Special Forces

The other day I was able to witness the interrogation of an Enemy of Peace (EOP), aka prisoner. He had been shot in the left leg taking a large chunk out of his thigh in the process. So, he was in the hospital on the ward in stable condition. A member of special forces(SF) appeared to do the interview. My role was to do a brief exam before and after the interrogation to document that no abuse occured. The SF guy was dressed in civilian clothes with a beard. He had on hiking shoes, jeans, and a button down short sleeve shirt. This is normal. Outside the wire (off base), the SF guys wear uniforms without name tags from what I understand. Inside the wire (on base), they dress casually. With the beards and all, it is actually not too difficult to pick them out of a crowd. I am told beards are worn to help garner respect with the locals. The EOP also had a beard and was probably in his twenties. He was actually one of the healthiest appearing EOP's that I have seen.

The interrogation was actually quite professional. There was no waterboarding! It was simply 45 minutes of questions about the EOP's background then specifics about the events leading up to his capture. Voices were never raised. Some of the conversation went something like this:

SF guy: Why were you shooting at us?
EOP: I was not shooting.
SF guy: But, we saw you shooting. Where did you get the weapon?
EOP: I did not have a weapon.
SF guy: But, we saw you shooting. Why did you try to run away?
EOP: I did not try to run away.
SF guy: But, we captured you when you were running away shooting at us with a weapon.
EOP: (silence)

The SF guy took extensive notes. No threats were made. It was simply information gathering. Today, the aforementioned EOP left the hospital for the detainment facility.

I have had several other interactions with SF all of which were curious. After a firefight in Kabul, a group of SF guys were helicoptered to our hospital. They all walked in under their own power. They did not want pain medicine. The first thing they asked is when they could leave and go back to the fight. I told one of them, "Dude, you just had a grenade blow up near your face!" He was taken for an eye exam and passed with flying colors. I would not be surprised if he ate a roast beef sandwich then immediately left the wire to meet up again with his SF brethren. Another had minor injuries from a blast. He also was able to leave the hospital that day. But, the thing that was the most remarkable about it all was that a large group from the SF community came to the hospital to check on the guys. It was kind of a circus outside the trauma hot box. SF has their own doctors apparently. I had to explain what was going to on to several of them to report up their chain of command. There was tremendous concern for the well being of their men. I have not seen any other unit, platoon, squad, brigade, task force, or whatever have such an impressive response. SF is clearly tight knit.

Not too long ago an SF guy was admitted to the ward for low back pain under the care of one of my colleagues. Low back pain is one of the most common complaints in primary care. It almost invariably will get better no matter what the medical provider does for the patient. So, I was exceedingly unimpressed to have a low back pain patient in the hospital. The patient received large amounts of pain medicine. As it turns out, I happen to be the only doctor on base that does back adjustments due to my background in osteopathic medicine. (On several occasions I have been paged to crack the backs of high ranking military officials. It's kind of annoying actually.) I did a minor back adjustment for the SF guy right there in his hospital bed. It did make him feel better temporarily, but his pain persisted. The next day the SF guy was flown to Germany for further testing. To me, this was ridiculous which I happened to mention to one of the SF doctors. Fast forward a month or so when I was approached in the emergency room by this same SF doctor. She ran up to me and yelled, "THE GUY HAD A TUMOR!" Excuse me. Yep, the SF guy's pain was caused by a tumor on his spinal cord. I felt like an idiot. I told her she had every right to get in my face and say "I told you so", but she did not. Instead she explained to me that SF guys do not complain and they do not lay in bed. When one of them does this, something very serious must be wrong. Fortunately, the tumor turned out to be benign (non-cancerous).

Without a doubt, SF is a unique subset of the military. I am told that we are not supposed to know what they really do out there. They are on the front lines here in Afghanistan. The commander of this war, General McCrystal, has a SF background. He has made many changes in our counterinsurgency strategy here. From what I understand, the military is relying more and more on SF in this increasingly complicated war. We will definitely continue to see SF guys within the walls of our trauma hospital. Perhaps my approach will be a little different the next time I encounter one of these characters.