Posted 2:17 pm Monday, June 21, 2010
Naval Nurse Returns To East Texas
By EMILY GUEVARA
Staff Writer
U.S. Navy Commander Tina "Michelle" Blair did not face combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, but she knows the effects of it more than most.
Staff Writer
U.S. Navy Commander Tina "Michelle" Blair did not face combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, but she knows the effects of it more than most.
For the past 20 months, the East Texas resident and Navy reservist has been deployed to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, an Army hospital in Germany.
The registered nurse has witnessed the missing limbs, traumatic brain injuries and mental illnesses that accompany wounded soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.
She also has seen the broken bones, cancer diagnoses and diabetes that come with just living life -- even in the middle of a war effort.
Through it all, she said, she has gained a greater respect for the men and women who serve in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
"I don't know anything about politics," she said recently while on leave at her mother's home in Gresham. "I don't understand all of it, but I'll take care of these guys anywhere they go -- no matter what they do. I'd take care of them anytime. It's like the real heroes of the world."
Cmdr. Blair, 42, will be in the Tyler area for about one week before she returns to Germany to be with her husband and three children, Teylor, 8, Elliot, 10, and Pey-ton, 12.
Her deployment has come to an end. However, her husband, Chris, also a registered nurse, has a Department of Defense contract to work at the same military hospital in Landstuhl through July 2011.
"I'm giving myself time and I'm going to be completely available to my husband and friends and I'm going to decompress," she said.
The time in Germany was Cmdr. Blair's first deployment. She said her time as a civilian emergency room nurse provided solid preparation, but was no comparison for the wartime experience.
"It's kind of like mass casualties with a little bit of control," she said of the situation.
Cmdr. Blair's days in Germany would begin about 3 a.m. After a quick bite to eat -- usually yogurt -- she would wake her husband, who would drive her the five minutes to work.
Shortly after 4 a.m., the commander would be at her desk, coffee in hand, with a stack of medical records. It was her job to read them and determine, along with other staff, which soldiers needed to be treated where.
Some would be placed in ICU.
Others, who had broken bones or other relatively minor injuries, could stay in barracks and come to the hospital for appointments.
Others, who had broken bones or other relatively minor injuries, could stay in barracks and come to the hospital for appointments.
Some days, up to 50 soldiers would arrive on each plane at the nearby Ramstein Air Base. Then another plane could arrive with just a few.
The staff of Deployed Medical Management Center where Cmdr. Blair worked tried to move patients as quickly through the treatment process as possible.
It's not that they were impersonal. It's just that they made a point to keep the process moving, Cmdr. Blair said.
"We don't want to sit on them long either because we fill up quickly and we don't know what tomorrow brings," she said.
It's the soldiers' stories that stick with the commander.
There was the Polish soldier, part of the coalition forces, who lost both legs, one entire arm and one hand.
"…Because of the technology and what they're doing and what they have available downrange, they're living," Cmdr. Blair said. "They're living with no limbs."
Another injured soldier recounted how he survived an IED blast in his vehicle. As he was trying to get up, he was shot three times -- including a bullet that hit his helmet.
"This guy was resilient," she said. "He goes, 'yeah that was my day from hell … but for some reason God didn't want me to go down … because it was like one thing after the other.'"
She said that each soldier handles the hardships differently. Some literally laughed off their injuries and experiences.
Others, she said, appeared to witness so much and lost so many buddies that while they might have been fine physically, mentally and emotionally they were troubled.
Cmdr. Blair said it was her faith in God that strengthened her for the task of caring for the wounded warriors.
"I am not strong enough," she said. "I'm a wimpy person and I would never ever have been able to do that job without my strength coming from God. I wouldn't have. I would have cracked early on in seeing so much sadness."
Now that she is through with her deployment, the commander plans to spend more time with her children and husband.
Although she did go to their rented home at the end of each workday and make dinner and help her children with homework, she said she was emotionally spent and had little to offer them in that way.
"That's my plan is I'm giving myself time and I'm going to be completely available to my husband and to my kids and decompress," she said.
Her mother, Johnnye Wilson, said she is very proud of her daughter and missed her terribly. However, with a long line of military members in her family, she is pleased with her service to country.
Though Cmdr. Blair plans to return to the states next year when her husband's contract is up, she will always hold a special place in her heart for the men and women she served.
"I have met a lot of 20-, 21-year-old kids that are phenomenal human beings, that are out there fearless, courageous, hardworking, patriotic, wonderful Americans," she said. "And I'm going to miss taking care of those patients because you don't get that in the civilian world."
