A Marine Psychologist Writes About Her Deployment While She Served At The Al Asad Airbase In Iraq.

Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital is a unique, comprehensive account of a soldier’s time in Iraq. Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft writes from the perspective of an American, a wife, a mother, a Marine, and a psychologist. Dr. Kraft tells her poignant story.

The Realities of War

Given only a two weeks’ notice, Dr. Kraft is deployed to serve at Al Asad Airfield in Iraq. She must leave her husband and 15-month twins behind, while her parents and sister help take care of her children. Dr. Kraft and her colleagues are asked to function normally under extremely abnormal circumstances. The daily obstacles she and her colleagues face not only run deep but also remain hidden.

The emotional and physical traumas the soldiers endure leave practitioners exhausted and, often, devastated. Dr. Kraft portrays the Marines as heroic and strong human beings. As expected, their experiences affect everyone on the base. The war creeps into all soldiers. Some are more fortunate than others. The countless cases of wounds, fractures, and injuries physically and mentally drain the human body and spirit.

The Rules of War

During her deployment, Dr. Kraft learns the two most basic rules of war. In a dialogue with her colleague, Dr. Kraft remembers the television show M*A*S*H. The character Henry tells Hawkeye the harsh, but true reality about “the rules.” “Rule number one is that young men die. Rule number two is that doctors can’t change rule number one.”

While on base, soldiers are allotted thirty minutes each day to view their email in the Internet Cafe. While she misses her family, Dr. Kraft makes a conscious choice between being a psychologist or a mother. In wartime, she feels she cannot do both. Her email updates from her family keep her connected to home. But the distance is unbearable at times. The events she misses, especially with her children are the most difficult.

Rule Number Two is not a psychological analysis of the war. It is a culmination of the simple stories which affect many soldiers’ lives and their families. The physicians who treat them were also deeply affected by their presence and willingness to serve the country.

Dr. Kraft mentions some instances of horrifying helplessness, yet, remarkable moments of hope in a desert of war. The touch of a hand, the blood on boots, and just the right words all raise the question of “Why does someone survive and the other does not?” In war, as Dr. Kraft illustrates several times, the human condition is ever so fragile and deserves care.

Post 9/11

When Dr. Kraft arrives home, she rewrites the rules as "Rule number one might now state that war damages people, Rule number two, of course, would be unchanged. I was certain of one truth, though...: War damages doctors too. They are damaged by rule number two."

Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital

Dr. Heidi Kraft

Little, Brown & Co., October 24, 2007

ISBN: 0316067903, 256 pgs., $16.31