Freedom Comes at a Cost

From a 20-year-old medic serving in Iraq. It makes you think about how fast these young men mature in times of stress.


You asked me for my perspective on the war, so here goes. I want to start off by saying that I believe in this war and what we are doing here down to my very bones. These people were ruled, not governed. They were tortured, not for information, but for the sheer pleasure of it. When we overthrew Saddam and his regime, we gave these people hope, for survival, for freedom and in humanity.

There are others who do not share their hope and strive to destroy it through terrorism and destruction. We are in a transition phase now, letting the Iraqi police begin to take over as their training and confidence allows. True patriots those guys, no incentives like college money and a fat paycheck to entice them into service for their country. They do it for love of their fellow man and to bring order to their country.

The Iraqi people are bystanders caught in a horrid crossfire most of the time. They come into the ER (we call it the EMT) all chewed up and burned because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, men, women, and even children. A family came in the other night, two men and two children, not knowing that the mother and daughter in the other helicopter had died before they reached the other facility in Balad. I went to the Intermediate Care Ward and saw one of the men today, full thickness burns to his hands and some on his face, but in surprisingly good spirits considering we had to scrub the old skin off.

Sometimes an American will come off the bird (medevac helicopter), sometimes a twisted ankle or dehydration. Sometimes in full arrest with one of our medics riding the stretcher doing CPR. The last one who came in like that did not survive his injuries. It makes me stop and wonder if this war is worth the American lives it has cost so far.

I think it is. Liberty,freedom, and human rights, things that have been the cornerstone of our government and what the American people stand for (at least most of us) and hold dear to our hearts, cost American blood to make those ideas reality for us. And again it was American blood that paid for it in Iraq, and to free the people of Iraq from an opression that we have never known in our entire history.

In order for there to be peace, there must be a war where blood is shed, and when the chaos clears and the fog of war settles, there will lay the foundation of the new things to come. Freedom comes at a cost that no nation can pay with money, and cannot pay without blood. The question is, who is willing and brave enough to foot the bill.

Doc Winnie

Thanks for this letter to Bob and Joan Barry whose son Rob has served two tours of duty in Iraq. Doc Winnie is the grandson of a friend of theirs.