‘Take a deep breath’: On leave with family, combat medic recalls Iraq duty

Sierra Vista Herald/Review ^ | Bill Hess

[SandRat]

A combat medic’s job is to save lives. They are armed, but their real weapons are the syringes, bandages and medicines and the knowledge how to use them if any of the soldiers they are responsible for are wounded.

In Iraq it is never known when an attack will leave GIs wounded, but when on convoy duty each soldier — to include the medics — is on heightened alert, Spc. Rudy Nuñez said Monday.

He is home for a two-week leave from patrolling the streets in Sadr City, a place in Baghdad that has been described by the media as a crime-infested slum run by an inflammatory anti-American Shiite cleric. Rudy is relaxing with his wife Olivia and 3-month-old son Camron at the home of his parents — Sarah and Gene Nuñez — in Hereford. He also has two sisters at home, Adrienne and Jeanette.

He is a member of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C. The organization was the first of the surge units to go to Iraq.

Initially, he and others were stationed at Combat Operations Post War Eagle, about 10 miles from Sadr City. Patrolling the Baghdad area was tough duty.

Some scary times

He admits the scariest part of convoy duty was driving from and to the small primitive operational post into the assigned area. He noted that although there were four checkpoints along the route, one never knew once the points had been passed if there would be an ambush or an improvised explosive device waiting.

There are other scary times, the 25-year-old said. “Indirect fire is pretty scary. You don’t know where it’s coming from, and seeing tracers go overhead is too,” Rudy said.

For Olivia, a former soldier who left the Army as a private first class corrections specialist who was stationed at Fort Sill, Okla., watching the news is not something she does too often now that her husband is in Iraq.

“I really don’t watch the news. I don’t want to be stressed,” she said. Noting both of them usually have a chance to talk everyday, the 20-year-old Olivia said, “I let him tell me what’s going on.”

While he is deployed, she has moved to Terre Haute, Ind., to live with her parents, Todd and Cherylin Umphries. “They are enjoying their first grandbaby,” she said.

Rudy noted preparing for a patrol is different for soldiers.

As a medic he has to prepare for the worse.

“You have to be ready in case any of your guys get hit,” he said, noting he always prepares the vehicle he is in to hold at least two litters.

Fortunately during his first six months, none of the soldiers he has been on patrol with have been wounded.

Most of his medical knowledge has gone to take care of civilian and Iraqi soldier needs, Rudy said.

During one patrol in Sadr City, an Iraqi father looking for help for his daughter stopped the convoy.

Doc, come here

A call from the lead vehicle — usually Rudy was part of a 15-soldier patrol — came back to the vehicle he was in.

The message was short — “Hey, ‘Doc,’ get up here.”

He and the driver, who acted as his protection, went forward to look at the child, who Rudy said “was a sweet little young girl about 5 and real timid” and saw she had abdominal lacerations that appeared to be at least a week old.

Without a translator, he said he could not determine if the child had been harmed during an explosion or the injuries were from some other cause.

As the father watched, he cleaned the lacerations and provided some over-the counter type pain killers, as he tried to get across to the father to clean the girl’s injury. Later he gave her some candy.

“All I could do was sanitize the area,” he said.

There are many aspects of patrolling, and to him the most important is building a rapport with the Iraqis, who he said “are wonderful parents; they love their kids.”

There are different ways America can respond to what is happening in Iraq, Rudy said.

To him, a position of strength has to be shown, but it should not be too much.

“We can’t go in and raise hell,” he said.

As part of reaching out the medical company and battalion he is part of, Rudy has conducted medical clinics, “where we open a shop for a half day and treat people,” he commented.

Gaining respect is an important part of Iraqi culture, but it also includes knowing those who are friendly and those who are not, Rudy said.

Although there has been some infiltration into the Iraqi army by insurgents, that is nothing compared to what he has seen when it comes to the Iraqi police.

Even the Iraqi soldiers don’t trust their nation’s police officers, he exclaimed.

Iraqi police have been known to set up false checkpoints to kidnap other Iraqis, Rudy remarked.

Some of his treatment of Iraqi soldiers comes down to helping them overcome previous problems.

“I’ve treated a lot of old GSWs,” Rudy said, meaning cleaning wounds caused by gunshots. His treatment of Iraqi soldiers has included broken ankles, but not all could be handled by a combat medic, he said, noting one of the Iraqi soldiers he saw was suffering from a slipped disc.

After a couple of months at the COP, he went to the American Camp Taji on a former Iraqi air force base near the city of At Taji. While the COP was primitive, the camp is much better with many amenities soldiers can find on a post in the United States, Rudy said.

Part of his work at the camp was providing medical care to combat engineers who were building a barrier consisting of 11,000-pound slabs of concrete.

Some work ‘horrific’

While at the camp, the medics were still going out on convoys as well as participating in house raids and responding to “call outs.”

One call out was to help recover the remains of five Americans whose vehicle was blown up.

After the bodies had been removed and the vehicle taken to the camp, he and others went through the debris looking for additional remains and personal possessions, Rudy said.

“It was horrific. You just had to (figuratively) close your eyes, take a deep breath and go on,” he said.

Until Sunday, he, his wife and their son, are relaxing in Arizona. Rudy has another daughter, Audrey Marie, from a previous marriage. She lives in Georgia.

The leave is the first time he has had a chance to hold Camron, who was dressed in an infant’s baseball suit, and a too-large ball cap that the wind kept blowing off his head at the Sierra Vista Veterans’ Memorial Park.

Completing the boy’s outfit was a bib, with a cow on it, combining Rudy’s two cultural passions, baseball and the West.

Rudy hopes his son will be a lefty and become a pitcher. And, equally important is for Camron to be a Dodgers fan as papa is.

Olivia said she became a Dodgers fan as a sign of support to her husband.

A 2000 graduate of Buena High School, where he played baseball and wrestled, Rudy admitted he needed some direction in his life. After spending two years at Cochise College, where he played ball with the school’s Apaches, and a couple of jobs selling cars, he said he went into the Army two years ago to bring more of a focus to his life.

For Olivia, her Army background helps her understand Rudy’s work and that deployments to global hot spots are part of Army life. Although she is not happy with the extension of the deployment from a year to 15 months, Olivia said she, like other Army wives, have to take the additional time their loved ones will serve in Iraq as part of being a military family.

Potential Army career

She also knows he wants to make the Army a career, which she said she supports.

When Rudy returns from Iraq he is plans to go to Ranger School, which was supposed to have happened before he deployed.

Long range, he wants to become a physician assistant, which will lead to a commission.

But, now his job is ensuring soldiers he has to care for receive the best treatment he can give.

“The infantry guys protect us, and we protect them,” Rudy said.

What a medic does is to get to know those they treat while in a combat situation.

Looking for combat stress is important, and handling it needs to be done not only for the GIs under his care but for himself as well, Rudy said.

“They share their fears with you, and you (share) yours with them,” Rudy said. Knowing those he may have to treat is a constant function, he said.

Laughing, Rudy said, “You get to know every corn they have on their feet.”

When he returns to Iraq, for the next eight months, Rudy will be at the main medical facility on Camp Taji, where wounded GIs come through.

He knows it will be a different part of his deployment.

“I’ll see and help treat some of our guys who are wounded. I don’t know what I’ll see but, I’ll be ready,” he said.

Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.

[SandRat]

Spec. Rudy Nuñez of Sierra Vista and a member of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., has his infant son Camron safely in his arm as his wife, Olivia, holds tight. Spec. Nuñez talks about his time in Iraq. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review)

Pfc. Rudy Nuñez greets Iraqi children during a patrol in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq, earlier this year. Now a specialist, Nuñez is a combat medic with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C. (Submitted photo)

[Patriot Hooligan]

Thank you for your service Spec. Rudy Nuñez.

[El Gato]

Even the Iraqi soldiers don’t trust their nation’s police officers, he exclaimed.

From what I've read, both are infiltrated by anti-American elements. The police are infiltrated by Sunis, many Saddam left overs. The Army is mostly Shiite, and thus had it's share of al Sadar adherents.

[I still care]

“Fortunately during his first six months, none of the soldiers he has been on patrol with have been wounded.”

“Most of his medical knowledge has gone to take care of civilian and Iraqi soldier needs, Rudy said.”

But, I thought if you went to Iraq it was a death sentence! And I thought our soldiers were murderers... That’s what the NY Times told me.