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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Subj:<B>postings </B><BR>
Date:4/11/2004 6:45:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time<BR>
From:<A HREF="mailto:Rcmaster199@aol.com">Rcmaster199@aol.com</A><BR>
Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A><BR>
To:<A HREF="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A><BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><I>Sent from the Internet </I><BR>
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I've tried a couple times to post on the list and nothing got through. I am using this as a test. <BR>
<BR>
MattK <BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Subj:<B>Off Subject: "Fwd: An email received from Colonel Jeff Poffenbarger in Iraq" </B><BR>
Date:4/9/2004 10:59:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time<BR>
From:<A HREF="mailto:Rcmaster199">Rcmaster199</A><BR>
To:<A HREF="mailto:discussion@nsrca.org">discussion@nsrca.org</A><BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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It is all too easy to get so involved in our everyday living that we forget there's a war going on. I asked permission from Phil to post this private letter from his son on our discussion board , and he was kind enough to allow it. <BR>
<BR>
I think I understand what the politics of that war in Iraq are, but it is our young men and women that are paying dearly to support the politics and protect our freedom<BR>
to fly our model planes as we please. Lets never forget that!!<BR>
<BR>
Matt K<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Dear friends, I am forwarding a letter received from my son Jeff now<BR>
stationed in Iraq. He functions as a neurosurgeon. <BR>
Phil Poffenbarger, MD<BR>
<BR>
-----Original Message-----<BR>
From: jeff.poffenbarger@us.army.mil [mailto:jeff.poffenbarger@us.army.mil] <BR>
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 8:01 PM<BR>
To: Phil Poffenbarger; Mark Poffenbarger<BR>
Cc: glenjpoffen3141@aol.com<BR>
Subject: Re: from Dad<BR>
<BR>
Great to hear from you again. Glad your computer is up and running. We<BR>
have been very busy here the last few weeks. We actually eclipsed the<BR>
"total monthly surgical hours" record set last November during "traumadan"<BR>
as Ramadan has become known.<BR>
My team has done more cases in 8 weeks than the prior team did in 8 months.<BR>
We have had some heart breakers, but thankfully have also had many saves.<BR>
Several rocket & mortar attacks, but none really serious for me. We had a<BR>
doc with 4 days to go before going home; he walked outside to get better<BR>
reception on a cell phone so he could call his wife. A mortar shell landed<BR>
close and fragments ripped his thorax (he had no body armour on). He died<BR>
after 8 hours of surgery. Lesson learned. This is the real deal. <BR>
Anyway, I am relatively safe and don't take unecessary chances, but this is<BR>
a crazy place.<BR>
I flew a helicopter to Balad last week to get a casualty. Y'see, I am the<BR>
only show in town. If you have a neurosurgical problem from Kuwait City to<BR>
Diyarbakir, from Amman to Tehran, I am the only option. This guy had a<BR>
terribly unstable cervical spine fracture, so the rotor heads flew me down<BR>
from Baghdad to Basra (about 3 hours cross tiger country with bad guys) and<BR>
I put a HALO on to externally fixate him, then flew him back to baghdad with<BR>
me for surgery. On the way back, all of my monitors conked out, and I had<BR>
to resort to one hand on his chest to feel and count respirations, and one<BR>
hand on his neck to feel and count pulse. Every so often as much as I dared<BR>
I would flash a redlens light in his eyes to check pupils. Very primitive<BR>
medicine in the back of a chopper blacked out at night. The pilots were<BR>
great and did everything I asked to keep the casualty in good condition. Of<BR>
course, it is quite a calsthenic exercise to do all you need to in the<BR>
cramped blackh<BR>
awk with full body armour and weapon on. But we got him back here and<BR>
operated on him, adn he has gone from a quadriplegic to having biceps and<BR>
deltoid function as well as sensation all the way to his toes. I think he<BR>
will continue to improve. Very satisfying to see someone go from a flacid<BR>
insensate quad to a motor and sensory functional level. He may actually<BR>
walk again. We'll see.<BR>
On the down side we got a 19 year old boy in this morning with a mortar<BR>
fragment as big as my fist that crashed thru his brain. Dead on arrival.<BR>
Those ones just crush you. His pockets had a instant camera, MP3 player,<BR>
and a list of things he had to do once he got back from patrol. A lot of<BR>
plans that never get finished. It was tough to handle that body so early in<BR>
the morning and realize that half a world away, his family was sitting down<BR>
to dinner and probably thinking about him and wishing for his safety, not<BR>
knowing what had occurred only minutes before. You look at that gaping hole<BR>
in the side of his head that no longer bleeds and you begin to understand<BR>
the 200+ year price of freedom and safety. It is a curious fact that so few<BR>
purchase so much for so many, but alot of things are like that. One Mom<BR>
cooks dinner for an entire family, everyone eats, but she does 99% of the<BR>
work. One company builds a housing development that hundreds of families<BR>
eventually call ho<BR>
me. The hundreds of families all sit warm and dry in a storm a year later,<BR>
but a few construction workers put up the walls that keep them so. America<BR>
sits unscathed for 2 years after 9-11, but a few young men pay with life and<BR>
limb to keep the bad guys at bay. I hope folks back home realize the price<BR>
paid here. The CNN blurb " 1 soldier dead today" does not convey what is<BR>
lost as you put a young man in those heavy vinyl bags. <BR>
Anyway, deep thoughts.<BR>
To close on a happy note, my new camera came today and I hope to take some<BR>
better pictures and send them to you.<BR>
<BR>
Jeff</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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