SURGEONS ON THE FRONT

Another Iraqi patient arrives. An accompanying soldier from the 1st Armored Division briefs the surgeons in the resuscitation room as other medics prepare the operating room.

“He apparently was running away from the scene of a car bomb when the car exploded.’’

Shrapnel wounds covered the patient’s naked body. Within seconds, a portable X-ray machine scanned the Iraqi’s bloodied chest while a nurse attached an IV drip. The surgeons washed their hands, a medic slipped a ventilator into the Iraqi’s mouth, and yet another medic read out blood pressure numbers: “110 over 65 and dropping.”

The surgical team responded to the frenzy methodically, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it.

And, even if they thought it, no one questioned aloud whether this Iraqi individual — now precariously balanced between life and death and in the best care the U.S. Army could offer — was either an innocent victim of a car bomb, or, himself, the insurgent who planted the bomb hit by his own evil deed.

For the men and women of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment Forward Surgical Team, those questions don’t matter.