Before we begin, here are a few things to bear in mind.
The CF is the Canadian Forces, comprising the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. To care for its members, the CF has the CFHS Group, or CF Health Services Group, which comprises physicians, also called medical officers or MOs (both specialists and family physicians); physician assistants (PAs); nurses (general duty nursing officers, or GDNOs); ICU nurses, or critical care nursing officers (CCNOs); nurse practitioners, operating room (OR) nurses, and mental health nurses; medical technicians (called med techs, or medics); social workers; medical administrators; pharmacists; preventive medicine techs (PMed techs); radiology technicians (or DI techs, for diagnostic imagery); biomedical equipment techs (or BE techs); lab techs; OR techs; dentists; dental assistants and hygienists; and physiotherapists. In addition, we are supported by supply techs, drivers, and clerks, who all have their own branches of service but serve with us. And lets not forget our clergymen in uniform, the padres. All these people can be of any of the three services. The head of the CF HS is the surgeon general of the CF, presently an army officer, Brigadier-General J.R. Bernier.
The KAF Role 3, or simply the Role 3 , is the Kandahar Air Field (KAF) Multinational Medical Unit (or Role 3 MMU). More about its capacities and why its called that will come later.
The CF deploys its members in Afghanistan on rotos, or tours of six to nine months. These tours are numbered, starting with Roto 0. During our combat mission in south Afghanistan, called Operation Athena, we went to Roto 11.
Master Corporal J.F. Vaillancourt, a diagnostic imaging tech (DI Tech) checks his work at the end of his tour, just before going back to Canada. In 2011, he returned to Kandahar for another roto in the nowU.S. Navy Role 3, where he distinguished himself as a hero (though he would tell you he isnt). An Afghan would-be suicide bomber was brought in with her unexploded belt still on. Master Corporal Vaillancourt volunteered to do the CT scan while everyone else vacated the hospital.
Our U.S. Navy Augmentation Team had these T-shirts made. That last sentence wasnt true. The U.S. Navy was very generous with us, staffing parties with incredible presents for all.
This book tells a few stories about what happened in the Role 3 during Roto 7, from April 2009 until October 15, 2009 the day Canada formally handed over control of that hospital to the U.S. Navy.
I was the OC of the Role 3 during that period. My job was to see to the day-to-day operations of the hospital. Above me there was a CO, Colonel Danielle Savard, a Canadian pharmacist and administrator. We also had a task force surgeon, Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Wojtyk, a Canadian physician who was the senior medical authority (SMA) there. I also had a relationship with the NATO physician who was the adviser to the NATO commander of the region, Captain Bos of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Sound complicated? It is.
This is not the history of the Role 3. It is a collection of images that I remember from my time over there. I do not presume to tell the whole story, as I was not in a position to see everything. Although, as OC, I did see a lot.
I will also not speak of our Canadian wounded other than in general terms. The Canadian Forces takes the issue of patient confidentiality very seriously.
Emotion
In this book, there is a lot of emotion. Strange, I know, for an emergency room doctor to have emotions. Yes, I do admit that I am a strange bird. I wasnt always, though. At first, I was just another ER doc. But then, in my late thirties, I got this weird notion: the notion that I could be a writer. So I started writing. Perhaps it was Stephen King who said, after someone told him that theyd like to write, Writing is a profession just like any other. You cant wing it as a writer any more than I could wing it as a brain surgeon.
But Im a natural storyteller. So, I figured that, with a little work, I could yeah. A little work.
Anyway, after some years of practice, I got down to writing my first novel. A few years later, I handed it to an editor. Its a damn good story, Marc, but its not a novel, he said. Its a movie script. Go back and write me a novel.
I must have looked really dumbfounded because he proceeded to explain (hes a very patient man), Youre telling me the story from the outside, as a camera would. In a novel, you have to get inside your characters heads.
Okay. Sounded easy. But it wasnt. I just couldnt get the hang of it. Frustrated, I turned to my wife.
Marc, youre cold, analytical. You describe without emotion. Youre distancing yourself from the people in your story. As if you were an ER physician.
But I am an ER physician.
Not when youre trying to be a novelist.
She let that one sink in, then asked, How do your characters feel ?
Still I didnt understand. Again she helped. You have to feel what your characters feel. Then, only then , can you tell the story in such a way that your readers will feel it, too.
I tried. Then one day, that switch in my brain flicked on, the one that lets you get inside your characters. Eureka! I had discovered how to dig inside my head, grab my emotions, and tear them out to put them on paper. It was like acting, only with the written word. I was starting to get somewhere.
So I rewrote my novel, starting with a blank page.
That took care of a couple more years.
Not bad said the editor.
I took the manuscript back. I dont like it either, I said. And I rewrote it from scratch again.
Another few years passed. Maybe Mr. King did have something.
But then a funny thing happened. My ER medical practice became harder and harder. I even found myself getting upset about a patient one night.
Once youve opened that floodgate, Marc, you can never close it again, said my wife.
Fortunately, that was about the time I decided to get out of the ER.
So thats the reason my writing is so emotional, rather than cold, factual, and analytical. Now you know why. And now my comrades will understand why I was such a weird fellow on tour.
