"I knew eventually I'd get hurt," Allen said, cuts still visible on his hands and arms. "I was lucky just to get a grenade. I just want to go back home and see my wife."
Ramirez said the hospital prepared for large numbers of wounded troops before the battle began. But he and his colleagues did not prepare for what he called "the walking wounded." At the last minute, the corpsmen set up a tent to deal with patients who were not brought in on stretchers. Another tent was set up for Iraqi detainees. That freed up some space for the seriously injured, he said, but so many were carried in that a lounge had to be turned into a triage room.
Jose Ramirez, a Navy petty officer third-class, helped treat troops who were injured in Fallujah at a military field hospital outside the city.
(Jackie Spinner -- The Washington Post)
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"When they told us we'd go into Fallujah, many of us thought we'd see gunshot wounds, but not people with limbs already amputated due to the blast," Ramirez said.
He spent a lot of time reassuring troops that they were getting the best care possible. "There was one soldier, and I needed to put an IV in his arm," Ramirez recalled. "He was really nervous, and I told him, 'Look man, you just survived a blast.' "
Sanders said the hospital staff worked around the clock during the height of the battle, particularly as troops pushed into Fallujah's southern neighborhoods and confronted a hard core of better-trained insurgents.
There are days, Sanders said, that he and his crew will never forget.
"You're seeing your brothers come in, but you can't see them. You're almost like a machine," he said. "The history we've gone through here will forever make us family. If we see each other 10 years from now, not a word will have to be spoken."
During a recent break, Ramirez imagined facing his mother and what he would say to her. He joined the Navy 8 1/2 years ago to become a medical corpsman after her breast cancer was diagnosed. A single parent, his mother raised him to be the best at what he did, no matter what path he chose, Ramirez said.
"I would honestly be afraid to go back home and tell my family I didn't perform the best I could," he said. "I couldn't look my mother in the eye."
In the distance, but close enough for the ground to shake, an explosion thundered, sending a dark mushroom cloud toward the clear, blue sky.
"We'll know soon enough if it was incoming," Ramirez said, stretching his legs. "I will shoot if I have to. I have shot at people, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to save lives."
A few minute passed, then a half-hour, and no ambulance raced to the door of the hospital.
"There's just one thing I want you to know," Ramirez said, before turning to walk away. "There is a corpsman in the memorial of Iwo Jima. He's a pharmacist mate, second class, John Bradley. He was there in the fight. Most people don't know that."
