Uniform Kilo

Unknown Soldier

by Paul Newell

With a glint and a split seconded a set of dog tags were vaporized. Melt to the wind. The body 8o percent third degree burns. Face and other features unrecognizable. Smoking and smoldering the body lie motionless but alive. All this soldiers’ body armor gone vaporized with the tags. Had it not been for the body armor this Soldier would certainly be dead.

A medic on scene all most immediately franticly does what he can to prep the body for evac try to cover all burns with nu skin. This medic has not seen quite this bad of case before. Evac is going to take eight minutes but it’s going to seem like eight hours. Eight minutes I have to keep them alive. He covers the body as best he can while the hawk pilot maneuvers in and touches down. Chop Jock looks for the tags as the bodies being loaded on board no tags on this guy. he looks at the medic shakes his head and say (he’s a wake up) meaning that this soldier can’t be identified until they wake up…

If they wake up, two more casualties loaded on this hawk. Split second and she’s lifting. Throttle up, vertical. Then forward pitch, she’s airborne. Seventeen second’s airspeed 73 KTS. Soft left bank for a straight in vector. M.A.S.H unit 33 clicks. Triage goes quick in the back of the hawk. Two unconscious one semi bleeding from a main artery in the arm properly dressed by the field medic. Standby. Second casualty unconscious, with a hole in back as large as a fist.

Again properly dressed and stabilized. This third this is real bad, layers of skin have been burnt in some spots to bone. It’s all the flight medics can do to cover as much of the body as possible with Nu Skin a first aid item that stops further decay of skin. She communicates forward to the Pilot, Sir we’d better inform M.A.S.H that we have a Uniform Kilo, critical. (Unknown Soldier). Pilot acknowledges. Now every body knows that it’s bad. Yes this soldier was hit by an IED but not just an IED but a custom made and unknown origin. The contents however were known buy their DNA yes DNA. All legally manufactured explosives today are built with a DNA bar code if you will, for the purpose of identification. Not just an IED but one built with contents of more than one unexploded coalition ordinance. As the Air Medic is checking pulse she notices that the Unknown is maintaining a pulse rate of 43 beats per minute very low but very stable it’s as if this soldier were sleeping. This just seemed quite unusual.

This is now sinking in to the air medic as she looks at this body it looks like a skinned animal the kind she’d seen on her grand father’s farm when she was but a child. But she realizes that this is a real alive, barely live person and she wants to weep anyone would. She maintains her composure and continues to administer her profession.

Meanwhile her poor assistant is just pulling it together after puking out the back of the door this is the first burn victim he has seen poor buggers only been in country three days this is only his second evac. The pilot brings his bird to an altitude of 1900 ft above ground always wary of what’s below. There’s always pot shots  There’s always a haze in the air so visible isn’t good. Always keeping in mind, his cargo. He coms back to the medic 15 clicks out how’s our Uniform Kilo.  He’s maintaining a strange low but stable pulse rate.

The entire body now is covered except for the area around the mouth and nose for breathing. Air medic can’t help now but think of whether or not this one will make it to the M.A.S.H unit. She’s seen so many perish now her heart has been hardened. This is her second tour. By choice. Shotgun radios back to secure the deck were coming up on landing zone. As if switched on like a robot the air medics got through procedure to prepare for the landing. When ready the air medic radios back deck secure.

Of course M.A.S.H already knows what’s coming in on that chopper. Wounded and possibly dying. From the bird’s eye view the pilot can make out the tiny Doctors and stretchers. As he hovers in to a position and starts his decent the Docs and equipment comes into full size view. Everybody on the ground hunches up a bit as the chopper comes closer and closer to the ground ready to move on contact this bird touches down so lightly they couldn’t even tell that they had hit the ground .

The M.A.S.H team moves in and they all work together to get the wounded on the gurneys and into O.R quick. This takes all but 45 seconds. As two surgeons one on each of the other wounded get to work there are three ready to work on Uniform Kilo. This is a complicated job ahead of them they are all ready for at least six hours of surgery. The Docs agree on antibiotics immediately and orders the nurse to administer. By this time the body has been fully uncovered  and it not a nice site for any of these Veteran Doctors at this point they are all questioning in there own minds what can we do here there’s no skin left to graft. Assessing the body is gruesome. All skin is burnt and peeled back not black burns though like white singed edges.

The left hand and part of the forearm is gone just hanging meat and bone close to the elbow. Right arm is intact however there are two fingers and the thumb only on that hand. All surface tissue is gone down to the third and fourth layers. It is as if this person were skinned like an animal. As the Surgeons go to work one succoring nerve endings and an other trying to cauterize arteries that are exposed. One nurse is trying to fill out intake work. No name no date of birth no dog tags no clues on a uniform. Doc can only verify that genitalia say this is a male soldier. So that’s all they have to go on right now. Off goes the nurse to call up MIA first responders. They’ve had six reported MIA’s today. Some of those will end up being just misplaced. Third Doctor determines that this patient is comatose. The pulse rate doesn’t alter.

Stay tuned for next episode of Uniform Kilo

Rufusdawg aka Paul Newell

I head up www.greenrecover.org

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