Bamberg spouses tour medical facilities at Landstuhl
LANDSTUHL, Germany — The three-hour ride to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center was one trip the spouses and members of Bamberg’s 1st Battalion, 33rd Field Artillery Regiment, hope to never make again.
The visitors, consisting of the unit’s family readiness group members and rear detachment commanders, toured the hospital and Landstuhl’s Fisher Houses Friday to prepare for the possibility of a battalion soldier being treated there.
Deployed for more than a month now, members of the 1-33 have the daily mission of locating and disposing of unexploded ordnance scattered about the Iraqi landscape. For families on the home front, their mission has become facing the risks of that task.
“The spouses did want to take this and look it straight in the eye; prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” said Kristi Forbes, a 1-33 FRG leader.
“At least be prepared [because] we know that this is a wartime situation that we’re getting into. Because honestly, we’re all afraid of the unknown when it comes down to it.”
“We had talked about what to do and how to empower the FRGs,” said Sgt. 1st Class Peter Pulli, the 1-33 rear detachment first sergeant. “This [tour] was one of the ideas we decided to go with.”
The Landstuhl tour began at Fisher House I, where the group learned what the facility provides for families staying there while soldiers or family members are receiving care at Landstuhl.
The tour of the hospital, led by public affairs officer Dan Unger, was the first of its kind. For distant communities such as Bamberg, a tour such as this can be beneficial, he said.
Unger began the tour in the hospital’s main lobby, just outside the emergency room.
“Anyone that is not ambulatory comes in through those doors on a stretcher,” he said, pointing to the hospital’s automatic doors.
As the tour continued, the spouses were shown where they could mail a letter, visit a chaplain, grab a cup of coffee or e-mail friends and family. They also were directed to where the intensive care unit, pharmacy and radiology areas were located.
They asked plenty of questions, such as, “Are there visiting hours?” and “Who can help me decide if I should bring my children with me?”
Unger, answering candidly, advised spouses who are not sure of the severity of a patient’s wounds to visit first without children.
“The sad truth of it all is that the guys we get in here ... it’s not sugarcoated,” he said. “It’s one thing to see someone who’s been in a car accident, but it’s another to see someone who’s been blown up.”
At one of the last stops on the tour, the group paused outside a post-surgical ward, just as Lt. Col. Susan Raymond, chief of medical surgery, psychology and the intensive care unit, passed through the doors.
After welcoming the group, she said, “We like you guys, we don’t want to see you again.”
