WWII Veteran Brings Comfort To Soldiers At Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital

Recently I have been doing some work for a client in my "hometown".  I say "hometown" because I grew up WAY out in the country.  Our phone exchange was from my "hometown" but our mail was from a different town, we lived in a different school district but went to school in yet a totally different town altogether.  Yeah, confusing.

Well, anyway....I had some requests for guitars for Chapels at new COPS and FOBS in Afghanistan.  You may remember that the Bart Crow Band donated three guitars for that purpose.  I had gotten another request for a guitar.  This one was a bit different but still a worthy request.  It was requested for the hospital at Bagram.  One day I left the building in which my client is located and, duh, realized there was a music store directly across the street.  Gist Music.  No website friends.  Mr. Morse Gist, the WWII Veteran mentioned in the title, doesn't have email and really isn't "into" technology.  I love his spirit.  He has no regular hours.  He goes to work when he "gets there" and leaves when "it's time." 

I crossed Main Street in this sleepy Delta town.  Man I wish I had a nickle for every time, as a teenager, I drove up and down that street on a weekend night; parked my car in one of the parking lots; sat on the hood of the car and hung out with my friends.  It's definitely not the same anymore.  Most of the buildings are vacant and in disrepair.  They do, however, throw one heck of a Blues Festival every Fall.

Main Street

So over to Gist Music I go

Gist Music Co

I introduced myself to Mr. Gist and told him who my dad was.  He immediately knew.  We chatted for a bit and I told him what I needed and why.  He showed me a few guitars (which I know NOTHING about).  I had to get back to work so I told him I'd come back the following day.  At this point I had no idea that Mr. Gist had served in the Air Force during WWII.

I returned the following day and Mr. Gist hooked me up big time with a really pretty guitar, a tuner, extra strings and some pics.  I promised Mr. Gist that I would keep him apprised of the journey of the guitar.  I got everything boxed up and shipping a day or two later.  It took it over three weeks to get to Bagram (unusual for most items I've sent there) but it arrived.  The Soldier I sent it too was busier than heck around the time it arrived and within a few days was sent out for a 3-4 week "out and about" to several remote COPS and FOBS.

Well............about a week ago I was trying to catch up on blogs.  I clicked on Soldiers Angels Germany's blog and found this heart wrenching story:

At Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital

Bagram hospital 1

June 1, 2009 - U.S. medical personnel wait for the arrival of helicopters carrying wounded soldiers at the U.S. hospital in Bagram Air base, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

 

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.

Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients. ...

It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.

By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief. ...

As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.

A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.

"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."

Bagram hospital 2

June 1, 2009 - A fellow soldier holds the hand of U.S. Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, as he informs him the names of three of their comrades that were killed in the attack that injured him at the U.S. hospital in Bagram Air base, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Vandegrift, of Bravo Company 287, 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, was wounded and three of his comrades died when the vehicle they were driving was hit by a roadside bomb in the Nerkh district of Wardak province. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

 

Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.

He called his father while still on the emergency room table.

"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.

Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll. ...

[Air Force Capt. Shannan] Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.

"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."

As I was reading along I saw the following picture and I gasp.  That's Mr. Gist's guitar!  I had NO doubt that was it.  And as luck would have it the Soldier I sent it to (who is with the 10th Mtn, 1-32 and was out at a remote base) was on line.  I sent him a quick email and he confirmed that is Mr. Gist's guitar!  Holy smokes!      

Bagram hospital 3

Then I read the caption for the photo and the remainder of the story and the tears wouldn't stop falling down my face.

June 2, 2009 - U.S. Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawai, plays the guitar for a wounded comrade at the U.S. hospital in Bagram Air base, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Vandegrift, of Bravo Company 287, 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, was wounded and three of his comrades died when the vehicle they were driving was hit by roadside bomb in the Nerkh district of Wardak province. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

 

In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.

Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The four Soldiers who were killed in the line of duty on June 1, 2009 in Nerkh, Afghanistan were: SSG Jeffrey A. Hall, SGT Jasper K. Obakrairur, PFC Matthew D. Ogden, and PFC Matthew W. Wilson, all of the 2nd BN, 87th Infantry Reg, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.

SSG Heath N. Craig, for whom the hospital is named, was a member of the 159th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) based in Wiesbaden, Germany. He died the night of June 21, 2006 during a rescue mission near Naray, Afghanistan.

On the next business day I kept checking to see if Mr. Gist had arrived at his store.  He did and I ran over with a printed copy (color) of the story and photos.   It was difficult to keep my emotions in check as I had, in the interim, discovered that Mr. Gist is a member of the "WWII Survivor's Club" in my "hometown."   I'm sure I sounded like a blubbering idiot as I attempted to explain the story without letting the cat out of the bag about the guitar.  When I did his mouth dropped open and he said very little other than, "I'm going to fax this to my children right now."  I left to go back to work but learned that as the day went on a couple of others of the "WWII Survivor's Club" had been told the story and it began to get around town.

Just amazing.  Absolutely amazing.  A simple guitar from a tiny, deeply depressed town in the Delta of Arkansas has made such a difference to Wounded Warriors in Afghanistan.  And every time I think about PFC Vandegrift playing "The Star Spangled Banner" to his fellow Wounded Warrior it brings tears to my eyes and chills to the rest of me.  God Bless these men and heal their bodies and spirits.  And may God also comfort the families of those who gave their lives that fateful day.