Why am I smiling?
To this day i do not know why I was smiling in this picture. Not all of the time in Iraq is non-stop action as the news portrayed it. It is 90% boredom and 10% organized chaos. A horrible head on semi collision happened right outside of our base. We were the first to arrive on scene. There were four casualties and I was the only infantryman on the scene with more advanced medical training; therefore I had to treat all these guys. I still feel guilty about the guy I couldn't save. He died at my knee. Iraqis notoriously do not wear their seat belts and this guy had severe internal bleeding, multiple broken bones, and some kind of head trauma. Well at least we saved the other three...
Maybe it was since I was new to Iraq and it was the first time Iraqi blood touched my skin... Disgusting...
(FYI: I ran out of latex gloves)
