The humanitarian side of Abu Ghraib

Memorial Hospital radiologist returns after fourth months working in field hospital at Iraq prison

The heat. Dr. Ray VanWyngarden remembers the relentless, stifling heat. One-hundred degree days were the norm. One day the mercury hit 138.5.When he returned home after serving for four months in a field hospital at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, VanWyngarden, a radiologist at The Memorial Hospital in North Conway, was 35 pounds lighter than when he left."It was just too hot to eat," he said. "They had good food as much as I wanted but I had no appetite."But the heat, in a way, was friend as well as foe in that violent, far-away place, because it meant less mortar fire from Iraqi insurgents."The summer is not too bad," VanWyngarden said. "They don't want to be out there in the heat any more than we do. We got more harassment attacks than real attacks."VanWyngarden, 60, of North Conway, is an Army Reserve colonel with the 399th Combat Support Hospital. He went to Iraq with the 344th Combat Support Hospital out of New York.It was the third time in four years he had been called to duty. He went to Kosovo in 2001 and Germany in 2003.He learned of his new assignment this past spring."There's always a certain amount of apprehension, especially when you go into a war zone," he said. "You worry about that for a day or two. But the Army takes good care of us. You know they'll do everything they can to keep us in a safe and secure environment, so you stop worrying after awhile."VanWyngarden was part of a team of about 140 to 150 people whose primary job was to care for Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib the notorious prison where a small group of soldiers abused detainees. Photographs of those abuses were widely published.The combat support unit that set up the hospital had as its motto, "Restoring America's Honor." It's a motto that VanWyngarden adopted for himself when he arrived."We (the United States) had a bad reputation over what had happened," he said, "and we wanted to do our best to be known for better than that."But it was a difficult assignment, he admits, largely because of the public's perception of it."The mission itself of only taking care of Iraqi prisoners was challenging for many people," VanWyngarden said. "But this is a very necessary mission. We have international laws, as well as what's right and proper."Some military personnel also have "mixed feelings," he said."The combat people, you've got to remember, are looking at the world totally differently than we do," VanWyngarden said. "Those are enemies to them."Most of the detainees at Abu Ghraib are "people who had been a threat or a possible threat to coalition forces." Some are innocent bystanders who were arrested because they happened to be in the vicinity of a shooting or bombing. Further investigation separates the insurgents from the bystanders.Doctors and personnel at the field hospital treat the wounded and perform physicals and evaluations on all prisoners. The hospital also treats Iraqi National Guardsmen and military police who are injured nearby, and civilians who are injured in firefights. U.S. soldiers are treated at the hospital if they are severely wounded and "can't get to their own unit in time for immediate care."VanWyngarden said the prisoner abuse scandal is very much hanging in the air at Abu Ghraib."You are always concerned," he said. "You do the best you can, but you're always concerned that somebody will misunderstand or misrepresent what's happening. You hate to have that happen. You're treating prisoners who don't like you and don't want you there. If they can disrupt you or create propaganda against you or U.S. forces, that's one of their goals. But you can't control everything. You just have to do the best you can."VanWyngarden said it's sometimes hard for soldiers and military police to "separate the prisoner from the patient." But hospital personnel must make that separation and treat them all as patients."These are detainee prisoners," he said, "but they are patients, so you have to maintain a balance of security and compassion."VanWyngarden said people have asked him how he could care for the enemy."I don't know how to answer that," he said. "We don't decide right and wrong. Our job is to take care of patients as best we can."VanWyngarden describes the area around Abu Ghraib as "very stark.""Where we were, there was nothing green," he said. "Unless you have an irrigation system, there's not much growing in the summer season."VanWyngarden said there were no crops or grass within the prison compound itself "just sand, dirt and walls."The field hospital consisted of tents set up inside two warehouses that are part of the prison compound. Hospital personnel stayed inside the prison itself. There was makeshift air conditioning, but, VanWyngarden said, "If the power goes down, the generators go down and there is no electricity for air conditioning." Another constant problem was the filters clogging with dirt, rendering the air conditioners ineffective.There were no days off during his time there. But despite the "rigors" of military life, he still found the experience rewarding."I always enjoy the medicine and taking care of patients," he says. "Many of these people would have had little or no care if we hadn't been there."VanWyngarden's wife, Karen Rae, said that during her husband's absence, "My sanity was kept by taking walks and spending time in the shops in North Conway Village. The shop keepers became my friends."She also visited their grown children, who live outside the area, and kept herself occupied with volunteer work at the hospital. Her husband called twice a week and, because he worked on a computer, could e-mail every day."I knew he was in a relatively safe place, considering he was in Iraq," she said. "I was concerned with his transport in and his transport out. But I felt good that he was in a prison compound."VanWyngarden returned home Oct. 1 and returned to his job at The Memorial Hospital on Oct. 17. He works for the Spectrum Medical Group out of Portland and has been a radiologist at Memorial for a year and a half. A welcome-back party was held on his behalf on his first day back at the hospital.He said it was good to be home, back at his job, and back to the routine that is so easily taken for granted."You forget until you're over there how much you have," he said. "A comfortable bed; the ability to go to a restaurant or get in the car and go to the park. Over there, we have 60 pounds of armor on us to go anywhere."VanWyngarden says the war in Iraq is a different kind of war in that "we didn't want to give the impression that we were the conquerers of Iraq." For that reason, the American flag couldn't be flown outside. However, there was a flagpole inside the warehouse, and the flag could be flown over the hospital tents. Hospital personnel could buy flags and raise them, and they then would receive signed certificates from the hospital commander and first sergeant. VanWyngarden brought home one for himself, one for each of his kids, and one for his employer, Spectrum Medical Group."The flag gets to be an important symbol when you're over there," he said.Abu Ghraib was hated by the Iraqis "long before we got there" because of abuses and atrocities under the Saddam Hussein regime. Some 20,000 dissidents were executed there by the Hussein's government. The "sights, sounds and smells" of that era still linger, VanWyngarden said.Given the backdrop, VanWyngarden said, the Army was "very sensitive" in making sure the hospital was run in a humanitarian fashion. And he said he was "proud to be selected to serve with some of the best physicians I've worked with in 30 years."