Minor Setbacks

Heading towards the chow hall for lunch, and we feel the tell-tale concussion of a detonation. "Sure hope that's a controlled det" quips D squared. If an engineering team or EOD team finds a roadside IED or weapons cache, they destroy it on the spot if possible. So hearing random detonations is a somewhat common occurence.
Fifteen minutes later, we are just about to sit down, and another faint shock wave is felt from inside the chow hall.

"You feel that one too?" Says D squared.

"It's gotta be controlled detonations."

"So close together? I don't think so, they aren't announcing anything" he says as the "big voice" remains silent about controlled det warnings. "Lets hurry up and try to finish our food. This might be another one of those days."

We sit down and quickly try to get through a tray of food. As a few minutes tick by, I suddenly feel the need to speed through my tuna wrap and macarroni salad. Other medical personnel nearby have radios, and they squawk to life after a few bites. Eric jumps up and heads to another medical table to clarify. Sure enough, the Army TOC starts sending out staccato messages of "inbound patients, I say again patients are inbound to Charlie Medical". Trays are hastily snatched up as we make our way next door to Charlie Medical. Little did we know those couple of bits of food were going to have to carry us through another afternoon of trauma patients. Never got a chance to take a sip of that coffee.
The "big voice" picks this moment to come to life: "clear all roads to Charlie Medical. I say again, clear all roads to Charlie Medical." The big voice chimes in all afternoon as waves of patients come in for treatment.

Despite today's setback, the intel we are receiving mirrors what is in the media: Ramadi and the Anbar Province are improving. Sunni leadership in Anbar have formed the Anbar Salvation Council (ASC), and are working with U.S. leadership. The ASC is officially opposed to al-Qaeda, and is working towards stabilization of the region. Sheik Fassal Al-Giood of the ASC states "al-Qaeda has not stopped attacking Anbar. Today's incident is a reaction to our work."
As stated in a previous post, Doha gets a second chance, Ramadi has seen a surge of new police recruits and officers. Much of the raw infusion of new officers is due to the ASC leadership supporting regional stability and sending their tribesmen to the recruiting stations to become officers.
After all is said and done, Charlie Medical treats 15 blast casualties. The critical are flown with an En-Route Care RN to Al Asad. An update from a good friend at the Army CSH at Al Asad said one of the patients remained in critical condition this evening, and will require intubation and a ventilator at least overnight.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6631663.stm
The last two photos were taken off the AP wire.