Maj. Steve McColley — Treating the wounded

The bleary-eyed 934th Forward Surgical Team received its first patients while still erecting its hospital tent during the initial offensive in Iraq.

Army Reserves Maj. Steve McColley described the unit's position, which took days to arrive at with little sleep, as the "tip of the spear. We were as far forward as you can possibly get."

Most casualties were not American soldiers but Iraqi prisoners of war and civilians. Some active military medical units refused civilians and children.

"We resolved that we were going to take anyone who came through the door," said the nurse anesthetist from Kaysville. Their motto, he said, was "whatsoever you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me."

The surgical team treated about 100 people, many of them children, at its battlefront stations in the forbidding Iraqi desert from March to July 2003. The long, rectangular medical tent was equipped with two operating tables and four ICU beds but no heat or air conditioning. Sandstorms and flies didn't make for a sterile working environment.

Between surgeries, McColley, 48, walked outside to watch the 3rd Infantry Division bomb the Karbala Gap. He then waited for the wounded to come in.

"Everyone who made it into our door made it out with a heartbeat," he said.

One 14-year-old boy who had stepped on a land mine almost didn't make it. He nearly bled to death. Recalling two past well-publicized cases of soldiers bleeding to death, McColley said, "We decided we were not going to let him die."

McColley described the boy's blood as the consistency of Kool-Aid. He needed a transfusion, but the unit did not have any whole blood on hand because its refrigerator was broken. A call went out for volunteers and three soldiers stepped up. McColley drew blood from each and infused it directly into the patient. Blood from another bank arrived 45 minutes later.

The boy's vital signs stabilized, but surgeons had to amputate one foot just above the ankle.

Though that case tugged at McColley's heartstrings, another one hit closer to home.

Three young brothers were injured when they pulled the pin on a grenade and ran away. One had a severely damaged arm. Their father walked and carried them three or four miles to the makeshift hospital. The youngest was 5, the same age as one of McColley's sons.

The medical team kept the boys calm by showing them "Monsters, Inc." on a laptop computer and giving them candy. It was the same thing McColley might have been doing had he been home.

His thoughts that day turned to his own 5-year-old son, who was having surgery on a broken arm. He longed to be there.

"That was probably the single toughest time for me right then," he said.