First Lutentant Rachel Grover has been serving as a nurse in Iraq since the beginning of December. On leave for two weeks Rachel is relaxing with family and friends. But she talks about how the injuries to soldiers have gone from bullet wounds to something worse.
“IED Injuries…shrapnel wounds a lot of burns and amputations stuff like that”
Both bullets and IED’s can take a soldiers life but Rachel says IED’s leave a deeper scar in her psyche than do bullet wounds.
“These poor young boys most of them 18, 19, 20 years old out there getting blown up. And they come in and you see pictures of their families falling out of there wallet…it just makes you angry.”
Something that doesn’t make her angry about her time in Iraq, is that she met her boyfriend their. Also serving as a nurse in the 86th Combat support unit Scott explains how having each other during such a difficult time in their lives, makes things more tolerable.
“To be there with her she sees it first hand so when we had a full day when we saw some pretty traumatic things we don’t have to talk about it, we can just relax.”
Rachel and Scott both look forward to coming home for good. But until then they will continue to do their jobs-which they consider to be an honor.
“I just want every one to know if they have a family member over there they are going to get the best medical treatment possible we save a lot of lives.”
