A Cold Day for Mortar Explosions
How I responded to two near-death experiences in Iraq haunted me for years
Bright but cold winter days, the sun illuminating a barren landscape, transport me back to deadly attacks on similar days at a U.S. Army hospital in Mosul, Iraq. Just like many others in or out of a war zone, I had no control over the violence directed at me then.
And like those who knew they were going to die, I’ve experienced the joy and anger and shame of surviving.
On the days leading up to Christmas 2008, I was waiting at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Diamondback for a ride back to Q-West, a remote base where I’d been living for the past four months. I’d just finished four days of Rest and Relaxation in Doha, Qatar. Travel from a remote Army base outside Mosul to Qatar and back had stretched my time away to almost two weeks, but the travel through highly targeted bases hadn’t been pleasant.
I was a Navy psychiatrist, fresh out of residency training. The deployment had been rough so far. In October, one of my patients committed suicide, and afterward, I had to medically evacuate out of Iraq nine soldiers for wanting or attempting to kill themselves.
In the middle of an urban area, insurgents regularly attacked FOB Diamondback with car bombs, mortars, and…
