Click photo for screen-resolution image A crowd gathers Jan. 16, 2010, at a country club being used as a base of operations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment. About 200 soldiers are setting up security there to help in providing humanitarian aid to those left devastated by a magnitude 7 earthquake. A survivor camp of thousands of displaced Haitians is near the base. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III

As the sun rises over the sweeping palms here, not much is certain about Army Lt. Col. Mike Foster’s day.

But one thing that is certain is that a hundred yards or so away, down a slope lined by a narrow, worn footpath, are thousands of earthquake survivors who will look to him and his troops for the basics of their survival.

Some nongovernmental estimates say about 50,000 Haitians sleep at night at the foot of this country club and golf course estate that the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, now calls home.

The scene would be spectacular, with sweeping views of the city to the east and the coastal sea to the west, but that north are some of those hit hardest by last week’s earthquake. And many of those left homeless now are gathered at the bottom of Foster’s hill, waiting for help.

“I don’t know how the day’s going to shape up,” Foster said. “I know that we’re going to be busy. I know that we’re going to work real hard, and I’m confident that at the end of the day when the sun goes down, we will have made a difference.”

Foster and his squadron of about 300 soldiers have been on the ground less than two days and already have passed out thousands of meals and bottles of water to the Haitians. At the same time, they’re fortifying the abandoned and damaged estate into a military forward operating base.

Helicopters land constantly through the day on an open, grassy spot on the hill, dumping more troops and supplies from their bellies. Soldiers outline the perimeter. A gym becomes a sleeping area. The racquetball courts store troops’ equipment. The swimming pool is lined with rucksacks.

Yesterday, the troops made their initial aid drop. They tried at first to move into the survivor camp to deliver the food, but the handful of troops, led by Foster, quickly became engulfed in a sea of screaming survivors. At the sight of some relief, the crowd became excited, and it was clear that the food could not be passed out in the camp. The troops were forced to retreat up the hill, behind their makeshift perimeter lined with white plastic lawn chairs.

Despite the initial chaos of the event, Foster called it a success. Haitian volunteers came forward to organize the distribution and to help in providing security.

“They were ones who got all of the kids up the hill and brought them first, not us. I think that’s an enormously positive step,” Foster said. “The handful of times you may have seen a guy or two want to get rowdy, they policed those guys up themselves. I think that is very, very important to how this continues to flow.”

While the soldiers may be on the front line of the fight for survival, their first mission is to provide security and help to pave the way for the tremendous amount of humanitarian aid waiting to be pushed forward by organizations around the globe. So as some passed out meals, other troops started today interviewing local people, helping to identify their needs, surveying the area and feeding information back to higher headquarters that senior officials will need to know to increase the amount of relief in this area.

And with every helicopter that lands comes more troops, more meals and more water.

“We never look away from one [mission] just to do the other,” Foster said. “With the assets and capabilities I have right now, I ask myself ‘Where can I make the most good?’ We’re going to take every advantage of every opportunity we can to put aid and relief and supplies on anything that’s coming in.

“At the end of the day, the intent is to get relief to the Haitian people,” he said.

The need ranges from those who hardly were affected to those whose lives were devastated. Some already have received aid, others have not. Officials have to identify those who need the aid most and get it to them first, Foster said.

“You don’t want to turn it into a ‘survival of the fittest,’ where you find a place that’s easy to drop off supplies so you just continue to drop them off there,” he said. “The rich in aid get richer. That’s going to take some time to fully understand.”

Medics also were out helping the injured today. One small boy came forward with his head severely bandaged. The Army medic worked to remove the crusted bandage to reveal the boy’s scarred head. The wounds were several, but healing.

“Tell the boy he is handsome, and will be just fine,” the medical told the interpreter.

Today’s distribution went much smoother, with the lines less pushed, and flowing more evenly. It appeared, officials said, that the Haitians realized the troops were here to stay, and that if they cooperated, more aid will come.

Much of the calm also can be attributed to the manner in which the soldiers take on their security duties. The security is far from heavy-handed. The leaders here have said they see no threat from the local people, and they try to project that in their presence. Today, the soldiers were told to sling their rifles across their back, rather than holding them in the ready front position as is customary for most of these battle-hardened soldiers.

Also, no orders are barked. Men are referred to as “Sir,” and the women as “Ma’am.”

Yesterday, when the crowd became rowdy and tried to push forward, the captain in charge told his troops simply to sit down in the grass and stop passing out the meals. This quieted the crowd, which quickly realized that if they did not calm down, they would not any rations.

“Our guys bring a lot of experience in different kinds of operations, so they know when they need to be more aggressive or have different kind of approach to bring some calm to the group,” said Army Maj. J.T. Eldridge, the squadron operations officer.

“I think the most important thing is to present that sense of calm — the sense that we’re here to help and we’re going to continue to help,” he said.

In the days after the quake, violence in some areas has impeded such U.S. military relief efforts, Army Lt. Gen. P.K. “Ken” Keen said. Keen, the top military commander in Haiti, toured the operating base today, surveying the layout.

“Security is a fundamental part of humanitarian assistance. You have to have a safe and secure environment in order to be successful,” Keen said.

The general was in Haiti when the earthquake hit. He was visiting the ambassador’s house, he said. “It seemed like it would never stop, and you could immediately tell this was going to be a major challenge,” he said.

The general and the ambassador made their way out of the home, and from their vantage point saw the first glimpse of the damage left in its wake.

“We could see across the city and hear the screams and we could tell from all the dust that this was a tremendous tragedy,” he said.

Keen said he called officials at U.S. Southern Command right then to ask for all the help they could deliver. The USS Carl Vinson turned around immediately, making its way toward Haiti.

Keen said he feels and understands the frustration of those who want more aid now.

“Ideally, when daylight came up, we would have been doing this,” Keen said referring to the soldiers handing out water. “But this had to come from all over the world.”

Still, with three other such distribution sites set up across the city, Keen said, what these soldiers are doing is a perfect example of more to come.

“I am satisfied that we are doing everything we can to get the supplies here as fast as we can and getting them to the people,” he said. “I’m satisfied that we’re doing everything that we can.”

The following was left in comments but I feel it should receive a wider viewing. I’m keeping the officer’s name out of the story. He/she is a Captain.

What each and every soldier should be asking Congress and the President is why the Army is serving 15 month tours while the rest of the military are serving greatly reduced tours i.e. Air Force 3-4 months (12 days off with freedom passes, another 3-4 days off, in addition), a few 6 month’ers, most do not even serve in Iraq, Navy 3-4 months rarely in Iraq (12 days off with freedom passes in addition) , Marines 6-7 months (15-18 days off) and Army 12-15 with some people having served 18-20 (15 days vacation for a year and a half tour). It is also important to note that many soldiers in the Army are on their second or third year long tour. It is true that the Marines tour more often but I have met Marines with 4 tours that have less time in Iraq than my two tours and I am scheduled for a third.

I will have 30 months of tour time in less than 5 years over 3 tours. It is also a fact that many of these other branches aside from Marines tour less often and get paid more money in special pays.

The 2 AF stationed with us for 3 months were receiving hundreds of dollars extra in “substandard living condition “pay for living in standard Army housing for 3 months. That is plain wrong. I have no problem with the other branches of the military but ask the country and our leaders what are they thinking?

The Army should receive a higher salary and other increased special pays ie: early retirement for the excessive amount of their family’s lives that they are missing. We would also like to see our families every 3-7 months, even if we tour more often. We would also like the extra pays and safe tours in Kuwait or other non combat places getting combat pay.

While my fellow soldiers suffer with the highest divorce, bankruptcy, family problem, mental illness, suicide, combat injury and death rates we are being nickel and dime’d by a government that has forgotten how much extra we are giving.

Why aren’t there articles in every major newspaper about this? Where is the outrage at the unequal treatment? Do our families, our children matter to anyone? Try being away from your children for almost 3 years out of five. If you are lucky enough to come back to a family, you come back a stranger far worse off than your fellow brother in arms in the other branches of service. Someone please recognize and nationally address this problem.

I am afflicted with the desire to serve my country in the Army, which should not mean that only Army soldiers should have to surrender their families and mental health to this cause. I am a father of a toddler and infant and I do not even know them. I would love to be able to see them every 4-6 months. How many divorces, suicides and deaths will it take? Where is the equity; where is the justice and financial recognition for the Army?

Until this changes senior Captains, NCOs and officers will continue to flee out of self preservation because we the Army of the United States of America have been forgotten.

This is a complex revision of the method used to stabilize severely injured patients.

A new lifesaving standard of care has garnered the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research here a prestigious recognition: invention of the year. The innovation, called Damage Control Resuscitation of Severely Injured Soldiers, was named one of the Army’s “Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2007.”

“The American Association for Trauma Surgeons calls this one of the biggest improvements to trauma care in the last 10 years,” said Michael Dubick, senior research pharmacologist for the Institute of Surgical Research. The invention is aimed at saving severely injured soldiers with internal injuries that cannot be compressed using a tourniquet or other device, Dubick said.

The institute focused its attention on severely injured soldiers after analyzing data from an autopsy study that showed 79 percent of servicemembers killed in combat died of hemorrhage, and 70 percent had an injury that couldn’t be compressed.

“We needed to find a better way to stop bleeding,” Dubick said. “In theater, there was no solution for people with noncompressible injuries.”

The innovation involves the fluid resuscitation process, in which IV fluids and blood products are used to stabilize a patient’s physiology. The standard method is to administer IV salt solutions in an amount that is three times the patient’s blood volume. If the patient is still bleeding, blood transfusions are given to restore lost blood.

In most cases, this method is effective for wounded troops, but for some severely injured warriors, the massive volume of fluids and blood can create a negative effect, Dubick said.

“The body has only a finite amount of clotting factors,” he explained, “and a large volume of fluids can dilute those clotting factors, which reduces their ability to slow down or stop the bleeding.”

Under the new standard of care, fluid resuscitation with salt solutions is limited, which keeps the blood pressure from rising too high and “popping” newly formed blood clots. In addition, blood volume is restored using plasma as the primary resuscitation fluid, along with packed red blood cells.

But rather than using the standard of four times the amount of red blood cells to plasma, “we use a ratio of 1-to-1 of plasma to red blood cells,” Dubick said.

Dubick said early use of a clotting factor called “rFVIIa” also has been beneficial. The factor normally is used for hemophiliacs, but it has proven beneficial for severely injured warriors. Other blood products, such as platelets and “cryoprecipitate,” are used as needed.

The reduction in fluids not only increases the patient’s short-term chances of survival, but also helps long-term treatment, since “there is less fluid built up in organs, and surgeons have a better field of operation,” Dubick said.

While the innovation is gaining recognition stateside, it already has had a striking impact in the combat theater, decreasing the mortality rate from 65 to 17 percent.

The impact of this change in the standard of care is so striking, Dubick said, that “some liken this standard of care to the first time someone applied antibiotics.”

The military innovation also is gaining civilian attention.

“We’ve met with over 26 civilian centers and are working with 16 of them,” Dubick said.

As word of the lifesaving measure begins to spread, Dubick said, he and his fellow scientists already are looking ahead, working with a company to produce freeze-dried plasma. In its natural state, plasma has a limited shelf life and is subject to temperature requirements.

The scientists also would like to develop a shelf-stable artificial blood with clotting factors that would enable medics to provide early intervention at the site of injury, Dubick said.

“The majority of patients bleed to death in the first five to 10 minutes,” Dubick said. “We believe that procedures like this one can save soldiers who survive beyond 10 minutes — keep them alive long enough to get to the hospital and to surgery. It’s a remarkable innovation.”

Dubick’s team for the project includes Jill Sondeen and Charles Wade, from the Institute of Surgical Research; Philip Spinella, Brooke Army Medical Center; Army Maj. Jeremy Perkins, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.; Air Force Maj. Matthew Borgman, Wilford Hall Medical Center; and Army Col. John Holcomb, ISR commander.

The invention was the only medical innovation to make the Army’s Top Ten cut, and marks the third year of the last four that the Institute of Surgical Research has made it to the Top Ten list. The winning programs are selected based on their impact on Army capabilities, inventiveness and potential benefit outside the Army.

DoD
By Elaine Wilson
Special to American Forces Press Service

News reports suggesting that injured former soldiers are being called back to active duty and confusion over what the individual ready reserve is have resulted in misconceptions, a senior Army personnel officer said May 9.

Many people seem unaware of the purpose of the Army Individual Ready Reserve and its obligations, Maj. Gen. Sean Byrne, commander of U.S. Army Human Resources Command, said during a teleconference with online journalists and “bloggers” March 9.

“I see three main fallacies … associated with IRR soldiers,” Byrne said. First, many do not fully understand the delay or exemption program available to soldiers who receive mobilization orders, he said. Secondly, he said, people seem to believe any soldier in possession of a DD-214 form — the official separation document — is completely discharged with no further obligation.

Every individual who assumes active duty in the Army automatically incurs an eight-year mandatory service obligation and is made aware of that obligation, Byrne said. But seemingly widespread unawareness of this obligation accounts for the third misconception, he said.

“Soldiers typically serve two to four years on active duty,” he explained, “and when they leave active duty, they’re transferred into the reserve components to fulfill the remainder of their obligation.”

The IRR is one of several ways soldiers may fulfill their remaining years of service, Byrne said, with the other options including remaining on active duty, or serving in uniform with the National Guard or Reserve.

While the Guard and Reserve often require weekend training and periodic duty assignments, the IRR only obligates soldiers to meet minimal annual requirements, such as keeping personal contact information current, attending musters, updating readiness screening questionnaires, and responding to official correspondence, Byrne said.

“The IRR is a group of trained, experienced military professionals who stand ready to augment Army units,” he explained. “We mobilized and deployed soldiers of the IRR for Operation Desert Storm, and since 9/11, we’ve been mobilizing and deploying them to support the global war on terror.

“Today, we have almost 72,000 soldiers in the IRR, with approximately 6,500 of them on active duty,” he added.

The Army expects IRR soldiers will serve in duty positions when called upon, Byrne said. But, he said there is a formal process for requesting a delay or exemption, if an injury, illness, or extenuating circumstance prevents the soldier’s return to active duty.

Byrne said the IRR’s mobilization orders include a toll-free phone number for soldiers to call to request a delay or exemption from returning to active duty.

“We tell them formally, as we give them mobilization orders, … what they need to do if they need a delay (or) exemption,” he said. About half of requests for delays or exemptions are approved, he added.

He explained that the requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and aren’t subjected to any standard determining factors.

“We are really very careful as we review anybody’s request for an exemption, a delay, any of those, to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for the individual and the institution,” he said.

If a case has not been adjudicated before a soldier’s scheduled report date, Byrne explained, he or she will be granted an administrative delay from returning to active duty.

“Administrative delays are not unusual special favors,” he said. “They’re granted in accordance with standard operating procedures that exist to ensure a soldier’s situation is carefully and completely considered.”

The Army has “a pretty deliberate process” by which IRR soldiers who are called back can ask for a delay or an exemption should they feel they’re not qualified to serve on active duty, Byrne said.

“One of the worst things that we can do is try to bring somebody on active duty who’s got problems that are insurmountable,” he added, “that are basically going to make it very hard or difficult for them to focus on their active-duty time.”

(Kristen Noel works for the New Media branch of the American Forces Information Service.)

DVIDS
By Kristen Noel

This is something the Army has done for generations. In Cuba, Panama, Italy and now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Kim Johnson, light wheeled mechanic, 345th Medical Detachment, collects one of many bug traps set up throughout Victory Base Complex. The traps are monitored daily to give Vector Control an idea of where the highest populations of mosquitoes and sand flies are located. (U.S. Army photo/Spc. Samuel J. Phillips)

The childhood song ‘Shoo fly, don’t bother me’ might make light of the annoyance of pesky insects, but, in Iraq, insects can be much more than an annoyance. Mosquitoes and sand flies can carry harmful diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus and leishmaniasis. Soldiers are battling these miniature invaders on Victory Base Complex.

Vector Control is one of the primary combatants in the ongoing struggle against potentially harmful pests.

“We set out traps to locate breeding areas and areas of high population,” said 1st Lt. Erik S. Foster, entomologist, 345th Medical Detachment. “Once we find the areas, we get with KBR Vector Control, so they can conduct spraying or fogging to bring the problem area under control.”

Kellogg Brown & Root uses truck-mounted foggers called ultra low volume foggers that emit a very small amount of pesticide, harmless to humans, but fatal to insects, Foster said.

“The problem is this is only effective against adults in the air and must be repeated three or four days in a row to impact the insect population.”

ULVs are not the only weapon in Vector Control’s arsenal. They also treat stagnant water, the breeding place for many insects, with larvacide.

“There are many kinds of larvacides available,” Foster said, “there are ones designed to inhibit growth of the larva so that they will never malt into adults, or there are ones that simply kill the larva before they have the chance to reach maturity.”

However, Vector Control Soldiers are not the only ones with the ability to battle against insects.

“Soldiers can protect themselves by using bug repellents and treating there uniforms in the ‘shake and bake’ kits provided to them before deployment,” Foster said. “The truth is most people don’t use repellents.”

The bad news is that the insect population is just starting to emerge.

“When it really starts to get hot, its going to get bad,” Foster said. “We are doing everything we can to keep the populations at a reasonable level.”

DVIDS
By Spc. Samuel J. Phillips
Multi-National Corps – Iraq