Calvary to the Rescue

Aerial View

In general, the Navy operates around bodies of water with ships both large and small.  The last time I was deployed it was great to wake up in the morning and take my morning coffee smelling the ocean air, watching the ship make waves with nothing but water as far as you can see.  Unfortunately there are a couple problems compared to where I am now.  First, the only water around here are the hundreds of skillions of bottles of water sitting out in the 120 degree heat and no matter how hard you try, I'm fairly certain we couldn't bring a RHIB in here, much less a carrier.  The second is that the smell in the morning is not that of the ocean air, but more of a putrid, festering funk coming from the combination of burning trash, full latrines and uneaten curry from the night before.  Also, I don't remember a lot of sand getting into every orifice in my body, but it was a long time ago, maybe I just forgot about that.  This is usually the environment of the Army - and the main reason why I chose to join the Navy.

Since the opening of Camp Bastion Hospital the Army has not had enough surgical teams to allocate here and have asked the Navy to send IA's (individual augmentees) to assist them in fulfilling their obligations.  We have sent no less than 12 groups of Navy nurses, doctors and corpsmen every 6 months to do their damdest to save lives.  And they have done just that.  On October 15th this will all end and the Navy will no longer be at Camp Bastion.  Somewhere in the halls of some building in DC the Army and Navy brass hashed out a deal to take the hospital back into Army control.  It was a last minute deal as I already had been contacted by my replacements in the Navy and it wasn't until a couple of weeks later that they were even told that they would not be coming afterall.  Shortly after the October 15th arrival of the Army (10th Combat Support Hospital stationed in Colorado Spring, CO) the last of the Navy IA's will be leaving Camp Bastion for good.  Some of us will be going on other parts of the country to continue our work and other will be going home.  But, all of them will have brought great credit upon themselves in the highest traditions of Naval Service and all can move on knowing that 99% the patients who entered here were able to go home because of what they did!!  

10th Combat Support Hospital  Patch

Good luck 10th CSH - you have big shoes to fill.  Fair winds and following seas.

131 days BOG, 158 away from home. 

All for now.