Abstract

After returning from my first deployment to Iraq in February 2005, I had decided I would separate from the military and enter civilian practice. I had served during some of the bloodiest months of the war and performed about 250 operations on wounded American servicemen, Iraqi soldiers, Iraqi enemy combatants, and civilians. I was tired, a bit burned out, and emotionally exhausted after witnessing so many young people's lives forever changed by war. So, I submitted my resignation paperwork which was approved and prepared to enter the civilian practice of medicine. But it was not to be.