Life on the other side of the litter

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. John Severns
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  During the 1991 Gulf War, Marine Sgt. Brian Ackerman was a member of Task Force Grizzly, the American force that swept through the desert into Kuwait to liberate it from Iraqi forces.

After Sergeant Ackerman’s unit made it into Kuwait City and began busting down doors looking for resistance, an Iraqi soldier popped around a corner and sprayed several shots from an AK-47 in his direction.

What followed, Sergeant Ackerman said, was a “failure to duck.”

Today, Air Force Capt. Ackerman is a nurse with the 379th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron here. His job is to coordinate the movement of critically wounded patients between the Air Force theater hospital and the contingency aeromedical staging facility. The facility is the last place in Iraq patients here see before getting onto planes bound for Ramstein Air Base, en route to nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany.

The past 14 years have carried him from one war to the next, and from one side of the litter to the other.

Sergeant Ackerman’s “failure to duck” was his last concrete memory of the Gulf War. One of the AK-47 rounds tore into his left shoulder, causing a substantial wound and turning Sergeant Ackerman into a seriously wounded patient needing urgent medical care.

“I don’t remember much of what happened after the hit,” he said. “The next thing I knew I was in Bethesda (National Naval Medical Center, Md.), lying on a clean bed.”

Sergeant Ackerman’s shoulder wound required surgery and months of rehabilitation. That, he said, was the hardest part.

“Physical therapists do a wonderful job, they’re miracle workers,” he said. “But you have to want to get better. They push you, and it hurts, but you have to do the work yourself.”

He said his shoulder was so tight when he started that he sounded like the tin man. Lying on a mat on the floor, he was not able to lift a quarter-pound weight with his wounded arm.

Six months later, his rehabilitation complete, Sergeant Ackerman was medically discharged from the Marine Corps.

“For a Marine, once you get out, there are two jobs you’re immediately qualified for: security guard and policeman,” Captain Ackerman said. “Neither of those really appealed to me.”

Instead, on the advice of a friend, he became a paramedic. It was a way, the Pittsburgh native said, to make a living and still get the adrenaline rush associated with driving fast and saving people’s lives.

“I remember working with nurses and thinking, ‘I could do that.’ I never realized just how much hard work they put in,” he said.

For the next several years he went to nursing school and worked full time, graduating in 1998. It was an article in a magazine, though, that brought him back to the military.

“I read an article … about nurses in the Air Force -- it was actually about the unit that I ended up joining,” he said.

The Delaware Air National Guard’s 142nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron had found its newest nurse, and the new Airman was in a military hospital again, this time on other side of the litter.

Like others in the military, Captain Ackerman’s unit has deployed repeatedly supporting the war on terrorism. As part of an aeromedical evacuation unit, he found himself helping patients in the same situation he was in 14 years ago.

“I can’t say I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he said. “A lot of these guys are dealing with injuries a lot more traumatic than mine were -- lost eyes, lost limbs, that sort of thing.

“What I think I can offer is some empathy and understanding,” he said. “I understand what it’s like to look up from a litter at a stranger and want to get back to your men, but not be able to.”

Captain Ackerman’s current mission does not have him working as closely with patients as some of his previous deployments. As an intermediary with the theater hospital, he might only see patients for a few minutes on their way to a plane taking them to Europe.

“It’s not every day you get to make an impact on people’s lives,” he said. “But even if I only see them for 30 seconds or a few minutes, it’s enough time to tell them, ‘I’m here to take you home.’”