Try not to look too far ahead, but keep your eyes on the future.

Lt. Col. Leidinger, a Maine MD, Recalls His Tour of Duty in Iraq in a cover story in a liberal publication. For those skeptics and non skeptics alike
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:k76lqTsq7QkJ:www.freepressonline.com/cover.cfm+%22Lt.+Col.+Richard+J.+Leidinger%22&hl=en

Lt. Col. Richard J. Leidinger sat at his kitchen table in Rockport after having spent four harrowing months in Iraq. He spoke with quiet pride of the medical unit he supervised as they cared for the injured (friend and foe), of the attacks on his base, and of the Iraqi people and doctors he came to know and admire.
He returned from the war in March to resume his life as Doctor Leidinger at Penobscot Bay Urology, as Rich to his new wife Kate, and as Dad to his children, Sarah, age 11, and Tristan, who just turned 10.
Leidinger, age 43, served as vice commander of the 506 EMeds (expeditionary Medical Support), a small Air Force forward-deployed fixed hospital unit of 58 people from all over the US, about half of whom were Guard and half active-duty personnel. His military medical base was just outside Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, about 60 miles from Tikrit, at the top of the Suni triangle. As head doctor at his base, Leidinger oversaw the treatment of more than 1,200 patients in the sick bay, and several hundred trauma patients who were checked and treated if necessary, before being flown to U.S. military hospitals in Germany.
He didn’t have to go to Iraq. The Air Force put in a request to his Bangor-based Air National Guard unit for a flight surgeon. Leidinger was the most qualified for the duty — he had spent 12 active-duty years in the Navy, primarily at a Naval hospital in California, then two years in the Naval Reserves, and has been in his Air National Guard unit for three years. And he was willing to go, though it meant leaving his wife and children, plus his local patients, and flying into danger.
As a flight surgeon, Leidinger flew on 11 combat missions on C130s — one of those 11 was a medivac flight to pick up casualties — and so saw a good portion of the country, at least from an aerial perspective. On those flights, as air crew, he served as a visual spotter for small-arms fire and shoulder-launched missiles. He did spot small-arms fire and his plane did get missile locked once, and undertook defensive, evasive action. C130s are cargo planes, used to move people and supplies, and have defensive but no offensive weapons, he explained.
But above all, Leidinger worked as a healer, in a tent on the barren base (there was one tree on the base besides a Christmas tree made of coat hangers), performing routine, as well as life-saving, surgery on accident victims, people with shrapnel wounds, as well as men and women with everyday medical problems. He treated US military, Iraqi civilians, Iraqi police, as well as EPWs (enemy prisoners of war).

Calm under stress, Leidinger said it’s necessary “to control your fear.… I knew I could get killed, but I felt why I’m here is to help the people, to try and maybe make a little bit of difference. And ultimately what it’s for is to make a safer world for our kids. So our kids don’t ever have to witness some of the things we’ve seen. Ultimately, that’s what it’s about.”

He believes the war is “absolutely worthwhile,” and that the continuing violence is a result of “the growing pains of a free society.” Adding that “freedom is not free,” Leidinger believes that if the U.S. and its allies can establish a democratic Iraq, it will stabilize the Middle East.
He knows many critics of the war want to bring the troops home now, but he thinks that would be a mistake. “I can almost guarantee you those guys [U.S. soldiers killed in action] if you could bring them back to life for 15 seconds and ask them if it was worth it, they’d say yes.”

Leidinger complained that the media is only telling Americans a small percentage of what happens in Iraq. “I saw evidence of weapons of mass destruction,” he said. Asked what sort of evidence, Leidinger paused and said some of his information was sensitive, but he was willing to explain that some OSI (Air Force equivalent of CIA), as well as some CIA people, occasionally “brought material which they had received from informants” to his unit for testing. His medical unit had biotech people and equipment on site and some of that material, after being tested by his unit, proved to be radioactive. (He added that informants were paid based on material turning out to be WMD-related material, so there could be some ulterior motives at work in what was provided.) He also monitored the secret email system on the base, which bolstered his conviction that WMD are present in Iraq. He noted that while he was in Iraq “US forces found cyanide during a raid at a terrorist storage facility in Baghdad,” and that while that got some coverage in the US press, it didn’t get much attention.
“Al Qaeda is sending terrorists into the country to subvert the American effort,” said Leidinger. “Their primary focus now is Iraq, not Afghanistan.” He says there was a distinct difference in the level of sophistication of attacks that began throughout the country, including at his base, shortly after Saddam Hussein was captured. While he was there, the base was attacked 31 times with rocket mortars. That doesn’t count the number of times small-arms fire was going on — so frequent that oftentimes his unit didn’t know if the fire was aimed at them or involved non-US factions shooting at each other. Any which way, Leidinger laughs, it was best to take cover.
Speaking of Hussein, Leidinger barely mentioned the fact that his unit received a citation for “outstanding treatment of and professionalism in” treating Iraqi people badly hurt in a humvee-taxi crash last November 30. The Iraqi families were so grateful for the medical care that, the citation reads, “they in turn risked their lives to notify coalition forces of Saddam Hussein’s whereabouts. By treating these injured Iraqis with the highest standard of care, you directly contributed to the capture and detainment of the Ace of Spades.”

It’s well known, according to Leidinger, that many al Qaeda members were coming into Iraq from Iran. His base was about 40 to 50 miles from the Zagros Mountains on the Iranian border. “But we think they were probably also coming in from Saudi Arabia and Syria — and who knows where else.”

Perhaps Leidinger’s biggest complaint is that “the media is downplaying the humanitarian efforts that make up most of the work the US forces are involved with, including the big reconstruction projects.” Those include, he said, reconstruction of water purification facilities, water treatment systems, hospitals and bridges — as well as the work involved in establishing local governments. While there’s a lot of press coverage of the Provisional Authority, he says, there’s almost no coverage of the countless military civil affairs people who are going into towns all over Iraq helping to establish city councils and fire and ambulance services, and teaching Iraqis how to repair the emergency equipment and how to get spare parts. US forces have also been at work on establishing communications — and they are about to bring up a cell phone network in the country. And, he adds, “I didn’t even touch on the rebuilding and resupplying of the schools.”

“Our doctors and their doctors have been working side by side,” says Leidinger, in order to get medical supplies and get the hospitals functioning. The three main hospitals in Kirkuk are all functional now, says Leidinger, “though certainly not up to Western standards.” He estimates that it took about three months after the major combat of the war ceased last spring to get them to the functional stage. But, he says, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are now working with the hospitals, and there is also a national health ministry.
“That’s probably 80 percent of what we’re [US forces] doing there — that’s the bulk of what the soldiers do every day.” Most people in the US, says Leidinger, “think we’re roaming around in convoys waiting to be attacked,” but those convoys that people see on television are usually protecting the day-to-day work of the military’s engineers, civil affairs personnel and medical workers, as well as the civilian workers.
Leidinger said he is unhappy about the revelations of abuse of prisoners, but also feels ambivalent because sometimes the information extracted from “EPWs” (enemy prisoners of war) is strategically valuable and saves lives.
There were times, Leidinger said, when moments after a rocket or mortar attack, he would be called on to care for a wounded Iraqi man, and he remembers what he considered the “I would kill you” look in his patient’s eyes. But Leidinger doesn’t hate Iraqis. On the contrary, he hopes the bloodshed and turmoil will bring them democracy, freedom and something that has eluded them for a long time: happiness.
One hundred and twenty three days after he first flew into the midst of war, he came home to the peace of midcoast Maine and a chance to ride his bicycle again. Could America be attacked by al Qaeda again? It’s possible, Leidinger said, but unlikely. Could he be asked to serve again in Iraq? “With rotations, it’s possible,” he said.
As to how he felt about leaving Iraq, he said his feelings were mixed. “I was happy to come home, but I also felt guilty.… I came home with only half my unit, so as Vice Commander, I felt like a father abandoning his children.”

by Steve Cartwright & Alice McFadden