Photo By Staff Sgt. Emily Suhr | Sgt. Jonathan Laureles, a medic with the Washington Army National Guard's 181st...... read more read more
By Sgt. Emily Suhr
81st Brigade Combat Team
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq - During the summer of 2005, as a group of Iraqi workers left through the North Gate of Joint Base Balad, they were attacked by the local residents who were angry that their own were working for the Americans. Fifteen or sixteen of them were shot. Four were dead.
Sgt. Jonathan Laureles, a medic with the Washington Army National Guard's 181st Brigade Support Battalion, 81st Brigade Combat Team, was on duty that day at the North Gate. He, and five other medics, worked feverishly to save the lives of the Iraqi nationals. Except those four who were killed instantly, all of them survived.
Laureles was on his second tour in Iraq when the mass casualty incident occurred. Many would have welcomed the opportunity to go home, but Laureles asked for more. Now on his sixth tour in four years, Laureles, a native of Cleburne, Texas, isn't quite finished in Iraq.
Laureles was working as a medical assistant in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, but felt he could do more, so he joined the Texas Army National Guard in 2003.
"I thought the Army would give me a great opportunity to train and do more in my scope of practice. It's pretty broad in the military. I thought that'd be the best way to get experience and be able to travel a little bit," he said.
After completing basic training, he went to San Antonio to train as an Army medic. While there, he called back to his home unit in Texas and told them he was ready to deploy.
"They were like, 'just worry about graduating. When you get here we'll talk about it,'" said Laureles.
Still determined after his graduation, Laureles found out from his recruiter that the Washington Army National Guard's 81st Brigade Combat Team was deploying to Iraq. He volunteered.
He spent that first deployment in Balad as a medic at the base's North Gate with the 181st BSB, 81st BCT. When they left in April 2005, Laureles wasn't ready to go. He linked up with the Hawaii National Guard, who was replacing the 181st BSB, and stayed in Iraq for a second tour.
It was during that second tour that the Iraqi workers were ambushed near the gate, though that wasn't his first experience with bleeding Iraqis in need of help. Throughout his first two deployments in 2004 and 2005, many wounded and sick Iraqis descended upon Balad's North Gate in search of medical care. According to the medical treatment protocol, any person who is injured as a result of coalition forces, regardless of injury severity, and any person needing treatment to save life, limb, or eyesight, are entitled to medical attention at the hospital. The rest are not.
"There was a lot of stuff that was borderline, like a gunshot wound that wasn't life threatening, but still needed to be taken care of. We'd do as much as we could at the gate to take care of them," said Laureles, who said he saw mostly gunshot and burn victims.
Laureles and his team of medics kept a wall locker up at the gate stocked with burn creams and bandages, as well as a field ambulance, to help the Iraqis needing help who didn't qualify for hospital care.
"I always made the effort and it was nice to work with other medics that made the same effort. It started to become a trend. As that trend grew with the medics wanting to help local nationals, the trend grew for local nationals coming to us for help. So we started to see more and more people, but we liked it. We loved being able to help them."
Unable to continue on in Iraq after the Hawaii National Guard tour ended, Laureles went back to Texas. Within a month, he was back in Iraq; this time with the Wisconsin National Guard. He joined the Wisconsin unit, who were conducting convoy security missions at the time, half-way through their deployment. After six months, it was time to go home again.
After spending a month with loved ones in Texas, Laureles was ready to go back to Iraq. He joined up with the Michigan National Guard in Balad.
"I told them I'd worked with the Iraqi Army before at the North Gate, and I enjoyed doing that and training them, so they sent me to Baghdad on a PTT mission, the police transition team."
He worked with the Air Force in Baghdad and said he enjoyed working with them and got a lot of good experience. He also earned a purple heart during that tour. While traveling on a night convoy, Laureles' vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device. His hand was wounded and bleeding, but he saw his driver and gunner were worse off then he was, so he pushed his own pain to the side and aided them first. Everyone made it out okay.
"It was nice to be there in that same vehicle and treat them right away. It was a great feeling," he said.
Laureles finished his fourth tour and, again, went home to Texas. Not to be deterred from his personal mission to help as many people as he could, he joined the Washington D.C. National Guard and went back to Iraq. This time to Baiji, north of Tikrit, where he again conducted PTT missions with the Iraqi police.
It was there a Soldier was shot in the head by a sniper. As he lay bleeding on the rooftop of an Iraqi police station, the call went out for a medic and Laureles raced to the Soldier's aid. The sniper was still out there, so Laureles ducked behind a small wall and pulled the wounded Soldier under it. After an initial assessment, Laureles assisted the coherent Soldier down the stairs and off the roof. The Soldier's Kevlar helmet had protected him from a likely fatal injury.
"He was okay. We got him out of there as quickly as possible. During that time, I was able to go inside the [troop medical clinic] with him and help treat him while he was there, and then everyday after and change his dressing," said Laureles, who added that normally he treats a traumatic injury on the scene and then never sees the victim after they are evacuated. "I really liked treating him because I was able to keep doing it, and see the progress, and talk to him and make sure he was okay."
Laureles again left Iraq, only to return home and find out that the 81st BCT was once again deploying. Prior to his past deployments, he had attended a one-week pre-mobilization training at Fort Benning, Ga., but this time he decided to do the whole mobilization process. He first trained in San Antonio for about a month with the other medics, and then went to Fort McCoy, Wis., with the rest of the 81st BCT.
"It was like a reunion with the brigade. I haven't seen any of them since the first tour and I wanted to get reacquainted with them before we got back into country. I just thought it would be a great opportunity," Laureles said of why he went through the nearly three-month process.
Now on his sixth tour, Laureles is again working with the 181st BSB in Balad. Their mission has changed since the last deployment, though, and Laureles is assigned to escorting third-country nationals around base. Not that that keeps him from doing what he loves.
"Since there's not really a medical mission for me and my company, I volunteer my free time here [at the hospital] so that I don't lose my skills. Ultimately, being a medic, and doing my job as a medic, is the only reason I've chosen to stay here so long. I love my job. I'm very passionate about doing my job. I try to do it any way I can. Right now, since I have a little extra time after work or on my days off, I come here," he said.
Besides volunteering his limited free time at the hospital, Laureles takes online college classes and is working toward a nursing degree. He hopes to one day work for an organization like Doctors without Borders. As for now, though, he isn't quite done in Iraq.
"I would like to stay until the big pullout in 2011, if that's possible," he said. "Before, I never really questioned why I wanted to stay, because, like I said, it's just the love of my job. I feel comfortable here. I don't feel like I've been here for four years. But now that the security situation is so much better and there's less of a threat, it seems like it's about time for me to go home. It's almost over, but I would like to see things through. The experiences and opportunities that I've gotten have been really great. I feel really blessed to be a part of such a significant part of history."
Laureles has kept in contact with many of the Iraqis he has worked with over the years, and said he is happy to see their world improve so much.
"They tell me how much better things have gotten, and how it's so much safer to travel to Baghdad and how they feel like their families aren't threatened anymore and stuff like that. That's really great because these guys have welcomed me into their homes and I feel like I'm part of their families and they're part of my family here. It's nice to see that change."
As for his own family in Texas, Laureles said, "my family back home, just like any Soldier's family, wants to see me and wishes I were home, but they also know my intentions here and are very supportive and they just say they're proud of me and whatever I feel is in my heart is what I should do. I have a lot of love and support from my family."
"My decision to stay deployed this long does not allow me to live an average life," he said. "It isn't always easy, but it is always rewarding knowing that I am doing something that I love, and that what I am doing is helping others. The sacrifices that I have made are far out-weighed by the blessings that I have received in choosing this path. A smile from a recovering casualty after tireless efforts to save a life beats the typical Saturday night back home any day."
| Date Taken: | 02.12.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 02.13.2009 08:50 |
| Story ID: | 29981 |
| Location: | BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 927 |
| Downloads: | 434 |
This work, Army National Guard Medic volunteers for 6 tours in Iraq, by SSG Emily Suhr, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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