Hearts and minds.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and all of a sudden it's the first week of December. Work has slowed, but we're managing to find ways to stay busy. Currently working on an article about patterns of injuries in tactical vehicles. Debating on doing an article on the increased incidence of appendicitis in areas with high levels of dust/pollution. I thought this was kind of novel...only to find that someone else has already reported on this idea.

Interesting story. There was a local national who was injured in an IED attack. He had been hired by a U.S. contracting firm as a translator for our troops. So, he's injured pretty severely, and unfortunately for him, his contract stated that if he was injured then all pay and benefits (including medical care after he leaves our hospital) stopped! There aren't many good things I have to say for that contracting company, or the rules that are in place that allow them to set up these contracts with local nationals. Translators for the U.S. receive death threats and occasionally disappear. They are serving a vital role and the way we take care of them is to stop all pay and benefits if they are injured while working with our troops! Yet another recruiting tool for the Taliban. Unbelievable.

Speaking of the Taliban. Colonel Sir Francis Younghusband, one of the British players in the Great Game in this region at the turn of the 20th century (see "The Great Game" by Peter Hopkirk for some interesting reading), after the British expedition into Tibet in 1903-1904, noted that wounded Tibetan soldiers wondered, "why we should try to take their lives one day and try to save them the next." Nothing has really changed (both with respect to that aspect of warfare, at least from our side) and on a bigger scale with regards to different countries fighting in and around Afghanistan.

Regarding the easier to tackle subject: providing medical care for someone who seconds before was trying to kill one of our soldiers. It's not as hard as it might seem. I am in the business of helping people. I am not in the business of playing judge and jury with someone's life because I don't like what they have done. I will leave that to the people that handle weapons for a living. That is not to say that I don't understand some of the feelings of frustration expressed by some of our troops when they bring in an injured enemy combatant. To quote a soldier who had just been in a firefight and brought in an injured enemy combatant, "I hope he f@#$ing dies!" I can't do that. That's the proverbial slippery slope for doctors. If I go down that path, where do I stop? I will say that we are much more emotionally involved with the injured U.S. and coalition forces. Simply put, it hurts to see them torn up.

All that being said, injured enemy combatants get the best care we can provide while they are here. Not sure what happens when they leave our care. Suffice it to say that receiving care in an Afghan hospital is of questionable quality. The U.S. and coalition forces receive top notch care here and then depending on the severity of their injuries, they are often out of the country in less than a day for definitive care in Germany and the U.S. (or respective countries). It really is an amazing system with amazing results.

Do I believe that the Taliban will provide the same care for captured U.S. forces? No, and that's even if they had the capability to provide that kind of care. We are a different people and society. We need to remember those differences.