Air Force Capt. Erskine Cook Jr., a member of the Critical Care Air Transport Team, checks a critically wounded servicemember aboard a C-141 StarLifter aircraft Thursday at Balad Air Base, Iraq. (Scott Schonauer / S&S)
Air Force Capt. Erskine Cook Jr., a member of the Critical Care Air Transport Team, checks a critically wounded servicemember aboard a C-141 StarLifter aircraft Thursday at Balad Air Base, Iraq. (Scott Schonauer / S&S)
Senior Airman Annie Sanagustin inspects medical equipment aboard the C-141 Starlifter aircraft. (Scott Schonauer / S&S)
Senior Airman Kim McCuiston, an Air National Guard medical technician, assembles a patient stretcher. She said she treats each patient as if they were family, and it can be difficult to be numb to their situations. (Scott Schonauer / S&S)
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — On the five-hour flight to Iraq, most of the 791st Expeditionary Air Evacuation Squadron crewmembers crawled onto stretchers meant for the wounded and ill soldiers they’d soon pick up.
“Deadheading it,” or sleeping, during the trip is probably the only rest they’ll get on their 16- to 18-hour medevac mission.
After they land in Iraq, ambulance buses back up to the tail end of the plane and the crew readies the stretchers for the patients.
“The first thing you notice is how young they are,” Senior Airman Angel de la Cruz said before the trip.
Most patients are 19 or 20 years old and look only months removed from their high school graduation. In fact, most of the crewmembers simply refer to them as “kids.”
The long missions, the dozens of injured patients and the numerous gut-wrenching war stories can wear on the most battle-hardened nurses and medics. Some try to distance themselves from getting too emotionally attached to the patients and their misery, but that can be impossible sometimes.
Senior Airman Kim McCuiston, a self-proclaimed “farm girl” from Oklahoma, said she treats each patient as if he were family. But still, it wears on her.
“There are days that you go home and you take a shower and just try and wash away the fact that some of these guys are younger than me — I’m 22 — and their lives are significantly changed and they’ll never be the same,” McCuiston said. “One person can only see so much before it begins to wear on them. You can only be so numb to it.”
The strain of the missions often doesn’t arise until well after they are over or even until the deployment is done and they return home to the United States, nurses and medics said.
In the meantime, they fly planeload after planeload of servicemembers safely to Europe. When they get there, crewmembers put away equipment and spend about three hours finishing paperwork.
Only then can they go back to their austere dormitories to get some rest.
As tired as they are, the adrenaline-filled missions can be like a quadruple espresso chased by a can of Red Bull. Winding down takes time. But in as little as 12 hours, they could get the call to pick up patients in Iraq again or take patients to the United States.
“They run us ragged sometimes,” said Capt. Danette Butler, a registered nurse. “But it’s alright. It’s worth it.”
