Monday, October 10, 2011

Winning hearts and minds: a combat medic in Iraq


Tony Morales

BRANCH OF SERVICE: United States Army

TIME SERVED IN IRAQ: 1 year, 3 months

UNIT: 82nd Airborne Division

HOMETOWN: Cleveland, OH

HIGH SCHOOL: James F. Rhodes '04


Combat medic Tony Morales knew the time to apply all the training he had received from the Army had arrived. His company was engaged in a night-time firefight in the farming village of Wynot near Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Al Owja. Four insurgents entrenched in fortified positions amidst a palm grove were making their final stand against the Americans.

Two Apache helicopters leveled the thick brush, virtually reducing it to splinters. Shortly after, the shooting ceased and Morales received to the call to assist on the scene.

“It was my first time applying my training in a real world situation and I was a little apprehensive,” he recalled.

The mindset of a combat medic differs drastically from that of a normal infantry soldier. Rather than going to “kick some ass,” medics are prepared to attempt to save lives, sometimes even those of the enemy.

The benefit of being a medic is to enjoy popularity amongst fellow soldiers.
“Everyone in the unit loves the medics,” Morales said. “We were the ones taking care of them, making sure they stayed healthy.”

“Medics also have a lot more freedom than other troops, I could walk up to the platoon sergeant and talk to him like a normal guy,” the Old Brooklyn native added. “We didn’t have a squad leader we had to report to.”

The insurgents were hit hard by the Apache attack combined with the American ground forces. When Morales arrived at the scene it was very dark, but he noticed a fellow medic working on one of the enemies. The Iraqi had taken several hits from M-16 fire on the ground.

“We still have to help the enemies if they are wounded, although it is strange working on a guy who was trying to kill our guys just moments earlier,” Morales explained. “But the whole thing about being over there is trying to win hearts and minds. We want to let them know we are Americans and even though they may think we are bad, we are actually the good guy.”

“One of our other companies brought an enemy back to their aid station who was bleeding from all four of his extremities. They bandaged him up and applied tourniquets and stopped the bleeding. The physician assistant performed CPR and ultimately was able to save the man’s life.

He was so grateful he ended up becoming an informant and provided a lot of valuable information about the area in which they were operating.”

The other medic instructed Morales to check another of the wounded who was marked with a green light.

“It was really dark outside and all I could see was the green light as I approached so I pulled out my flashlight and shined it on him,” Morales said. “He was laying there motionless and looked dead; I had never seen a dead body before but I still had to assess him to make sure he wasn’t still alive.”

“I shined my flashlight on him and saw his face. His eyes and mouth were wide open. I checked for a pulse on his neck and had my head right above his head to listen for breathing.”

Experiencing a deceased man on the battlefield was a first for the young medic, but he kept his mind focused as best he could and proceeding to the next wounded man.

The first thing Morales noticed about the second man was that he was not a man at all, but a teenager. A ricocheted round struck the young insurgent underneath the chin.

“I go to check for a pulse and saw the pool of blood behind his head,” Morales said. “I lifted his head and saw the huge hole in the back and realized he was dead. Then I went to help my buddy who was working on the only insurgent still alive.”

“After finishing bandaging up his wounds, I started an IV on him and we took him to the EVAC helicopter. He ended up dying sometime later.”

Roadside bomb attack

Early in the Iraq War, roadside bomb attacks achieved routine success for insurgents in Iraq. Reports of the attacks were well publicized in the American media as they sometimes resulted in American casualties. As time went on, the U.S. military developed technology to counter improvised explosive device, or IED attacks.

In addition, convoys of military personnel were better at spotting potential IED threats along the side of roads.

Tony was riding in a convoy over a bridge when the horrifying shock of an IED attack became a reality. The convoy never saw the two 120mm artillery rounds rigged as IEDs. The explosion went off next to the humvee directly in front of Morales.

“The gunner on top of the humvee was exposed except for an armored shield partially covering his body,” Morales recalled. “Luckily only one of the rounds actually went off; I saw the other fly through the air and went over the side of the bridge.”

The force of the concussion jarred the gunner violently inside his turret. The convoy was ordered to “blow through” the area, meaning quickly accelerate all the vehicles in the convoy passed the point of attack.


As a medic, Morales could only think of the physical status of the troops inside the humvee in front of him, especially the gunner on top.

“I was concerned for them,” he said. “I immediately told my platoon sergeant, ‘you gotta go let me check on them.’”

After the convoy stopped, Morales was able to treat the gunner, who had regained consciousness. The gunner suffered bumps and bruises and a concussion, but survived the attack without serious injury.

Attributing electronic countermeasures and improved vehicle armor, Morales admits he was fortunate to avoid any more serious IED attacks during his Iraq deployment.

Sniper Scare

The village of Wynot presented challenges for the U.S. Army because the thick forestry and back dirt roads were ideal for terrorists to move weapons, supplies and personnel while remaining beneath the radar of U.S. forces.

For this reason, Morales was taking part in a traffic control point the day he suffered the closest call of his Iraq deployment.

Surrounded by dense forest and vegetation, Morales and his fellow 82nd Airborne troops were stopping cars traveling through the backwoods roads and searching vehicles for any type of contraband.

They were also matching identifications against a list of high value targets of which the military had significant interest in capturing.

“These back roads weren’t patrolled by anyone, not even the Iraqi police,” said Morales. “It made them perfect for transporting weapons and explosives.”

As dusk approached with darkness imminent, Morales’ squad leader ordered him to place an infrared chem-light on the humvee.

“We put chem-lights on our vehicles at night so helicopters will see us and know we are friendlies,” he explained. “I was going to jump up on top of the humvee, but instead decided to just grab the truck’s antenna from the ground.”

It was a decision that probably saved his life.

As Morales grabbed the antenna, a gun shot rang out. A mere three feet away, a bullet ricocheted off the back of the humvee. Realizing he was the target of the sniper, Morales quickly dropped to the ground.

“Everyone was yelling, ‘Where is he, where is he?’ So I pointed into the direction of the woods but all we could see was dark forest,” he said.

“I was way nervous at that point,” Morales recalled. “That was the first time I had actually been targeted and was definitely a little shaky.”

After a few tense minutes, one of the gunners opened up into the forest, which quickly set off a chain reaction of soldiers shooting towards the direction of the sniper shot.

Unable to see the sniper, the strategy was such that amongst the showering of 5.56mm rounds and grenade blasts, somebody would get lucky and take him out.

As his friends were unleashing hell into the direction of the sniper, Morales noticed nobody was watching the road behind the trucks.

He decided to keep an eye out in case the sniper was a diversion for a suicide bomber to come down the road.

Morales remembers being startled by the blasts from the M203 grenade launcher before the reassurance of a friend.

“Relax doc, its just 203.”

After several moments of the massive retaliation, the troops began to cease fire. Suddenly another shot went off.

“The round whizzed right between a buddy of mine and the platoon sergeant,” he said. “They actually heard it go by. “

For a second time the Americans opened fire on the forest. An Apache gunship even assisted clearing the area. An extensive search of the area came up empty; there was no sign of the sniper, dead or alive.

Later on, after obtaining information from some of the locals, troops from Morales’ unit raided a house they believed belonged to the sniper.

“We took him down and found the sniper rifles including an old Russian Dragunov sniper rifle,” he said.

Readjusting to life back home

After returning from Iraq and completing his active-duty service with the Army, Tony Morales found difficulty adjusting to the life that previously defined normalcy.

He never seems to have as much in common with his old high school friends as with his Army buddies, several of which he maintains consistent contact with.

Acclimating into a normal civilian life also serves as a challenge.

“I’m almost there but not quite, it takes a while,” he said. “When I first got back it was non-stop partying and drinking until eventually I started running out of money and needed to get a job.”

That first job was as a server in a restaurant. While nothing to be ashamed of, it certainly didn’t suite a combat medic only months removed from the war zone.
“I did that for two months and hated it.”

Through the Army, Morales was able to get certified as an emergency medical technician and is now attending Boise State University. He remains in the Army Reserves.