From UO to embedded reporter in Iraq: 'You can't leave yet'

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq -- So you wake up one morning and you think, “Yes, I want to go to war with a Medevac unit, I want to tell stories of soldiers’ sacrifices and of bleeding patients needing evacuation by helicopter. I want to be scared, I want to be lonely, I want there to be something more to life than a desk job and lunch breaks and weekends.”

So you pack your bags -- even though you have no idea what to bring.

The military’s embedded journalist packing list says things like underwear, sleeping bag and sunscreen, so you pack those things. You also pack books, granola bars and camera batteries.

You fly in a C17 to Iraq.

You wear an armored vest and helmet.

You live with soldiers. And even though many treat you like an outsider, you feel as if you have joined the military in many ways. You eat in the chow hall, you cough up dust and you're crazy mad when the Internet fails to work.

“It's like being new in a really small town,” said one soldier about how difficult it is to be the new kid in town.

But you make friends, and just like anywhere in life, some people love you while others don’t love you so much.

In fact, some really don’t seem to like you at all.

Every week another story is published and the soldiers compliment and criticize you as if they are veteran newspapermen. And behind closed doors some complain that their story isn’t being told, but of course not everyone gets a page. You’d like to tell everyone’s story, but it simply isn’t possible.

So you do your job and you get out of bed -- even though no one would notice if you stayed in.

Early on you fly almost every day and people complain because you’re a civilian and its extra work and even a liability. If the aircraft crashes, they don’t want to be responsible for your dead body. You understand this, because they have enough to worry about as it is, and they have to make life and death decisions, and you sure don’t want to be one of those decisions. 

But others are glad to have their story told and glad to have another person on board. One soldier tells you that if anyone gives you grief you should grab him or her by the collar and demonstrate how you would drag him or her to safety if they were injured.

Inside the aircraft you document blood runs, patients with broken arms and legs, head injuries and Iraqi detainees with their heads wrapped in cloth. Usually the patients barely look at you, and you like that because you feel for a moment like you are truly objective and merely a shadow against the wall.

But then there comes a day when an Iraqi girl is severely burned, and you sit in the back seat with the girl’s mother, and her tiny body shakes with sobs, and you know that you should take pictures to keep a professional distance -- but you wrap your arms around her for the 35-minute flight.

You are not so sensitive that you don’t eventually ask the grieving mother to snap a photo. Maybe you’re wrong, but she seems to understand, even as her mournful eyes gaze up at you.

After a few clicks, her pain is frozen in the digital frame. You put your camera away, and her hand finds yours.

When the aircraft lands and the daughter is transferred inside the hospital, the mother finds your arm and you don’t know where to take her.

Luckily a translator is there, and she takes the mother’s arm and you’re free. But the mother holds your face and kisses your cheeks. You feel your heart and guts all twisted up.

You go back to your Containerized Housing Unit and type away.

Sometimes you ask yourself why you’re even here, especially when thinking of the mountains, the green hills and clear waters and the embrace of loved ones back home. Then you walk out to the airfield and watch the unloading of patients.

The soldiers who have become just people are once again the brave pilots, crew chiefs and medics who first inspired this trip into the desert. You feel a surge of pride for witnessing their jobs because people are still dying in this war and there are still soldiers willing to put their lives on hold to answer the call of duty to fly in the blackness of night or the heat of the day to rescue the wounded.

Any memories of petty arguments disappear. The families back home send you e-mails expressing their thanks because these stories create a bridge between knowing and not knowing.

And when you wake up aching to be home, you know that you can’t leave yet -- not while others have to stay. 

Most days it's quiet, and you’ve written as many Medevac stories as you can, and you don’t really fly anymore. Now you’re transferring to an Oregon Infantry unit. “It’s a whole other world,” the soldiers tell you.

You hear the words "be safe" and "good luck," but they know and you know there’s not a lot you can do if something goes wrong. But the words are comforting both to say and to hear.

You tell some people that you are sad to leave the Medevac, even a little nervous.

Some soldiers say they’d leave, too, if they coul. Some are planning on extending their stay by volunteering with the infantry in the winter.

A few soldiers ask if they can have your "wet CHU" -- meaning you have a bathroom in your room -- because most soldiers have to share the communal showers and toilets.

Then there are a few who ask, “You’re leaving us? But you're our embedded journalist,” and they’re sincerity surprises you because you hadn’t realized they’d care.

Cali Bagby embedded with the Oregon Army National Guard from Charlie Company, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation, a Medevac Unit based out of Salem, Ore., for KVAL.com. Her work has been published in the Washington Post and the Eugene Weekly.
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