Unfortunately, I doubt this will be our only ceremony of this type. I do not know his name, but I still feel like I have lost a friend. He belonged to Delta Company (part of the New York National Guard) and he was the gunner in a Humvee out on patrol. His driver performed a tactical maneuver and turned too sharply, the Humvee turned over and slid on its side, eventually rolling over a couple of times. My next door neighbor and fellow medic was in the vehicle when it rolled. He had just graduated from medic training and this was his first patient. Although he was hurt, he answered “the call” (“MEDIC”) and rushed to aide the gunner. Blood was everywhere and he did not have a pulse… this was this medic’s first ever patient. Talk about a trial by fire. There was nothing that could have been done for the gunner and tomorrow we honor his life and his sacrifice. It hurts even more that his death could have been prevented. If you are the praying type, please say a prayer for him and his family.

My roommate was the first medic to save someone’s life. An Iraqi truck played a game of chicken with a tank and lost, badly. Iraqi drivers have no concept of traffic regulations and will drive wherever they so desire. It is not unusual to see a car driving down the wrong way on a highway. This particular truck did not get out of the way of the tank and the tank rolled up and over the vehicle. When my roommate arrived the driver’s leg was almost completely severed and he was rapidly loosing blood. For a second my roommate froze and just looked at the driver soaking in the gravity of the situation, then his training kicked in and he quickly applied a tourniquet and initiated IV’s to replace the lost fluids. He said the hardest part was knowing how tight to tie the tourniquet, because with all the blood everywhere it was hard to know when it had stopped the blood flow. His quick action saved that Iraqi’s life. I hope they put my roommate up for an award.

I have had my own fair share of firsts…

* I fired my first shoot... thankfully it was only a warning shot to an approaching vehicle.

* I spoke my first Arabic... to drivers we stopped to search, thanking them for putting up with us (Shorkran = Thank you).

* I saw my first mosques and Iraqi schools... (I have tons of pictures that I can not show), but the real challenge was learning how to say “mosque” and “school” without the aide of a book or a translator.

* I had my first interaction with the hordes of local kids... “Mister, Mister, do you have football?” These kids beg for footballs (soccer balls), food (MREs), pens, paper and anything else they can get their hands on.




* I spent my first Thanksgiving away from home… I appreciate all the concern most of you had about me missing out on Thanksgiving dinner. Although they did not have my mom’s screaming mashed potatoes, I did properly stuff myself and suffer from food coma.



I guess I am just avoiding talking about the important firsts… I earned my Combat Medical Badge. The criteria for earning this award is rather simple, be a medic on a mission with infantry soldiers and receive enemy contact. At the end of a rather long patrol, we were rolling home when I saw a huge cloud of dust kick up in front of me. The explosion was between the first and second vehicle. A burning round shot across the road, thankfully missing its mark. We had been hit by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). The insurgents had used an old artillery round called an illumination round and rigged it to explode as we drove by. We needed to find the triggerman and I immediately jumped out of the Humvee and single-handedly stopped and searched the closest vehicle. My adrenaline was pumping and I was screaming at the driver in a way I didn’t know that I was capable of. It was not a hate filled, rage voice that I feared I might be consumed by during my first contact with the enemy, but more of commanding, necessity voice.

We stopped some people we suspected of being the triggermen and searched their house. Unlike the previous raid, I was in the raiding party and we found

2 AK-47s. They are allowed to have one AK-47 per family, so this was not a surprise. I was assigned to guard the family of the two men we were detaining.

There were almost 20 women, children and the father. I did everything I could to make them comfortable without putting my fellow soldiers at risk. I could tell that they worried about their two sons who were being questioned. Some of them responded well to my gestures of kindness, while one woman in particularly was infuriated by what we were doing to her sons. She started wailing and the father tried to reassure her.

They got in a heated debate; that I can only guess was about our presence in their yard and our presence here in Iraq in general. That very debate rages here all the time as people are torn about our presence. We released the two young men and left feeling frustrated. But I had earned my combat medical badge without serious injury. Everyone in our company had now seen contact and earned their combat infantry or combat medical badges. As I walked next to the Battalion Commander (BC) away from the house , I commented, “Someone is definitely looking over us right now.” The BC obivisiousily startled by my statement asked, “Where?” We all just laughed, as someone told him that I might have meant god.

My first medical patient was a couple of days ago.

Again we were at the tail end of a long patrol, when we were hit by an IED. This was much closer then my first IED and it struck the Humvee in front of me.

Once the dust cleared and we were sure there wasn’t going to be followed by an ambush or 2nd IED, I looked up to see the Humvee in front of me bellowing smoke.

The soldiers quickly dismounted and I squinted to see if any of them looked like they had been hit. One soldier stumbled out and I was sure he had been hit by shrapnel. As they got to safe distance, I noticed that same soldier make the sign of “Father, Son & Holy Spirit” and I knew he was OK. Again we were looking for the triggerman, when I got “the call.” I grabbed my aide bag (about 50 lbs of medical supplies) and ran to the soldier. Thankfully there were no shrapnel wounds, just a possible fracture of the arm from the concussion of the IED. Oddly enough earlier in the day I had been reviewing in my head how I would treat this exact injury.

I was so focused on splinting this soldier’s arm, that I missed two very memorable sights. The first was a Blackhawk helicopter that happened to see the IED explode, land in the middle of the street and its crew chief came running up the road with his pistol asking if we needed anything. The second was the when all the rounds in the back of the Humvee cooked off, setting off the grenades and which in turn blew up the gas tank sending the Humvee twenty feet in the air.



When we finally got back to base, all of us counted our blessing because God had definitely looked after those soldiers. After an x-ray, the my patient only had a soft tissue wound and no fracture. He will return to duty in about a week and earned his Purple Heart. Experiences like that make one take stock of their life. I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately, I live a very blessed life. We are all truly blessed!

I would love to say those were my only experience with IEDs, but not 24 hours later my patrol got hit by another IED. Thankfully no one was seriously injured and the damage to our equipment was considerably less.

We chased the triggerman across a canal (I had to walk across a narrow pipe 15 feet in the air to get to his location), but unfortunately we lost him. I had to treat my translator friend for a hurt knee, a similar injury to the arm of soldier from a day ago. The blast hit right by his window.



Again we are all really blessed. I am working on getting him a “combat translator badge” (not official of course), but after his 5th IED… he deserves it.

So I get home from these rough days in the field and what do I find… more then 14 wonderful care packages from all of you.



Just when I was at my lowest, your love picked me up.

I must admit I have been a little overwhelmed by all this stuff, but I have never felt more loved and not a second too late. I can’t tell you how many blown up soldiers, translators or even detainees that a grandma cookie hasn't brighten their day.



I have done my best to spread all these wonderful gifts. In classic Berkeley style, I have established a free table for people to come and “take things they need and leave things do they do not need.” I have also gotten the list of the people in my company, so if anyone would like to adopt a platoon or an individual soldier, please send me an email and I will forward you the name(s).

My last first… was I missed my first Big Game.

Although I listened to it online via the KGO webcast, it definitely was not the same as screaming my head off and bouncing up and down for four straight quarters. Almost more then the Big Game itself, I missed putting together the Big Game Bonfire. I have built 8 straight and I was sulking the night of the bonfire. However, that night we found a large weapons cache. The insurgents had buried a .50 caliber machine gun and rounds, RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and their launchers, explosives, shoulder fired missiles and an IED. We dug up the IED and everyone just though it was a block of cement. Right as we were going to toss it aside, I noticed some Styrofoam in one section… we immediately realized it was a big F*^!ing explosive.



So how did I spend my Bonfire night, blowing up the weapons cache with 10 lbs of C4… not the 100 foot wall of flame, but pretty gnarly none the same. On our way home we drove the tank off the side of the road and got stuck in the freezing cold for almost 6 hours.

Thoughts of the bonfire kept me warm!

My last story is a little different from the rest. We were patrolling one night (0100), when we noticed some peculiar/suspicious activity. We decided to investigate and came upon a house. We ordered everyone out while we searched it. After being nice but firm with the family, coupled with giving them a little care package after we knew they were safe, we went from house raiders to guests. They insisted that we come in and share tea with them. It was soo odd sitting in their living room in my body armor and helmet, with my M-16 sipping a small cup of chai and watching Arabic television. We happened to have a woman with us on this particular patrol (the only time ever) and all the women gathered in the back room while the men sat in the living room. She gave a little one a glow stick (AKA Chem light) and soon we had every little kid in the neighborhood coming to meet us. The parents woke them up for their chance to meet a US soldier. We left that house knowing that not everyone was our enemy and that there is hope for this country. The hope is in the hospitality of that family and the hearts and minds of those little kids.

I have a patrol in 6 hours so I need to sleep… I won’t be able to watch the CAL Bears game, but I am praying that we will be smelling roses!

I am truly blessed to not only be alive, but to have the best damn family and friends in the world… Thank you for everything!

Shalom my friends,

Patrick Wf

P.S. I am not in need of anything for at least a little bit, but if you have pictures of yourself to put up on my wall… I have plenty of wall space!

P.P.S. Below are some meager Thank You’s for amazing acts of kindness and charity that are wholly undeserved by me!

Grandma - your baked goods (and tinfoil wrapping)  have no equal in the US or Iraq


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