Florida Comfort Food Helped Air Force Nurse in Afghanistan

Nurse saves lives during Afghanistan deployment
Chugiak Eagle River Star
Chris McCann
Published: 2014

Air Force Capt. Tavia Leonard, an intensive-care nurse assigned to the 673d Medical Group, recently returned from Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, where she worked at the Craig-Joint Theater Hospital for four months. U.S. AIR FORCE JUSTIN CONNAHER

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON — The improvised explosive device detonated early — in his hand.

The 16-year-old Afghan boy was rushed to the Craig Joint Hospital on Bagram Air Field, missing a hand, an eye, and a lot of blood. Third-degree burns covered nearly half of his body.

Air Force Capt. Tania Leonard, an intensive-care nurse, was ready.

“He was an angry little fellow,” she said. “But after a while, he became the most polite kid. I may not have reached the masses in Afghanistan, but I hope in his village, he’ll tell people how we took care of him.”

Leonard joined the Air Force hoping to be an ICU nurse. Her first assignment, however, was at the pediatric unit at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany. She was disappointed, but that billet prepared her for the future.

An unexpected motivation came in a care package from a friend — a jar of pickled okra. The Jacksonville, Florida, native said she was ecstatic to get such a creature comfort.

“That was the best day ever,” she said. “I was taking pictures with the okra. Oh, and there were crab legs Fridays. I was on the hunt Fridays; I’ve got to have crab legs. I love seafood. And those little comforts were just great.”
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Six of the nine U.S. servicemembers wounded recovering in Germany

Servicemembers wounded in Kabul attack in stable condition
Stars and Stripes
August 8, 2014

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Six of the nine U.S. servicemembers wounded when a suspected Afghan soldier opened fire on coalition forces at a defense university in Kabul are in stable condition at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, officials said Friday.

The attack on Tuesday killed Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, the first general officer killed in hostilities overseas since the Vietnam War, and wounded more than a dozen others, including nine Americans.

Six of them were flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and transferred to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where they were in stable condition, spokesman Chuck Roberts said.

Five were being treated for gunshot wounds, while the sixth was injured by shrapnel.
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Wounded Solider Recovering in Hospital, Re-enlists

Wounded Wendover soldier re-enlists from hospital
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Public Affairs
By CHUCK ROBERTS
17 hours ago

Lt. Gen. Donald M. Campbell Jr., commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, reenlists Staff Sgt. Tyronne Jones in a Feb. 19, ceremony at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany.

LANDSTUHL, Germany — In the aftermath of being downed by a gunshot wound during a firefight in Afghanistan, several thoughts came to the mind of Staff Sgt. Tyronne Jones — among them was re-enlistment. Sadly, the date and location were not the only things that changed that day.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Edward Balli was supposed to have conducted Jones’ reenlistment ceremony at their Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan. Balli died beside Jones in that same firefight on Jan. 20 against enemy insurgents who penetrated their compound through a hole from a massive explosion.

Instead, Jones was re-enlisted by Lt. Gen. Donald M. Campbell Jr., commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, in a Feb. 19 ceremony at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center before his wife and two children and fellow soldiers from his home station in Vilseck, Germany.

Although Jones is a career soldier who planned to re-enlist, the deadly attack only firmed his resolve.
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Platoon of Marines moved to Uganda After Four Navy SEALS Wounded

Platoon of Marines moved to Uganda amid South Sudan crisis
Stars and Stripes
By Jon Harper
Published: December 26, 2013

WASHINGTON — A platoon of U.S. Marines was moved from Djibouti to Uganda on Tuesday in the event the fighting in neighboring South Sudan deteriorates further.

“This forward posturing provides the Combatant Commander additional options and the ability to more quickly respond, if required, to help protect U.S. personnel and facilities,” U.S. Africa Command said in a statement.

AFRICOM said this contingent of some 40 Marines and a KC-130J aircraft are now in Entebbe, the capital of Uganda.

The KC-130J transport plane has airborne assault capabilities, and is also used for medevac, search and rescue, and aerial refueling.

“These movements were made with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Ugandan authorities,” AFRICOM said.

A Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response unit was moved Monday from Moron, Spain, to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, after an incident in which four Navy SEALs were wounded during an aborted rescue operation in South Sudan.

The SEALs were trying to evacuate American citizens from the city of Bor on Saturday when the Osprey aircraft they were flying in came under small arms fire while they were trying to land.

Three of the SEALs were transported to Landstuhl earlier in the week; the fourth was stabilized at a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, and was moved to Landstuhl on Christmas day.
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DOD: Sailor from Texas died in Germany

DoD Identifies Navy Casualty
No. NR-078-13
December 17, 2013

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Petty Officer 1st Class James L. Smith, 38, of Huffman, Texas, died Dec. 11, in Landstuhl, Germany, from a non-combat related incident.

Smith was assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 28, Shreveport, La.

Navy surgeon saves lives in Afghanistan, Iraq

Navy surgeon saves lives in Afghanistan, Iraq
CBS NEWS
By NOREEN O'DONNELL
October 29, 2013

Even as a trauma surgeon, U.S. Navy Capt. Joseph Rappold was not fully prepared for the kinds of devastating injuries he encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrible damage done by the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that marked the wars.

"I think when you see one of these wounded in front of you for the first time it's like, jeez where do you start," he said.

But quickly, his training took over and although he never became numb, as a surgeon on the front line, he did compartmentalize the bloodshed around him, he said.

"We have a whole generation of surgeons now in the military that I don't think there's much that they can see that fazes them any more," he said. "But certainly the first time you see it, it clearly leaves an impression on your mind."

Rappold, 53, retired from the military in January 2012, after seven deployments as a medical corps officer to Afghanistan and Iraq. He was in Afghanistan with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and in Iraq in Baghdad, Balad, Mosul, Tikrit and in the fierce fighting in Ramadi in 2006.

Two years later, he served as the director of the Joint Theater Trauma System, responsible for all surgical care in both wars. And then just when he thought he had come back to the United States for good, he was asked to return to war one more time in 2009, to the British field hospital at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Connie Johnson knows Rappold through her work as a coordinator in the trauma program at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. He saved many lives, but took his losses hard, she said.
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Readers at CBSNews.com were asked to nominate their heroes for Veterans Day. If you know a hero, whether for conduct during a war or after, submit the details here. 

Death of Fort Drum soldier under investigation

DOD Identifies Army Casualty
News release

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. Anthony R. Maddox, 22, of Port Arthur, Texas, died July 22, in Landstuhl, Germany, of a non-combat related incident that occurred in Andar, Afghanistan. The incident is under investigation.

He was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.

update

Friday: Flags At Half Staff For Fort Drum Soldier

Department of Defense investigating death of Marine

DOD Identifies Marine Casualty
July 16, 2013

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Tuttle, 19, of Gentry, Ark., died July 14 at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center following a medical evacuation from the aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) during a scheduled port visit in the 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility. This incident is under investigation.
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Landstuhl hospital’s trauma status on the line as Afghan War winds down

Landstuhl hospital’s trauma status on the line as Afghan War winds down
by Matt Millham
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 3, 2013

LANDSTUHL, Germany — On returning from his first trip to Afghanistan as defense secretary in March, Chuck Hagel had planned a stopover that is something of a tradition for administration officials conducting America’s longest war — a visit to injured troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

But there was a hitch in the plan that would have seemed nearly impossible a year ago. The day Hagel planned to visit the hospital — the first stop for all injured U.S. personnel evacuated from the war zone — not a single American casualty was laid up there.

Col. Barbara Holcomb, Landstuhl’s commander, cautioned against reading too much into the rare absence of U.S. casualties.

“The following day we had 12.”

But, she said, the number of wounded streaming out of Afghanistan has been trending downward since 2010, when nearly 500 U.S. servicemembers deployed there died. Earlier this year, the entire U.S.-led coalition went more than a month without losing a servicemember in combat — the longest such streak in 10 years, according to an Associated Press casualty database.
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Pentagon and Congress Argue Over Landstuhl Regional Medical Center

Pentagon and Congress Argue Over Hospital for Troops
By THOM SHANKER
Published: June 10, 2012

WASHINGTON — As the Pentagon and Congress argue over how to shrink the military to fit smaller federal budgets, no debate over matching money to mission is more heartfelt than the order to shut down the premier overseas hospital for grievously wounded troops and replace it with a new one.

With scant public notice, the Defense Department is closing, and relocating, the aging hospital, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the only top-level military trauma center outside the United States.

The hospital has earned its vaunted reputation over the past decade as it has evacuated, treated and stabilized all American military personnel wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. It treats 500,000 patients a year.

There is no dispute that replacing the hospital, which opened 59 years ago, is a good idea. And building its replacement next to Ramstein Air Base in Germany would reduce transit time for patients. Additional savings would be found by closing Ramstein’s existing clinic and combining it with the Landstuhl replacement.
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Soldier sent video home just before IED blast

Wilkesboro soldier injured in IED blast
May 11, 2012
by Lindsey Eaton

WILKESBORO, N.C. — A Piedmont family is praying their soldier continues to stay strong after 20-year-old Chance Cleary was injured Sunday in an IED explosion in Afghanistan.

Cleary has been through several surgeries over in Germany, he’s now at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. with his parents.

In a 30 second online video, Chance Cleary gives his family in Wilkesboro a message from Afghanistan.

“I just want to say hey to the family and friends back home. Love you, guys,” he said.

Cleary’s family didn’t see the video until after he was injured in Afghanistan.

“I mean we all really miss him obviously, and seeing him be that funny Chance is all we know, so i mean it’s nice but at the same time its emotional,” explains Chane’s younger sister Brittany Cleary. Chance was on his first tour in Afghanistan.

On Sunday he was driving a Humvee with four other soliders inside. Cleary ran over an IED. “It’s honestly devastating your whole world just comes down in one day,” says Brittany.

The passenger in the Humvee died. The two soldiers in the back survived, Chance is holding on.
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140 European lives have been saved because troops donated organs

Troops’ donated organs save European recipients
By Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
Posted : Thursday May 3, 2012

After Kelly Hugo flew through a snowstorm to reach the bedside of her mortally wounded son at a U.S. Army hospital in Germany, where he had just been brought from Afghanistan, she didn’t hesitate when asked about organ donation.

“I said, ‘Oh, yes,’” the junior high school counselor recalls, memories still fresh of that December in 2010 when she last saw her son, Marine Cpl. Sean Osterman, 21, of Princeton, Minn., “because something good has to come out of something bad.”

Since 2006, about 140 European lives have been saved because organs — hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and pancreases — were harvested from 36 U.S. service members determined to be brain dead from wounds suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to statistics from the German foundation that oversees organ removal and implantation.

All casualties from combat funnel through the Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for care before being flown to the U.S.
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Col. Barbara Holcomb became the first registered nurse to command Landstuhl

First nurse takes command at Landstuhl
By NANCY MONTGOMERY
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 3, 2012


LANDSTUHL, Germany — Throughout Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s long, storied past, medical doctors have almost always been in charge.

But on Thursday, Col. Barbara Holcomb became the first registered nurse – and second woman – to take command of the hospital, considered a jewel in the crown of military medicine.

“ ‘Landstuhl is such an awesome place,’ ” Holcomb, in her change-of command ceremonial speech, recalled a friend telling her when she got the news of her assignment. “ ‘They saved several of my soldiers.’ ”

Such admiration for the hospital staff’s expertise at saving the lives of wounded troops “runs deeply through many military leaders,” Holcomb said. “This is indeed an honor.”

Holcomb relieves Col. Jeffrey Clark, who served less than a year before being nominated for promotion to brigadier general and, next month, to take over as commander of the Europe Regional Medical Command. Clark will replace Brig. Gen. Nadja West, who is to become an assistant Army surgeon general.
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Army investigates preferential PTSD treatment

Army investigates preferential PTSD treatment
By Patricia Kime - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 22, 2012

The Army is investigating its behavioral health facilities in Europe, including those at the renowned Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, to determine whether some soldiers receive preferential treatment after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The office of Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho is reviewing whether personnel with PTSD who are able to return to duty had better access to care and were offered a wider array of treatments than those with PTSD who are likely headed for medical discharge.

The review comes on the heels of an Army investigation at Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state to determine whether a team of physicians — known as forensic psychiatrists — improperly overturned PTSD diagnoses after examining case files of least 14 soldiers.

The review at Landstuhl and 16 facilities in Belgium, Germany and Italy began after “concerns were expressed about a perceived difference in treatment options” at Landstuhl, said Army Medical Command spokeswoman Maria Tolleson.

Army officials said late last year that the service faces a readiness crisis as it deals with an impending drawdown. Of its more than 600,000 active and mobilized forces, nearly 15 percent are considered non-deployable.

In November, 47,000 soldiers were unfit for duty because of wounds, injuries or illnesses; 23,000 were on limited duty, many for mental health concerns; and more than 18,000 were being processed for medical discharge through the integrated disability evaluation system, according to Army data.

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Landstuhl Hospital at forefront at saving soldiers

'Not heartbreak hotel': Hospital at forefront at saving soldiers
Staff has unique experience in battlefield medicine for treating US trauma victims
By DAVID RISING
9/2/2011

Michael Probst / AP
A US soldier who was wounded in Afghanistan is lifted from a bus at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, on Monday.

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Volunteer staff from the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center huddle outside the emergency room doors, waiting under heat lamps on a crisp morning for what has become a daily routine in a decade of war — the arrival on a blue bus of the latest casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some are in surgical scrubs, others in uniform or white hospital gowns. They crowd around the back of the modified school bus as the door opens, forming lines on either side, yelling "got it!" as they pass along the stretcher loaded with both patient and portable life support system and lower it to a wheeled gurney.

A chaplain leans over and tells the Marine who has lost both his legs to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan that he's now safe and in good hands. "When they come over here we want to make sure that it's not heartbreak hotel," said Navy chaplain Commander Manuel Mak after talking with the incoming wounded.

There's a saying in the U.S. military that once you've made it to Landstuhl, you've made it. After 10 years of war in Afghanistan and eight in Iraq, that's never been more true. The medical center boasts a unique combination of cutting-edge advances in battlefield medicine and hard-won experience in treating serious trauma.
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Wounded face new foe: drug-resistant infections

Wounded face new foe: drug-resistant infections
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Sep 30, 2010 14:26:40 EDT
Aggressive tactics are being used against strains of drug-resistant infections that are creating new risks for combat-injured service members who survived the war but may not survive the recovery, military medical officials said Wednesday.

Called multi-drug resistant organisms, or MDROs, the infections “are not unique to the military” but are a “serious problem for the military,” said Dr. Jack Smith, acting deputy assistant defense secretary for health affairs responsible for clinical and program policy.

Smith and other military health officials testified before the House Armed Services Committee’s oversight and investigations panel.

The hearing was called to look at how the military was dealing with infection and whether more money was needed for military-specific research.

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., the panel chairman, said he thought that given the implications of problems with treating combat-wounded service members, a case could be made for spending more money on research — but Smith did not ask for more.
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Wounded face new foe drug-resistant infections

Germany-based Air Force officer killed in motorcycle crash

Germany-based Air Force officer killed in motorcycle crash
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 2, 2010
A senior Air Force officer was killed Saturday afternoon in a motorcycle accident near Otterberg, Germany, according to an Air Force news release.

Lt. Col. John Witherow, of Pollock, La., was the chief radiologist assigned to the 86th Medical Group, and was stationed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center since 2008. He was 39.
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Germany-based Air Force officer killed in motorcycle crash

$1.2B medical complex will replace Landstuhl

$1.2B medical complex will replace Landstuhl

By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jul 18, 2010 10:27:46 EDT

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — A $1.2 billion hospital complex is being planned near here to replace the aging Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which is a 30-minute drive from where the C-17s and KC-15s carrying wounded combat troops land.

Since 2003, Air Force aeromedical evacuation teams have flown more than 65,000 wounded Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen from Afghanistan and Iraq to Germany for medical care.

The hospital, scheduled to be complete by 2018, will be at the U.S.-controlled Rhine Ordnance Barracks, adjacent to Ramstein. It will replace the base clinic as well as Landstuhl.

Putting a hospital closer to the flight line will make it easier on the troops and those caring for them, said Lt. Col. Bonnie Goodale, administrator for the 86th Contingency Air Staging Facility.

“It’s still in the planning phase, but we hope cutting down the time for that drive will make it easier on the troops that come through here,” Goodale said as she walked through the contingency aeromedical staging facility, an old education and training building near the flight line where the less seriously injured get basic medical care and a little attention before getting on a plane for home.
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Medical complex will replace Landstuhl

Navy looks for answers after Seabee dies from malaria

Navy looks for answers after Seabee dies from malaria
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, April 19, 2010

HEIDELBERG, Germany — By the time he got to Landstuhl, Joshua Dae Ho Carrell was more dead than alive.

The Seabee was unconscious, with a tube stuck down his throat to help him breathe. His kidneys, liver and lungs were failing, and he was in shock, with his blood pressure falling.

Carrell, 23, was suffering from severe falciparum malaria, an infection of red blood cells acquired from mosquito bites that had sent parasites coursing through his bloodstream, sticking to capillaries, obstructing blood flow, damaging organs and, worst of all, causing his brain to swell.

It was three days before last Christmas. Carrell had been infected during a deployment to Liberia. He and 24 other Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 were in the fourth month of a goodwill mission to renovate a hospital.
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Navy looks for answers after Seabee dies from malaria

U.S. combat-wounded troops war theater to Washington due to volcanic ash

Ash plume over Europe affects medevac flights

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Apr 17, 2010 10:45:55 EDT

A volcanic ash plume that has severely impacted commercial aviation over Europe also has forced the diversion of all military and commercial contract flights over the region, an official said Friday morning.

The most immediate effect is on U.S. combat-wounded troops, who are being flown straight from the war theater to Washington, D.C., without making the customary stop in Germany, said Navy Capt. Kevin Aandahl, a spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command.

One contracted commercial passenger flight has been grounded in Europe, “and they’re just going to wait out the plume,” Aandahl said.

He said he couldn’t identify the base, or whether it was carrying troops forward to the war theater, for operational security reasons.
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Ash plume over Europe affects medevac flights