U.S. Army Maj. Kristina Walich, orthopedic surgeon from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, working with the 555th Forward Surgical Team at Forward Operating Base Wright in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province. Walich is mother to 4-year-old and 11-month-old daughters.
--Of the 11 Soldiers with the Forward Surgical Team, several are mothers. This Mother's Day, rather than being home with their own children, they will spend their time here, possibly saving someone else's.
"They think the American doctors do miracles, that we do magic," said U.S. Army Maj. Kristina Walich, an orthpedic surgeon from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and mother of 4-year-old and 11-month-old daughters. "They think we're miracle doctors because we're providing care that they've never had exposure too. So that is very rewarding when I see how just a little thing I did changed a child's life."
The primary mission of the FST consists of providing lifesaving measures to wounded servicemembers, both U.S. and Afghan. When time provides, the medics also reach out and help locals in the neighboring villages.
"I just don't see it as a sacrifice, I really don't," said U.S. Army Capt. Nancy Emma, the FST chief nurse, who was also deployed to Iraq from 2003 to 2004. "This is my job and if I had to come back again, I would, because there is no one better than us to take care of them."
Both Emma, who is also from San Antonio, and U.S. Army Capt. Mari Groebner, FST operations room registered nurse, have three children and two grandchildren.
After graduating from the University of Texas at El Paso, her hometown, Groebner joined the military in 2004 while her son, a Marine, was on his second tour serving in Iraq. When she finally received deployment orders her son teasingly told her, "It's about time you go."
Her husband spent the first ten years of their marriage serving in the military and told her if it was what she wanted, go for it. So at the age of 41, she followed her heart and joined the Army, signing up for a career field that the military was in need of.
Attached to the FST and stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, where she works in the operating room, she said seeing the Soldiers here immediately coming from the battlefield gives her a different perspective.
"I look at these kids and that is exactly what they are, they're the same age as my children," Groebner said. "You're just glad to be able to do what you can."
For 56-year-old Emma, after serving 27 years in the military she also sees the majority of Soldiers as her children. Not just the ones coming through the hospital, but all the servicemembers deployed here. The troops go to her for advice or just for someone to talk to.
For Walich, who arrived in Afghanistan in December after leaving her daughters with her husband, an Air Force psychiatrist, she knows the deployment presents many challenges but said the rewards are greater. Over the winter time in Kunar province, trauma cases have slowed down, and she was able to spend time working with local Afghan children needing medical attention.
"What is interesting to me is a lot of the children come in alone, the parents are not with them," Walich said. "Or they come in with their big brother, who in this society can be eight years old and works and earns a living. So for decision making, you have an 8-year-old who is not very mature but yet they are a guardian for the 3-year-old."
This was the situation when Soldiers brought in a child from a nearby village. The child broke his finger and developed a severe infection. Walich explained to the child's 8-year-old brother that he needed to have surgery or the infection could spread and he could die, but the brother adamantly refused.
"There was nothing I could do so they left," she said.
Fortunately, the Soldiers returned to the village to look for the parents. Two days later they brought the child and parents back in, and Walich was able to perform surgery-saving the child.
"For all the children we see here who have gone through these terrible things, I've been able to help so many of them. You cannot save every life, but for the few you do make a change for, it makes it worth it," Walich said.
The most common cases with the children are burns and broken bones, but they also get children who are 5 and 6 years old with correctable physical deformities, but have never seen a doctor.
Even though the team agrees the risk is worth it, the price they pay is still a high one and every mother has her own way of dealing with the pains of separation.
Some have left special photos behind and videos for their children to remember them by while they are gone. They all agree using Skype over the computer is one of their most valuable commodities. With this, Pellerin sings to her baby boy and even if the connection is bad and he cannot see her, he still quiets down and listens.
"I want to be the one to comfort Cardaye and reassure him that everything is okay, but I'm not there and it's pretty hard," Pellerin said. "But I do this so one day he won't have to work as hard and go through what I have gone through. It's to make it better for him so he can have a better life."
Walich's family has a "flat mommy" – a life size photo her husband made that sits at the table to share all the meals. She also has a jelly bean jar for her oldest daughter, Adeleine, that represents the number of days she will be gone. Adeleine gets a bean a day while her mother is deployed.
Additionally, the support they receive from back home they all say is tremendous. From friends, to family members, to husbands, it's their loved ones that enable them to keep going. Simple tasks like registering the children for school or scheduling doctor's appointments are things these mothers all have to rely on others to do while they work grueling hours thousands of miles away.
Walich's in-laws moved to San Antonio to help with their two girls. As for Pallerin, her mother is helping to raise her son while she is deployed.
"During my whole military career, my mom has been there for me," Pallerin said, who sent her mother flowers for Mother's Day. "I never thought I would have gotten to the point I am right now, and I wouldn't have without my mom. She's my rock and that is my intent, to be all that I can be just like my mom."
For Walich, her time is short. She returns to San Antonio next month, and her daughter Adeleine knows mommy is coming home because, she said, "the jelly beans are almost gone." For the rest of the FST, they still have many months left of doing "magic" before they return home to their own little miracles.
