Sparrowhawk
04-07-03, 05:06 PM
http://wwwi.reuters.com/images/mdf251478.jpg
Wounded U.S. Marine Warrant Officer Chris Campbell of the 2nd Radio Battalion poses with his purple heart medal, awarded to soldiers wounded in battle, before a press conference in the U.S. Fleet Hospital Eight at Naval Station in Rota, Spain on April 7, 2003. Campbell was wounded by shrapnel during a battle at Al Nassirya, Iraq on March 26. Photo by Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
Wounded U.S. Marine Says War Not What He Expected
Mon April 7, 2003 04:11 PM ET
By Emma Ross-Thomas
ROTA, Spain (Reuters) - Warrant Officer Chris Campbell, recovering from an arm wound at a U.S. naval hospital in southern Spain, found that the reality of war in Iraq was "absolutely not" what he had expected.
The night-time firefight in the southern Iraq town Nassiriya in which Campbell's unit, the 2nd battalion 8th U.S. Marines, was taking part when he was hit, seemed to last more like three days than one hour, he recalled on Monday.
In the middle of the battle, Campbell, 29, was hurled against a Humvee military vehicle and looked back to see a pizza-sized hole in the wall he had been standing against.
Bruised and shaken, he thought he had just been hit by flying bricks and kept on firing. Only later did he realize he had a coin-sized hole in his left bicep. "A bit of wall or something had been shot in there," he said.
On Saturday Campbell was flown to Rota, a U.S. naval station on Spain's south coast where troops wounded in Iraq are treated in a 116-bed military hospital.
The Marine said morale was high in Iraq when he left, despite days of sleeping in mud and dirt, and for the first few days after he was wounded he wanted to go back to his unit.
"Part of me is hugely disappointed."
Staff in Rota have been working intensively to set up a second hospital on the 6,000-acre military base, able to take up to 500 beds if needed, which will be ready in a few days.
Rows of sand-colored tents, holding three operating theaters, four intensive care wards and seven wards with green-blanketed beds, stand under a cloudless Andalusian sky.
So far 81 soldiers -- only 20 of them wounded in combat -- have been admitted to the hospital, which can treat most types of wound, though not severe burns or victims of biological or chemical weapons.
A few patients have recovered and gone back to Iraq to fight, but most have gone home, officers at the hospital said.
Campbell, awarded the Purple Heart medal for his combat wound, will return to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina in the next few days to see his Texan wife and four young children.
"READY TO SERVE"
Marker-pen signs show the way round the new hospital. One reads "Welcome to the Operating Room, ready to serve."
The tents, filled with all the hi-tech equipment of a permanent hospital, give off a smell of new rubber and plastic.
When the new hospital comes on line, the 116-bed one will be closed but kept in reserve. "We're just being prepared. We have to be ready just in case," said Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant Corey Barker.
U.S. Naval Station Rota -- dotted with Americana such as an old yellow school bus, a 24-hour Laundromat and a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream store -- was handed to the U.S. under an accord reached in 1953, when General Francisco Franco ruled Spain.
Campbell said he expects to resume active service -- but he knows Marines who have decided the war in Iraq will be their last experience of armed combat.
"Some Marines I know have decided 'you know, this war thing is scary'. They're going to finish it...but college is the next thing," Campbell told reporters in the hospital.
"You go through the stage 'oh my God, there's someone out there that's actually trying to kill me and I've just spent the last hour actively trying to kill them' -- that forces you to sit down and think about things and to re-evaluate what you want."
Wounded U.S. Marine Warrant Officer Chris Campbell of the 2nd Radio Battalion poses with his purple heart medal, awarded to soldiers wounded in battle, before a press conference in the U.S. Fleet Hospital Eight at Naval Station in Rota, Spain on April 7, 2003. Campbell was wounded by shrapnel during a battle at Al Nassirya, Iraq on March 26. Photo by Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
Wounded U.S. Marine Says War Not What He Expected
Mon April 7, 2003 04:11 PM ET
By Emma Ross-Thomas
ROTA, Spain (Reuters) - Warrant Officer Chris Campbell, recovering from an arm wound at a U.S. naval hospital in southern Spain, found that the reality of war in Iraq was "absolutely not" what he had expected.
The night-time firefight in the southern Iraq town Nassiriya in which Campbell's unit, the 2nd battalion 8th U.S. Marines, was taking part when he was hit, seemed to last more like three days than one hour, he recalled on Monday.
In the middle of the battle, Campbell, 29, was hurled against a Humvee military vehicle and looked back to see a pizza-sized hole in the wall he had been standing against.
Bruised and shaken, he thought he had just been hit by flying bricks and kept on firing. Only later did he realize he had a coin-sized hole in his left bicep. "A bit of wall or something had been shot in there," he said.
On Saturday Campbell was flown to Rota, a U.S. naval station on Spain's south coast where troops wounded in Iraq are treated in a 116-bed military hospital.
The Marine said morale was high in Iraq when he left, despite days of sleeping in mud and dirt, and for the first few days after he was wounded he wanted to go back to his unit.
"Part of me is hugely disappointed."
Staff in Rota have been working intensively to set up a second hospital on the 6,000-acre military base, able to take up to 500 beds if needed, which will be ready in a few days.
Rows of sand-colored tents, holding three operating theaters, four intensive care wards and seven wards with green-blanketed beds, stand under a cloudless Andalusian sky.
So far 81 soldiers -- only 20 of them wounded in combat -- have been admitted to the hospital, which can treat most types of wound, though not severe burns or victims of biological or chemical weapons.
A few patients have recovered and gone back to Iraq to fight, but most have gone home, officers at the hospital said.
Campbell, awarded the Purple Heart medal for his combat wound, will return to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina in the next few days to see his Texan wife and four young children.
"READY TO SERVE"
Marker-pen signs show the way round the new hospital. One reads "Welcome to the Operating Room, ready to serve."
The tents, filled with all the hi-tech equipment of a permanent hospital, give off a smell of new rubber and plastic.
When the new hospital comes on line, the 116-bed one will be closed but kept in reserve. "We're just being prepared. We have to be ready just in case," said Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant Corey Barker.
U.S. Naval Station Rota -- dotted with Americana such as an old yellow school bus, a 24-hour Laundromat and a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream store -- was handed to the U.S. under an accord reached in 1953, when General Francisco Franco ruled Spain.
Campbell said he expects to resume active service -- but he knows Marines who have decided the war in Iraq will be their last experience of armed combat.
"Some Marines I know have decided 'you know, this war thing is scary'. They're going to finish it...but college is the next thing," Campbell told reporters in the hospital.
"You go through the stage 'oh my God, there's someone out there that's actually trying to kill me and I've just spent the last hour actively trying to kill them' -- that forces you to sit down and think about things and to re-evaluate what you want."