76th Infantrymen lift wounded soldiers on their down time

Joint Base Balad-

A lot of soldiers play video games on their time off. Many don’t have an opportunity to do much else. But Specialist Aaron Fox, of Elkhart, IN and Corporal John Villegas, of Portage, IN, both of Alpha Company of 1st/293rd Infantry, volunteer at the landing pad as stretcher bearers on their days off. They wait on call for hours and rush wounded soldiers from the medivac copter to the emergency room.

“We usually go over to the pad at 16:30 and stay until 22:30,” Fox said, “If we were the typical Army dudes chilling in our rooms I wouldn’t have met all these people. I used to joke about the Air Force, now I got a lot of respect for them.”

Spc. Fox has logged about 76 hours volunteering, and Cpl Villegas over a 100 including time he spends helping in the Intensive Care Unit.

The Air Force staffs the Theater Hospital, known as the best equipped in Iraq, at Joint Base Balad. Wounded soldiers are flown from all over Iraq to the hospital, before they are sent to Germany for more comprehensive care. Spc. Fox said 90 percent of the military at the pad are volunteers like them.

Cpl. Villegas who’s an Emergency Medical Technician and Firefighter in East Chicago, said, “That’s where I spend all my time (at the pad), even if I got a mission the next day. To me it’s behind the scenes. The things we see, everyone doesn’t see.”

Villegas went the first time to volunteer on his own. Fox followed him the next day. When no helicopters come in they make their “rounds” around the hospital saying hi to everyone.

“We call it the ‘morale squad’,” Fox said, “If I get hit that’s where I want to be.” Both Fox and Villegas are gunners for Alpha Company out of Fort Wayne, IN of the Indiana National Guard. They're the armored security for large convoys that roll on the main highways south and north of Balad. Both have been in firefights and on convoys hit by IED attacks.

The spherical tent they carry wounded soldiers through has a huge American flag pinned to its ceiling and is dubbed the Hero’s Highway. “It’s hard to explain,” Villegas said of the feeling of carrying injured soldiers under the flag, “I think a lot of the soldiers who have come through here.” (Cpl. Villegas coming off the flight line where they help move wounded soldiers to emergency care.)

“Seeing the soldiers messed up,” Fox said, “it gets to you, but you can’t let it.”

Villegas said they’ve been asked to put bodies in body bags, but he welcomes any job that helps the hospital staff.

Helping to care for soldiers wounded in combat has special significance for Villegas and Fox who said they're the only two volunteers at the pad who regularly go outside the wire as infantrymen.

On June 12, they met the helicopter bearing a seriously wounded solider named Sergeant John D. Aragon, 22, (75th Cav Regt, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn). They took him off the helicopter, brought him into the ER, and were there until Aragon succumbed to his injuries. They were present for the flag detail to honor his life, and as two of three Army soldiers present, Villegas and Fox were particularly affected. Fox had KIA bracelets made with Aragon’s name imprinted on them.

“It’s just to remember him,” Fox said, “It’s easy to forget a single solider who dies.”

“They’re thanking us for going outside the wire,” Villegas said of the hospital staff, “We’re thanking them for being able to volunteer and knowing those guys are the ones to fix us.”