Behold_a_white_horse

The Kurdish companies were always a bit impressive, although they looked like idiots when they tried to show off their marching skills to us (they did a crazy little skip thing). But, it was that pride and effort that made them stand out from the regular IA.

It was a better pay check than a lot of jobs for young men in Iraq and, while it was dangerous, I don't think it was very difficult work because they shirked all the time. The SOPs changed in the middle of my second tour and we were required to have IA or IP with us on every mission. The only way to get them to do anything was to get an Iraqi colonel or higher to tell them they had to leave the base. Then there were the guys that joined the IA/IP to essentially aid the insurgents. We had multiple incidents on that second tour where IA/IP, who were supposed to be working with us, decided to instead shoot at us during missions or on their bases. The worst IED to ever hit a vehicle I was in was a culvert stuffed with an estimated 800 pounds of home made explosive. 100 meter to either side of the culvert were IP check points.

The Kurds, however, ran their own IA companies and were very intent on learning ad doing their jobs, but had more enthusiasm than talent while I was there. It was quite a surprise to walk into a colonel's office one day to see a still armed landmine on his desk that he was happy to report his men had found and removed from the road. We told him we needed him to wait outside of his office while we called EOD to come take care of the thing. He told us he'd have his boys bring some chai to our trucks and proceeded to ask me if I could bring him any viagra (I was also a medic).

Each battalion will have usually a physician and a pa who are essentially the medical officers. Their main responsibility (from my experience) was working about 12 hours a day in the battalion aid station (although our pa ran a smaller aid station on a smaller outpost). There will also be a medical corps at either the division or brigade level that operates a field hospital on a large heavily guarded base (the same base that our battalions aid station was at). These hospitals have pretty high end capabilities in terms of trauma surgery and what not.

Myself, I was the head medic in charge of an infantry company and was the supervisor to between 3 and 5 other medics depending on how well our company was staffed. Each medic was assigned to a platoon (in good times a platoon might have two medics) and would go on nearly every mission with that platoon. I kept myself assigned to 1st platoon because I had a guy dumped under my command that was horrible under pressure so I chose to take what should've been his platoon because I don't like it when people die. I left him to assist the PA on our outpost where he became quite adept at lancing accesses.

Trauma care in a modern war zone is about stabilizing a guy long enough to pass him off to the next level of care. An infantryman might try to put on a tourniquet until I get to the causality. Then I will properly put on a new tourniquet, assure there is an airway, and maybe put some cellophane wrap on accost wound while we wait for casevac. Then the chopper medic will give him oxygen, and continue care such as giving him fluids if I did not have time (although let's be honest, I had time and all the chopper medic did was give him oxygen and put a space blanket on him, followed by a quick selfie to put on facebook so their friends wouldn't think they spent most of their time playing halo which of course they did). The casevac would take them likely to a cash/field hospital where a team of surgeons would go to work. Then the casualty would be evaced on a flight to a base in Germany. Each station of care is about keeping the casualty alive until we can hand him off to somebody that has better equipment or more knowledge ad eventually we'll hand him off to a doctor who isn't in a war zone.

As far as tanks providing cover while people shout 'medic,' well, sort of. If someone is hit, then of course someone is going to yell for doc (usually the psg). I was with a heavy infantry company, which means we usually aren't too far from armored vehicles, so if someone stepped on a toe popper then what I'd do is put on a tourniquet fast as he'll and then drag the guy into the back of a Bradley or mrap where I'd provide the rest of the treatment from within the safety of several inches of armored plates while the platoon provided me cover until we could evacuate the casualty (and hopefully that cover would be provided mostly by the vehicle tourets with the rest of my guys loaded up inside the other trucks).

That isn't official terminology btw.

A small ied meant for someone to step on.