Tenth Mountain medical outreach clinic in Mahmudiyah

MAHMUDIYAH, IRAQ:  The soldiers of Alpha Co, 2^nd Battalion, 14^th Field Artillery teamed up with the Iraqi Army’s 6^th Division, 4^th Brigade this sweltering morning, to bring health care to a poor neighborhood in Mahmudiyah.  The clinic will be held in a school that has been completely remodeled and repainted with US Army monies.  This school has a thousand students enrolled, counting both sessions; but is presently closed for summer vacation.  

The Iraqi Army troops have taken up defensive positions around the school.  Some men are on the roof tops.  Others are in their vehicles or on foot watching up and down the streets.  The Americans, who are all in heavily armed Humvees, take up positions closer to the school’s entrance, where the people requesting aid will be gathering.  Apparently after four years in Iraq, a show of force of this magnitude is required to guarantee the safety of the medical team while carrying out this mission.

10th Mountain medic with patient.

Capt. Nick Ziemba has been in Iraq for eleven months.  He is a graduate of West Point, a native of Springfield MA, and currently a resident of Sacketts Harbor, NY.  His job this morning is keeping an eye on the overall operation, and order among the patients hoping to be attended by the medical team.

‘I’ve been here eleven months,’ said Capt. Ziemba, ‘and I still haven’t been able to figure these people out.   Basically I know they want the same things we want; food, clothing, shelter, healthy kids; you know what I mean.  It must just be the difference in cultures.’ 

School boys attending medical clinic.

As if to prove the point;  Lt. Ali, a Kurd and the most professional officer with the Iraqi Army detachment this morning is saying, ‘This is the way we do it in my country,’ meaning of course Kurdistan; not Iraq.

The patients, mostly women and kids, have formed an orderly line to pass through the hall where medics and interpreters are waiting with a variety of medicines.  The two medical personnel handling the most patients are Sgt. Dustin Parchey and Sgt Joshua Delgado, a highly decorated battlefield medic.

 

Young Iraqi girl at clinic.

Same beautiful young girl.

All kinds of ailments are showing up but for some reason not given, only oral medications were being prescribed today.  Some of the children are exhibiting symptoms of mental illness or paralysis which are explained to the parents by the medics.  Most leave the clinic happier than they arrived.

The city of Mahmudiyah could use a lot of fixing and picking up, which would no doubt be of great benefit for the public health of this district.  Trash and building debris litter the streets; and sidewalks where they still exist. The clinic was packed up and loaded into the Humvees. Then the convoy began its journey back to the FOB. At one point through town, the vehicles had to navigate a good distance along one street that was flooded with nearly a foot of raw sewerage.  After four years of occupation, a great deal of rebuilding will still be necessary to accomplish the original mission.

*A version of this article appeared in the Press Republican on August 5, 2007.