The Medic Dad Chronicles

  Christmas as a divorced dad For those who know me well, they know that I am no fan of Christmas. I love what Christmas means — the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ — but the secular part of it has never sat well with me since my divorce. Christmas went from the best day of the year, full of happiness and love, to one marked by emptiness and sadness.  Virtually from the start, I would let my ex keep the kids on Christmas. I didn’t think it was fair to take them away from the Christmas they had already started at their mom’s house, surrounded by the gifts and excitement waiting for them there. I also knew, deep down, that there was nothing I could give them that would compare. I was always struggling to give them what I could. My wife did a great job of buying things throughout the year when costs were lower, but no matter what we gave them, it always felt inadequate to me. I carried that quietly, like men tend to do. Most years, I let my kids stay with their mom on Christmas...

  The Call of the Missing Eye Some calls start out normal. Some calls get weird. And then some calls drop you straight into the Twilight Zone. We were sent to a beautiful home in one of the nicer neighborhoods for a fall injury. Dispatch added that the patient had been drinking, so we were already bracing ourselves for the usual “I’m fine, I don’t need to go” routine. We walk in and find our patient in the living room with blood on her face, a wine glass on the table, and a very glazed look. She told us she’d had a bit to drink and tripped into the corner of the end table. Swollen cheek, bloody nose — nothing too wild at first glance. She denied neck or back pain, said she hadn’t passed out, said she could walk, the whole nine yards. We got her on the stretcher and into the back of the truck.  I was standing behind the ambulance, talking to the officer with us, when my partner yelled for me. As I climbed into the back of the truck, she gave me a look I’ll never forg...

The Day Everything Went Sideways We were dispatched to a home for an elderly male having a mental breakdown. Standard protocol: we stage until law enforcement gets on scene and clears it. So fire, and my unit sat up the road waiting for the word. A few minutes later, law enforcement radioed that the scene was secure. We headed in. We entered through the back porch sliding door. The officers stepped outside to talk while we started speaking with the patient and his son, who was the father of the grandkids playing upstairs. The patient sat in a high-back chair facing the sliding glass door. He looked tired, defeated, and he kept repeating the same thing: “I just want to spend some time with my grandkids… and then end it all.” Not a passing comment. Not vague suicidal thoughts. He was stating a plan — spend time with the kids, then end his life. I was directly in front of him. Firefighter to my right. My partner is to my left. I tried to talk him down. Told him maybe he was dealin...

HUMANITARIAN MISSIONS – APRIL 1991 After the oil-fire flights, we moved into humanitarian missions in April ’91. These weren’t combat runs, but they carried a different kind of weight — the kind that settles deep and doesn’t let go. We weren’t just hauling food and water. We were flying interpreters and personnel who were trying to figure out how to help these people long-term. Most of these villages had nothing left — no communication, no structure, no leadership. Getting interpreters on the ground was the only way to understand what these civilians needed and how to even begin rebuilding. But the part that hit me hardest was the people. And it wasn’t just one flight — every mission was the same. The moment we touched down, people ran toward us. Families, kids, elderly… everyone. They’d been walking who-knows-how long, hoping anyone — literally anyone — would bring food and water. You could see the hunger and exhaustion before they even got close. They were so thin, so dirty, so ...

Baby Brother We got called for a baby not breathing. And like I think I’ve said before, calls like that make you think. You wonder how old the mom is, when the baby last ate, how many kids she has, and whether this is going to be something serious or just panic. I wasn’t with my regular partner that day, but I was with someone I knew well and trusted. Before we even got there, I told them, “I’m going inside to get the baby. You jump in the back and start getting everything ready.” I knew they’d know exactly what to lay out and where to find it. When we pulled up, the scene didn’t feel right. Nobody was outside yelling for us or waving us in.  I headed straight for the door. It wasn’t until I stepped inside that I realized there were no lights on in the trailer. The place was dark and quiet, and that hit me like a warning flag I didn’t see coming. As I turned the corner into the living room, I saw a little girl kneeling on the floor next to a baby. The adults in the room were si...

  The Oil Fires Flying Through Hell Nothing prepares you for flying through the Kuwaiti oil fires — and doing it at night, under night-vision goggles, in a flight of three aircraft in formation. We’d flown challenging missions before, but this was something entirely different. This was the kind of mission where every second felt like a coin toss between making it through and disappearing into the darkness forever. Why the pilot in command decided to fly through the Kuwaiti oil fires, I will never understand. As we hit the worst of it, the radios started lighting up with something you never want to hear on night nvg ops: “Come up day position lights!” “Everyone come up night strobes!” Then, louder, more urgent: “COME UP DAY STROBES!” That call alone told us everything. We couldn’t see each other. Not even the aircraft flying right beside us. Using day strobes with night-vision goggles is unheard of. It’s dangerous as hell. Day strobes are bright enough to shut the goggles...

 Landing in the Saudi desert After we left the port, we flew out to our first camp — nothing fancy, just a flat spot in the desert where we had to turn nothing into something. We started by digging foxholes and helping build a berm around the perimeter. The “bathrooms” were portable crappers with three holes cut into a plank laid over small barrels filled with diesel fuel. No stalls. No walls. Zero privacy. The shower setup wasn’t much better — three coed stalls side-by-side with dividers that weren’t tall enough, and no one next to anyone above average height had any chance at modesty. I remember one night, I was showering next to one of our taller female officers. She turned towards me to turn on her water, as I turned to turn on mine. I looked at her and she looked at me, and we both thought, "Well, that just happened." There was nothing either of us could do about it. The showers were heated with gas immersion heaters, which at least kept the water warm. After returning ...