobes of Lance Corporal Smith's brain. But since being medically stabilized and beginning a range of therapies, he has begun to walk with assistance and a four-pronged cane, to smile and to mimic sounds and repeat words he hears, his father said.

Mr. Smith also said his son recognized relatives and was in very good spirits, often laughing, acting playfully and twinkling his eyes.

"The essence of him is there," Mr. Smith said. "It is not always easy for him to communicate, but it is there."

Because of damage to areas of the brain that control speech, Mr. Smith said, it was not clear how fully Lance Corporal Smith would recover his ability to converse. Similarly, he has extremely limited movement on the right side of his body. It is too soon to predict how much range of motion and strength would return.

"You never know when the healing process will plateau," Mr. Smith said, but added, "Every day you can see him improve."

Petty Officer Kirby's therapy and treatment are less extensive. The bullet tore away seven teeth, the right side of his lower jaw, several patches of nerve and a section of his tongue. It also shattered part of his lower skull, near the roof of his mouth.

Surgeons have rebuilt his face with bone and skin from one of his legs, he said, and secured the damaged tissues with 14 metal plates.

"The plates are just kind of holding everything together and allowing it to grow back to what it was," he said.

He said he expects to have three or four more operations in the next six months, and will require therapy to recover his speech in full.

His mother, Gail Kirby, said that his prognosis is good, and that his attitude is, too.

"At his first meeting with the local speech therapist, he walked in and said, 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,' " she said, using the word made famous by Julie Andrews in "Mary Poppins." "Then he said, 'There. Can I go now?' "

Petty Officer Kirby said he intended to return to active duty when his doctors allow, and hoped to become an instructor at a military school, training other corpsmen in combat medical duties As the two men have continued to convalesce, their battalion completed its tour in Iraq and moved out of the country through Kuwait. Its last members returned to its home base, Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Feb. 21. Petty Officer Kirby said he hoped to rejoin them.

Mr. Smith, Lance Corporal Smith's father, said his son's platoon sergeant was planning to visit him in March.

In Hiram, Petty Officer Kirby's mother said that for now she was simply grateful he was home.

For months, she said, she barely slept, and constantly checked e-mail messages, news reports from Iraq and Web sites that track American casualties in Iraq.

"Now I can just walk into the room," she said, "and see him."

10:26am: No doubt that corpsmen serving with the Marines are some of the greatest people on this earth....when I was in Fallujah, we used to call Karma "Bad Karma" as it was a particularly inhospitable place...I see that it still is....

Medic Aids Fallen Marine With Skill and a Prayer

By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: November 2, 2006
KARMA, Iraq, Oct. 30 — Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby clutched the injured marine’s empty helmet. His hands were coated in blood. Sweat ran down his face, which he was trying to keep straight but kept twisting into a snarl.
He held up the helmet and flipped it, exposing the inside. It was lined with blood and splinters of bone.
“The round hit him,” he said, pausing to point at a tiny hole that aligned roughly with a man’s temple. “Right here.”
Petty Officer Kirby, 22, is a Navy corpsman, the trauma medic assigned to Second Mobile Assault Platoon of Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines. Everyone calls him Doc. He had just finished treating a marine who had been shot by an Iraqi sniper.
“It was 7.62 millimeter,” he continued. “Armor piercing.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the bullet, which he had found. “The impact with the Kevlar stopped most of it,” he said. “But it tore through, hit his head, went through and came out.”
He put the bullet in his breast pocket, to give to an intelligence team later. Sweat kept rolling off his face, mixed with tears. His voice was almost cracking, but he managed to control it and keep it deep. “When I got there, there wasn’t much I could do,” he said.
Then he nodded. He seemed to be talking to himself. “I kept him breathing,” he said.
He looked at Lance Cpl. Matias Tafoya, his driver, and raised his voice. It was almost a shout. “When I told you that I do not let people die on me, I meant it,” he said. “I meant it.”
He scanned the Iraqi houses, perhaps 150 yards away, on the other side of a fetid green canal. Marines were all around, pressed to the ground, peering from behind machine-gun turrets or bracing against their armored vehicles, aiming rifles at where they thought the sniper was.
The sniper had made a single shot just as the marines were leaving a rural settlement on the western edge of Karma, a city near Falluja in Anbar Province.
The marines had been searching several houses on this side of the canal, where they found five Kalashnikov assault rifles and bomb components, and were getting back into their vehicles when everyone heard the shot. It was a single loud crack.
No one was precisely sure where it had come from. Everyone knew precisely where it hit. It struck a marine who was peering out of the first vehicle’s gun turret. He collapsed.
Petty Officer Kirby rushed to him and found him breathing. He bandaged the marine’s head as the vehicle lurched away. Soon he helped load the wounded marine into a helicopter, which touched down beside the convoy within 12 minutes of the shot.
Once the helicopter lifted away, he ran back to his vehicle, ready to treat anyone else. He was thinking about the marine he had already treated.
“If I had gone with him,” he said, and glanced to where the helicopter had flown away, over the line of date palms at the end of a field. His voice softened. “But I’m not with him,” he said.
He turned, faced a reporter and spoke loudly again. “In situations and times like this, I am bound to start yelling and shouting furiously,” he said. “Don’t think I am losing my mind.”
He held his bloody hands before his face, to examine them. They were shaking. He made fists so tight his veins bulged. His forearms started to bounce.
“His name was Lance Cpl. Colin Smith,” he said. “He said a prayer today right before we came out, too.”
“Every time before we go out, we say a prayer,” he said. “It is a prayer for serenity. It says a lot about things that do pertain to us in this kind of environment.”
The only sounds were Doc’s voice and the vehicle’s engine thrumming.
He recited the prayer. There was a few moments of silence. “It’s a platoon kind of thing, if you know what I mean,” he said.
He listened to his radio headset and looked at Lance Corporal Tafoya, relaying word of the marines’ movements. “Right now the grunts are performing a hard hit on a house,” he said. He turned back to the subject of Lance Corporal Smith, 19.
“The best news I can throw at anybody right now, and that I am throwing to myself as often as I can, is that his eyes were O.K.,” he said. “They were both responsive. And he was breathing. And he had a pulse.”
He listened to his radio. “Two houses they’ve hit so far have both been swept and cleared.”
He looked at the reporter beside him. “Do you pray?” he asked. “Do that. I’d appreciate it.”
After a few minutes he started talking again. “You see, having a good platoon, one that you know real well, it’s both a gift and a curse. And Smith? Smith has been with me since I was...”
He stopped. “He was my roommate before we left,” he said.

6:44pm: Alek and Brian are back from their trip to Nebraska...I am on my four ER shift in as many days, but I did get to spend the afternoon with Alek...had a great time in Old Town withhim, and went to Borders and picked up the new Emmilou Harris/Mark Knoeffler CD and a new one by Cesario Evora...read a friends LJ today...thought of this song, one of my favorites by the master, Bob Dylan, from the album, Down in the Groove, 1988:

DEATH IS NOT THE END

When you're sad and when you're lonely and you haven't got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all that you've held sacred, falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end

When you're standing at the crossroads that you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all your dreams have vanished and you don't know what's up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end

When the storm clouds gather 'round you, and heavy rains descend
Just remember that death is not the end
And there's no one there to comfort you, with a helpin' hand to lend
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end

Oh, the tree of life is growing
Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation shines
In dark and empty skies

When the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of men
Just remember that death is not the end
And you search in vain to find just one law abiding citizen
Just remember that death is not the end
Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end

7:29pm: Now why did I find this story so amusing? : )

Meet the Gay Flamingos at WWT Slimbridge
13/02/2006

Two male flamingos at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge have surprised both staff and visitors by demonstrating a long-lasting loyalty to each other and excellent parental skills.

Greater Flamingos Carlos and Fernando have been together for more than five years and have reared three generations of adopted chicks. Twice a year Carlos and Fernando perform an elaborate courtship dance together before stealing eggs from their heterosexual neighbours to bring up as their own.

Nigel Jarrett, WWT Aviculture Manager explains: "Carlos and Fernando have been together now for five years and seem perfectly happy together. Both of them take on the male roles during the courtship ritual which involves preening, strutting and waving their heads vigorously from side to side with their necks at full stretch.

"Their parental instincts are also very strong prompting them to raid the nests of other couples in the flock. They have been known to fight the heterosexual birds and there is usually a ‘handbags at dawn’ moment where they will fight with another couple before stealing their egg. They are both large adult males so as a partnership they are quite formidable and are afforded more respect from the other birds. They are also very good parents and behave just as the heterosexual birds do when rearing their young."

For the first 3 or 4 weeks young flamingos are fed on crop milk a pink nutritious liquid produced by both parents so Carlos and Fernando have no problem feeding their adopted young and have so far raised three chicks.

1:52pm: Cowboymarine put up a picture of another Marine today on his site...Cpl Jason Dunham...some of my friends (Dr. Hessel, LT Hering) cared for him after he was initially wounded...here's his story if you don't know it...thank you Jason....and thank you to Jason's family...and thank you to ALL Marines past and present who protect our freedom....

MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 25, 2004

AL QA'IM, Iraq -- Early this spring, Cpl. Jason Dunham and two other Marines sat in an outpost in Iraq and traded theories on surviving a hand-grenade attack.

Second Lt. Brian "Bull" Robinson suggested that if a Marine lay face down on the grenade and held it between his forearms, the ceramic bulletproof plate in his flak vest might be strong enough to protect his vital organs. His arms would shatter, but he might live.

Cpl. Dunham had another idea: A Marine's Kevlar helmet held over the grenade might contain the blast. "I'll bet a Kevlar would stop it," he said, according to Second Lt. Robinson.

"No, it'll still mess you up," Staff Sgt. John Ferguson recalls saying.


It was a conversation the men would remember vividly a few weeks later, when they saw the shredded remains of Cpl. Dunham's helmet, apparently blown apart from the inside by a grenade. Fellow Marines believe Cpl. Dunham's actions saved the lives of two men and have recommended him for the Medal of Honor, an award that no act of heroism since 1993 has garnered.

A 6-foot-1 star high-school athlete from Scio, N.Y., Cpl. Dunham was chosen to become a squad leader shortly after he was assigned to Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment in September 2003. Just 22 years old, he showed "the kind of leadership where you're confident in your abilities and don't have to yell about it," says Staff Sgt. Ferguson, 30, of Aurora, Colo. Cpl. Dunham's reputation grew when he extended his enlistment, due to end in July, so he could stay with his squad throughout its tour in the war zone.

During the invasion of Iraq last year, the Third Battalion didn't suffer any combat casualties. But since March, 10 of its 900 Marines have died from hostile fire, and 89 have been wounded.

April 14 was an especially bad day. Cpl. Dunham was in the town of Karabilah, leading a 14-man foot patrol to scout sites for a new base, when radio reports came pouring in about a roadside bomb hitting another group of Marines not far away.

Insurgents, the reports said, had ambushed a convoy that included the battalion commander, 40-year-old Lt. Col. Matthew Lopez, of Chicago. One rifle shot penetrated the rear of the commander's Humvee, hitting him in the back, Lt. Col. Lopez says. His translator and bodyguard, Lance Cpl. Akram Falah, 23, of Anaheim, Calif., had taken a bullet to the bicep, severing an artery, according to medical reports filed later.

Cpl. Dunham's patrol jumped aboard some Humvees and raced toward the convoy. Near the double-arched gateway of the town of Husaybah, they heard the distinctive whizzing sound of a rocket-propelled grenade overhead. They left their vehicles and split into two teams to hunt for the shooters, according to interviews with two men who were there and written reports from two others.

Around 12:15 p.m., Cpl. Dunham's team came to an intersection and saw a line of seven Iraqi vehicles along a dirt alleyway, according to Staff Sgt. Ferguson and others there. At Staff Sgt. Ferguson's instruction, they started checking the vehicles for weapons.

Cpl. Dunham approached a run-down white Toyota Land Cruiser. The driver, an Iraqi in a black track suit and loafers, immediately lunged out and grabbed the corporal by the throat, according to men at the scene. Cpl. Dunham kneed the man in the chest, and the two tumbled to the ground.

Two other Marines rushed to the scene. Private First Class Kelly Miller, 21, of Eureka, Calif., ran from the passenger side of the vehicle and put a choke hold around the man's neck. But the Iraqi continued to struggle, according to a military report Pfc. Miller gave later. Lance Cpl. William B. Hampton, 22, of Woodinville, Wash., also ran to help.

A few yards away, Lance Cpl. Jason Sanders, 21, a radio operator from McAlester, Okla., says he heard Cpl. Dunham yell a warning: "No, no, no -- watch his hand!"

What was in the Iraqi's hand appears to have been a British-made "Mills Bomb" hand grenade. The Marines later found an unexploded Mills Bomb in the Toyota, along with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers.


A Mills Bomb user pulls a ring pin out and squeezes the external lever -- called the spoon -- until he's ready to throw it. Then he releases the spoon, leaving the bomb armed. Typically, three to five seconds elapse between the time the spoon detaches and the grenade explodes. The Marines later found what they believe to have been the grenade's pin on the floor of the Toyota, suggesting that the Iraqi had the grenade in his hand -- on a hair trigger -- even as he wrestled with Cpl. Dunham.

None of the other Marines saw exactly what Cpl. Dunham did, or even saw the grenade. But they believe Cpl. Dunham spotted the grenade -- prompting his warning cry -- and, when it rolled loose, placed his helmet and body on top of it to protect his squadmates.

The scraps of Kevlar found later, scattered across the street, supported their conclusion. The grenade, they think, must have been inside the helmet when it exploded. His fellow Marines believe that Cpl. Dunham made an instantaneous decision to try out his theory that a helmet might blunt the grenade blast.

"I deeply believe that given the facts and evidence presented he clearly understood the situation and attempted to block the blast of the grenade from his squad members," Lt. Col. Lopez wrote in a May 13 letter recommending Cpl. Dunham for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for military valor. "His personal action was far beyond the call of duty and saved the lives of his fellow Marines."

Recommendations for the Medal of Honor are rare. The Marines say they have no other candidates awaiting approval. Unlike other awards, the Medal of Honor must be approved by the president. The most recent act of heroism to earn the medal came 11 years ago, when two Army Delta Force soldiers gave their lives protecting a downed Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Somalia. (SFC Paul Smith has since been awarded the CMH - EB)


Staff Sgt. Ferguson was crossing the street to help when the grenade exploded. He recalls feeling a hollow punch in his chest that reminded him of being close to the starting line when dragsters gun their engines. Lance Cpl. Sanders, approaching the scene, was temporarily deafened, he says. He assumed all three Marines and the Iraqi must surely be dead.

In fact, the explosion left Cpl. Dunham unconscious and face down in his own blood, according to Lance Cpl. Sanders. He says the Iraqi lay on his back, bleeding from his midsection.

The fight wasn't over, however. To Lance Cpl. Sanders's surprise, the Iraqi got up and ran. Lance Cpl. Sanders says he raised his rifle and fired 25 shots at the man's back, killing him.

The other two Marines were injured, but alive. Lance Cpl. Hampton was spitting up blood and had shrapnel embedded in his left leg, knee, arm and face, according to a military transcript. Pfc. Miller's arms had been perforated by shrapnel. Yet both Marines struggled to their feet and staggered back toward the corner.

"Cpl. Dunham was in the middle of the explosion," Pfc. Miller told a Marine officer weeks later, after he and Lance Cpl. Hampton were evacuated to the U.S. to convalesce. "If it was not for him, none of us would be here. He took the impact of the explosion."

At first, Lance Cpl. Mark Edward Dean, a 22-year-old mortarman, didn't recognize the wounded Marine being loaded into the back of his Humvee. Blood from shrapnel wounds in the Marine's head and neck had covered his face. Then Lance Cpl. Dean spotted the tattoo on his chest -- an Ace of Spades and a skull -- and realized he was looking at one of his closest friends, Cpl. Dunham. A volunteer firefighter back home in Owasso, Okla., Lance Cpl. Dean says he knew from his experience with car wrecks that his friend had a better chance of surviving if he stayed calm.

"You're going to be all right," Lance Cpl. Dean remembers saying as the Humvee sped back to camp. "We're going to get you home."

When the battalion was at its base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., the two Marines had played pool and hung out with Lance Cpl. Dean's wife, Becky Jo, at the couple's nearby home. Once in a while, Lance Cpl. Dean says they'd round up friends, drive to Las Vegas and lose some money at the roulette tables. Shortly before the battalion left Kuwait for Iraq, Lance Cpl. Dean ran short of cash. He says Cpl. Dunham bought him a 550-minute phone card so he could call Becky Jo. He used every minute.

At battalion headquarters in al Qa'im, Chaplain David Slater was in his makeshift chapel -- in a stripped-down Iraqi train car with red plastic chairs as pews -- when he heard an Army Blackhawk helicopter take off. The 46-year-old Navy chaplain from Lincoln, Neb. knew that meant the shock-trauma platoon would soon receive fresh casualties.

Shortly afterward, the helicopter arrived. Navy corpsmen and Marines carried Cpl. Dunham's stretcher 200 feet to the medical tent, its green floor and white walls emitting a rubbery scent, clumps of stethoscopes hanging like bananas over olive-drab trunks of chest tubes, bandages and emergency airway tubes.

The bearers rested the corporal's stretcher on a pair of black metal sawhorses. A wounded Iraqi fighter was stripped naked on the next stretcher -- (think the insurgents would care for one of our? EB) standard practice for all patients, according to the medical staff, to ensure no injury goes unnoticed. The Iraqi had plastic cuffs on his ankles and was on morphine to quiet him, according to medical personnel who were there.

When a wounded Marine is conscious, Chaplain Slater makes small talk -- asks his name and hometown -- to help keep the patient calm and alert even in the face of often-horrific wounds. Chaplain Slater says he talked to Cpl. Dunham, held his hand and prayed. But he saw no sign that the corporal heard a word. After five minutes or so, he says, he moved on to another Marine.

At the same time, the medical team worked to stabilize Cpl. Dunham. One grenade fragment had penetrated the left side of his skull not far behind his eye, says Navy Cmdr. Ed Hessel, who treated him. A second entered the brain slightly higher and further toward the back of his head. A third punctured his neck.

Cmdr. Hessel, a 44-year-old emergency-room doctor from Eugene, Ore., quickly concluded that the corporal was "unarousable." A calm, bespectacled man, he says he wanted to relieve the corporal's brain and body of the effort required to breathe. And he wanted to be sure the corporal had no violent physical reactions that might add to the pressure on his already swollen brain.

Navy Lt. Ted Hering, a 27-year-old critical-care nurse from San Diego, inserted an intravenous drip and fed in drugs to sedate the corporal, paralyze his muscles and blunt the gag response in his throat while a breathing tube was inserted and manual ventilator attached. The Marine's heart rate and blood pressure stabilized, according to Cmdr. Hessel. But a field hospital in the desert didn't have the resources to help him any further.

So Cpl. Dunham was put on another Blackhawk to take him to the Seventh Marines' base at Al Asad, a transfer point for casualties heading on to the military surgical hospital in Baghdad. During the flight, the corporal lay on the top stretcher. Beneath him was the Iraqi, with two tubes protruding from his chest to keep his lungs from collapsing. Lt. Hering stood next to the stretchers, squeezing a plastic bag every four to five seconds to press air into Cpl. Dunham's lungs.

The Iraqi, identified in battalion medical records only as POW#1, repeatedly asked for water until six or seven minutes before landing, when Cpl. Dunham's blood-drenched head bandage burst, sending a red cascade through the mesh stretcher and onto the Iraqi's face below. After that, the man remained quiet, and kept his eyes and mouth clenched shut, says the nurse, Lt. Hering.

The Army air crew made the trip in 25 minutes, their fastest run ever, according to the pilot, and skimmed no higher than 50 feet off the ground to avoid changes in air pressure that might put additional strain on Cpl. Dunham's brain.

When the Blackhawk touched down at Al Asad, Cpl. Dunham was turned over to new caretakers. The Blackhawk promptly headed back to al Qa'im. More patients were waiting; 10 Marines from the Third Battalion were wounded on April 14, along with a translator.

At 11:45 p.m. that day, Deb and Dan Dunham were at home in Scio, N.Y., a town of 1,900, when they got the phone call all military parents dread. It was a Marine lieutenant telling them their son had sustained shrapnel wounds to the head, was unconscious and in critical condition.

Mr. Dunham, 43, an Air Force veteran, works in the shipping department of a company that makes industrial heaters, and Mrs. Dunham, 44, teaches home economics. She remembers helping her athletic son, the oldest of four, learn to spell as a young boy by playing "PIG" and "HORSE" -- traditional basketball shooting games -- and expanding the games to include other words. He never left home or hung up the phone without telling his mother, "I love you," she says.

The days that followed were filled with uncertainty, fear and hope. The Dunhams knew their son was in a hospital in Baghdad, then in Germany, where surgeons removed part of his skull to relieve the swelling inside. At one point doctors upgraded his condition from critical to serious.

On April 21, the Marines gave the Dunhams plane tickets from Rochester to Washington, and put them up at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where their son was going to be transferred. Mrs. Dunham brought along the first Harry Potter novel, so she and her husband could take turns reading to their son, just to let him know they were there.

When Cpl. Dunham arrived that night, the doctors told the couple he had taken a turn for the worse, picking up a fever on the flight from Germany. After an hour by their son's side, Mr. Dunham says he had a "gut feeling" that the outlook was bleak. Mrs. Dunham searched for signs of hope, planning to ask relatives to bring two more Harry Potter books, in case they finished the first one. Doctors urged the Dunhams to get some rest.

They were getting dressed the next morning when the intensive-care unit called to say the hospital was sending a car for them. "Jason's condition is very, very grim," Mrs. Dunham remembers a doctor saying. "I have to tell you the outlook isn't very promising."


A Marine kisses a helmet standing in honor of Cpl. Jason L. Dunham during a service at Camp Al Qaim, Iraq.


She says doctors told her the shrapnel had traveled down the side of his brain, and the damage was irreversible. He would always be on a respirator. He would never hear his parents or know they were by his side. Another operation to relieve pressure on his brain had little chance of succeeding and a significant chance of killing him.

Once he joined the Marines, Cpl. Dunham put his father in charge of medical decisions and asked that he not be kept on life support if there was no hope of recovery, says Mr. Dunham. He says his son told him, "Please don't leave me like that."

The Dunhams went for a walk on the hospital grounds. When they returned to the room, Cpl. Dunham's condition had deteriorated, his mother says. Blood in his urine signaled failing kidneys, and one lung had collapsed as the other was filling with fluid. Mrs. Dunham says they took the worsening symptoms as their son's way of telling them they should follow through on his wishes,.

At the base in al Qa'im, Second Lt. Robinson, 24, of Kenosha, Wis., gathered the men of Cpl. Dunham's platoon in the sleeping area, a spread of cots, backpacks, CD players and rifles. The lieutenant says he told the Marines of the Dunhams' decision to remove their son's life support in two hours' time.

Lance Cpl. Dean wasn't the only Marine who cried. He says he prayed that some miracle would happen in the next 120 minutes. He prayed that God would touch his friend and wake him up so he could live the life he had wanted to lead.

In Bethesda, the Dunhams spent a couple more hours with their son. Marine Corps Commandant Michael Hagee arrived and pinned the Purple Heart, awarded to those wounded in battle, on his pillow. Mrs. Dunham cried on Gen. Hagee's shoulder. The Dunhams stepped out of the room while the doctors removed the ventilator.

At 4:43 p.m. on April 22, 2004, Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham died.

Six days later, Third Battalion gathered in the parking lot outside the al Qa'im command post for psalms and ceremony. In a traditional combat memorial, one Marine plunged a rifle, bayonet-first, into a sandbag. Another placed a pair of tan combat boots in front, and a third perched a helmet on the rifle's stock. Lance Cpl. Dean told those assembled about a trip to Las Vegas the two men and Becky Jo Dean had taken in January, not long before the battalion left for the Persian Gulf. Chatting in a hotel room, the corporal told his friends he was planning to extend his enlistment and stay in Iraq for the battalion's entire tour. "You're crazy for extending," Lance Cpl. Dean recalls saying. "Why?"

He says Cpl. Dunham responded: "I want to make sure everyone makes it home alive. I want to be sure you go home to your wife alive."

8:54pm: After a weekend during which we lost another 4 Marines in Iraq, I went back to this poem dedicated to the Memory of Cpl James Lee Moore, USMC 02/03/80 – 01/26/05

"Earn This"
Written by: Anonymous

His picture talks to me
I have never met him but I feel as if I have always known him
He represents everything that is good and unselfish
He has the hint of a smile on his face
I can feel the strength and confident conviction in his eyes
There is a calm way about him that makes me feel at ease
Everything is going to be OK he says
I read that he volunteered after the towers fell
Because he wanted to make a difference
I know that I had a good day today because he and others like him
Have walked quietly into the storm and kept the wolves at bay
It is as if we have made a silent bargain…a promise
He has made the ultimate sacrifice
So I can live more days like today
I ask myself if I am keeping my part?
Am I earning this?
His picture talks to me
It makes me ask questions
Can I be a better person?
Am I using this gift of being alive to make a difference?
When others have paid the price for my protection and safety
I realize I am here because others are not.
I eat at the table because others gave up their seat
I keep his picture where I can see it every day
To remind me of him and the others
Who paid for my freedom?
And to remind myself
Everyday
I must Earn This!

For the picture that inspired this poem and a short note from Cpl Moore's parents go to:

http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/poems/earnthis.asp

10:45am: I got back from DC late last night, and Brian and Alek picked my up at the airport...Alek was thrilled with the little robot I got him from the Smithonian Museum Store...I wondered whether they might have forgotten that it was my birthday...but of course, they had a surpirse waiting at home...Alek almost couldn't contain himself he was so excited about what my reaction would be...he then became a chatterbox "I picked out the balloons!" "Can I help you blow out the candles?" Etc, Etc.

A nice homecoing....good thing the smoke detector didn't go off after I blew out the candles...and yes, I did get them out with one try....

This morning I got caught up on reading friends LJ pages from the week...have a pile of bills, and a house that looks like it was hit by a clothes tornado...lots of buisiness of daily living things to get caught up on....

The big news for me was that I was offered and accepted a full time academic medicine position as a GS employee in the Navy ER here...they will allow me to continue my head injury research and I will get to stay full time teaching with a great group of people for at least the next year...I just hope I can balance the family and work thing now that I am used to some much fmaily time...

Well, more later....

.

3:50pm: After a four hour nap, I'm back...Brian's working, and Kevin and Don stopped by with the dogs to play with Alek...I know I'll get some pressure to get a dog from Alek later today...he really has a blast with them. I have to get quickly back to a day schedule as I fly out to DC tomorrow AM....I think we'll do a family night out tonight and take advantage of restaurant week here in San Diego...alot of places are having fixed price menus tonight, so I'm sure we can find something fun....I will likely not have the same computer access in DC, so may be off LJ till I get back...

8:14am: After an ED shift
Well, I just finished another night shift and am sitting in front of the computer drinking a nice merlot...lots of sick folks, there are some bad GI bugs going around San Diego right now...had two ladies with PID (unhappy not just from pain but from the news of infidelity with spouses) and child with seizures, a man who went to bed without a care and awoke with the sensation of drowning who likely...a new pulmonary effusion (fluid around the lung) that is most likely cancer related (yes, he had the biggest risk factor, he was a nice guy)...and tons of others...one of my patients was a Marine who rolled his ATV and broke his ankle...turns out he was in Fallujah with 1/5 when I was there...we played a little name game and it just felt good to be with him...

Alek greeted me with a "Hope you had a nice shift!" as I woke him up on my return...

For some reason I have been thinking of one of my favorite poems by WH Auden lately...it runs over and over in my mind...here are the last two stanzas from the poem "September 1, 1939"...written about the Nazi invasion of Poland, but apropos of the post September 11 world....

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

I just love the line "We must love one another or die" and somehow LJ comes to mind in that last stanza....if interested the entire poem is at: http://www.gametec.com/poemdujour/Sept1.1939.html

ECM

6:25pm: Getting ready to start a weekend of work...two night ED shifts, need to finish reviewing the "Guidelines for the Field Management of Combat Related Head Trauma" so it can go to print, write a script for a demonstration tape of the Standardized Assessment of Concussion, and get ready for my trip to DC next week....whew!

Today was a good day...attended a fascinating brief on new directions for the treatment of shock (this biomedical engineer's theory is that the underlying pathology of shock associated with multisystem organ failure is the release of digestive enzymes into the gut wall, which in turn releases a slew of peptides and acids that cause systemic shut down...basically, the body digests itself...by preventing this release, the untoward effects of shock are prevented...maybe it will lead to a better field treatment of shock by swallowing anti-proteases or by reinforcing the luminal wall of the intestine)....I know, no one is interested except me....but....

It was good to review some of my friends LJ's...there really are some great people on here and I am lucky to have found some of them....

Alek just announced he was "starving" but there's a good half hour left of the pork loin we are roasting in the oven...I had better head off a raid of the cookie cabinet so someone actually eats his dinner....

5:13pm: Okay, it's been a few days...but I have my excuses....first off, the office with the computer is just beyond my master bathroom which is being demolished because of a leak in the shower that is ruining my living room ceiling and wall....

Then there's the irrepressable Alek who I've been chasing after the last three days...can't complain about that really as his baseball skills are actually getting quite good and he throws a mean football also...not bad for a six year old...

Then there's the business of daily living stuff: stocking the refrigerator for more fuel for Alek, changing the oil in the car so that Alek's shuttle to school and after school events is in top condition, studying for the upcomoing license exam, etc. etc...

I drifted through the ER today on my way to drop off some paperwork at credentialling and there was a sick as shit guy in bed 14, intubated on dopamine and having a chest tube placed for his pneumothorax...there was the cast of thousands at the bedside...it would have been good to jump into that to clear my mind of the silly things I was running around taking care of....they've offered me a full time job there, but I'm not sure I want to commit to it...what with child number two on the way and the fact that I'm getting used to a schedule that has me home more...why should I let Brian have all the fun of being the mom?

Apropos of nothing, I was mailing in the Netflix movies while watching the hearings on Judge Alito and had an amuzing thought...remember when it was a big privacy issue when Judge Bork was nominated when some investigative journalists found out about his movie rentals by hacking the local video rental store computer...I wonder what people would think of our movie tastes...we usually have three out at any one time....one for Alek (Blackbeard's Ghost is the current, we ran through the whole Herbie series and I think Apple Dumpling Gang is next for him) one for Brian (he is running through the classics, he's got Killing Fields now, had Sophie's Choice last and Gallipoli next) and one for me (I am just going through all the gay themed movies, Coming Out is the current selection, and Big Eden is next)...someone looking at our last fifty rentals would really have to scratch their heads!

We hardly ever go out to the movies anymore...and if we do, it's certainly going to be a "g" rated film...ah, the days when I could actually go out on a DATE with Brian to a movie....

The tutor is here for Alek gotta run....

1:10pm: I picked the wrong day to go to the commissary...every retiree in San Diego was there after the weekend payday stocking up for the New Year...oh yeah, I'm one of those guys....yikes.

A New Year is a good time to reflect on habits that need to be broken...how easy it is to idealize freedom and yet be enslaved to habit...

There's a poem I read once in a great book called the Tibetan Book of Living an Dying called "Autobiography in Five Chapters." It goes like this:

1) I walk down the street
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost...I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in....it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I will get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

I once thought I was happily into chapter 5 of my "autobiography"...but in reality, I've been stuck in chapter 2....all I have conquered all potholes as I've fallen over and over again into the grand fucking canyon and pretended.

I must be more attentive to the details of spiritual practice this year...though it is tempting to resolve about losing a few pounds, reading more, drinking less, etc...that is replacing old habits with new ones....when really all that matters is compassion and a recognition that we are all interdependent on each other...and the key is to DO something about that.

ECM

12:22pm: Back in the saddle
I just finished by first 12 hour night shift in ages...and I guess I still have the stamina for it...my interns were falling asleep but I did fine...fortunately it was raining here and that keeps everyone away from this ER...the opposite of the downtown ER I used to work...every homeless person in the city would come in for a warm spot and a meal!

Not too many sick patients and had some good teaching with the residents...then an ego stroking from the staff guy who relieved me about wanting me to work there full time....

Alek's last day of Christmas vacation, and he made the most of it with his babysitter while I was asleep this morning...projects all over! Brian is out selling some real estate in the rain...

My New Year's resolution was to maintain better contact with my old friends...I got a great email back from an ODS vet friend who's really struggled with PTSD symptoms, and I also had a great exchange with on of the docs I went to OIF I with who has since left the reserves and now works for NASA. The connections with these guys made me think about the guys who are still over there now...I hope 2006 is the real turning point there and they are all back as soon as possible.....

A friend got me thinking about Robert Frost and I thought I'd put up my favorite Frost poem,

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

With deceptively simple language and the images of Dante's Inferno, I find this poem particularly poignant with the current debates about the war and same sex marriage...Frost just has so many levels, as does Blake...but deep hidden meaning aside, it just sounds great!

More later when I am awake...

8:53am: Another Quiz
Just to see how accurate these on line quizzes are, I tried the "What kind of Soldier are you?" quiz and got the following results:

You scored as Medic. You're a medic. Not really into fighting people, but prefer to help and heal. Your a caring person who generally wants to help, but not fight. But instead you heal the injured. Your a brave person, but most people generally regard you as foolish because of the risks you take to help others. But you don't care because your a battlefield medic, and saving lives is your business. READY, CLEAR!!!!

Medic 88%
Combat Infantry 88%
Engineer 75%
Special Ops 63%
Artillery/Armor 56%
Officer 50%
Support Gunner 44%
Civilian 13%

I guess this one wasn't too far off...I suppose the combat infantry one tied the medic because of all those years serving with the Divisions (I have served in in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Marine Division in my career.)

ECM

10:26pm: Pamplemousse
Another very lazy day in Palm Springs.

Did a long bike ride with Alek, played several board games with him and then went to the park with the visiting 6 year old from next door...it would have been nice had they practiced a little French between them (her mother is Belgian and only speaks French to her, and Alek is going to the French School in San Diego.) but alas, all of their play was conducted in English....

Alek also helped harvest a few grapefruit from the tree behind the house....it's even more prolific than it was last year when it produced over 700 edible fruit...I found a great new recipe for a mixed drink with grapefruit juice which I am happy to report tastes great:

1 oz grapefruit juice, 1 oz gin, 1 tsp maraschino liqueur, shaken with ice, strain into glass, garnish with cherry...the spices in the gin cut the sourness of the grapefruit with the maraschino giving just enough sweetness to make this a great drink!

Had a great email exchange today with my friend, cowboymarine...also posted him a joke which I got from an ODS vet friend from the Army...will reprint it here...


The train was quite crowded, so the U. S. Marine walked the entire length looking
for a seat, but the only seat left was taken by a well-dressed middle-aged French
woman's poodle.

The war-weary Marine asked, "Ma'am, may I have that seat?"

The French woman just sniffed and said to no one in particular, "Americans are so
rude. My little Fifi is using that seat."

The Marine walked the entire train again, but the only seat left was under that dog.
"Please, ma'am. May I sit down? I'm very tired."

She snorted, "Not only are you Americans rude, you are also arrogant!"

This time the Marine didn't say a word, he just picked up the little dog, tossed it
out the train window, and sat down.

The woman shrieked, "Someone must defend my honor! Put this American in his place!"

An English gentleman sitting nearby spoke up, "Sir, you Americans often seem to have
a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You hold the fork in the wrong hand. You drive
your autos on the wrong side of the road.

And now, sir,... you've thrown the wrong bitch out the window."

ECM

9:46am: How gay?
I just took one of those on line personality tests, this one called "How gay are you?" I scored as Straight Acting (after a tie breaker with all around cute gay guy), and I quote....

Heya your on the straight and narrow but still enjoy a good cute guy with a pint of beer.

The all-round cute gay guy 70%
Straight Acting 70%
Raging Queer 50%
Straight 40%
A Big Bear 20%
Straight Queer Basher 10%
S + M guy 0%

Hmmmm, well it's better than who I turned out to be on the "Desperate Housewives" quiz....

ECM

10:20pm: Christmas in the Desert
Pretty relaxing day of lying around in the sun, playing games with Alek (Marine Corps version of Monopoly, SpongeBob UNO, and The Hulk Game), reading the paper...and doing on line traffic school for that ticket I got last time I came out to Palm Springs...

Turned down two holiday shifts in the ER...I need to decide how much time I want to spend in clinical medicine from now on and how much I want to spend doing other things....the big Christmas news...Brian is willing to start the paperwork for child number two! I've been there for a while, and he's been 90% there....but we agreed we both had to be there 100% to go forward to adopt number two....the only problem now is that Ukraine is not doing overseas adoptions for Americans right now...moratorium until new procedures are in place and they track down the dirtball parents who haven't filed their annual reports as required by Ukrainian law....

I'm thinking if things go as they did last time, Brian will go in June/July and there's a baby destined for our family who's already born and waiting for us in the orphanage.....

ECM

1:35pm: Dopplegangers
I received an email today from a high school friend I haven't seen or heard from in 25 years (now THAT makes me sound like some old fart!)

Seems that a Maj Eric McDonald, an emergency doctor from Maryland, was quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal today from his deployment in Afghanistan....my friend tracked me down from my high school alumni site and asked if that was me! I may be an emergency doctor originally from Maryland named Eric McDonald, but I was a Navy Captain, not an Army major....besides, I'm out now...but it was fun to reconnect with my friend...I failed to tell him I have a partner of ten years...I figured I should let a couple emails pass before I drop the coming out of the closet bomb...maybe this is a symptom of so many years of don't ask don't tell in the Navy...maybe it's because I'm not out to high school friends...who knows....

Later in the day, I was at the park with my son and I saw a former colleague with her son at the park also...she recognized me first...haven't seen her in several years as she had retired from the Navy before I did...she was up from Chula Vista so her son could play with some friends in my neighborhood who go to the same private school...during the playtime, her 8 year old taunted her 4 year old in that "nah-nanny-boo-boo" voice" "He's gay! He kissed a boy!" to belittle him in front of his friends...the younger boy was clearly shamed, though I'm sure he didn't know what "gay" meant...my son certainly did since he has two dads...the reactions were worth noting...my former colleague (who didn't know I was gay or had a partner) said to her 8 year old, "Now that's not nice to tease, your brother is a good boy and he can kiss who he wants to!" The 4 year old consoled by this, and the 8 year old had to move to new territory. My son only glared at the 8 year and wouldn't play with him anymore. I didn't interject in this...maybe I should have said something, but I thought the mom handled it deftly....

ECM

5:19pm: But by the Grace of God....
I found out today from the guy who took my job up at Camp Pendleton after I retired that one of my good friends had one of those bizarre accidents that you just can't really imagining ever happening to someone...

"Stress" is a Marine aviator who I deployed to Iraq with...we made it unscathed through seven months in Fallujah with the mortar attacks, IED blasts, ammo dump explosions, etc...well, he was playing a pick up game of basketball instead of running for a lunchtime PT, and he was elbowed in the eye, the blow hit him in such a way that it blew out his globe and despite two operations he lost the eye. I talked with him on the phone just now and he's doing well, but still can't quite believe that it's all happening to him...he was mentally prepared for something like this in country, but not back home....it just goes that one really never knows when or where something like this might strike...

Reminds me (again) of Blake's poem, Eternity...

He who binds himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternity's sunrise....

That "joy" might be the love of one's life, one's eyesight, one's ability to walk, etc...one must be appreciative and joyful for all the things we "have"...that inlcudes our senses and our ability to think and feel...yet we must not hold on to them, for none of them are really "ours."

Stress is a Marine...he will adapt, overcome, and persevere...

ECM

11:44am: Begin the Begin
I decided to start a live journal today after surfing some journals of some other folks on live journal and e blogger...seems like a good way to get some things out in the open, to work on the skill of writing, and make some new friends.

I guess I have the time for things now...I retired from the Navy in October after 24 years....I still am adjusting, I got such great pleasure out of taking care of servicemembers...I suppose I'd have stayed in if it didn't mean a thrid trip to the desert away from the family...if I didn't have a partner and child, then I suppose I'd be getting ready for my third deployment now.

I will try to make this a daily thing, and look carefully for friends to add to the network that I guess I will create...starting off with the "free" account....let's see if it's worth investing money as well as time and creative energy!

ECM