What I Have Learned in Afghanistan

My friend, Lucinda Valenti, wrote this.  She was our chaplain until a few weeks ago.  I thought this had a lot of truth to it.



Things I have learned in Afghanistan:
-It is okay for a big burly Marine to hold his badly hurt buddy’s hand  while they are lying on stretchers waiting to be loaded on an airplane to go home.
-It is okay for nurses to cry over pts.
-It is okay for me to cry with the nurses.
-It is okay for me to sit in the middle of the hallway praying with a soldier for his buddy lying in ICU.
-It is okay to laugh when an 18 yr. old soldier says-“Afghanistan is not so bad except for the bullets.” (Said as he lying on a gurney shot up).
-It is okay to call in help when the patient I am talking to goes into Cardiac Arrest.
-It is not okay for a patient to have a heart attack on my couch-especially when there is a perfectly good ER right down the hall.
-It is okay for me to claim foul when a child is hit, even if it is a “cultural norm”
-It is okay for me to have a little freak out after the bad guys have been stopped from coming over the fence by helicopters flying over my hut.
-It is okay for me to just be with patients and staff-nobody talking, just there.
-It is okay to do a doggie death notification when a distraught daddy stateside needs to tell his daughter (who is a 1st time deployer, 4 days in Afghanistan) that he accidently killed her beloved pet.

-It is okay to laugh hysterically with the Rabbi at 2 in the morning over absolutely nothing.

-It is okay to “bag” (perform breathing resuscitation procedures) and pray at the same time

-It is not okay to “lose it” in the middle of a child dying but it is okay to “lose it” a little when you get back to your office and the door is closed.

-It is okay to think “really God-there is a purpose for all of this?” It is not okay for that thought to paralyze me.

-It is okay to pray the same prayer day in and day out-God protect our Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and Sailors and if they come through my Trauma Bay please guide the Doctors, Techs and Nurses hands and hearts.  

-It is okay to know that sometimes it just a different kind of crazy every day

-It is okay to teach 20 Afghan young men the meaning of “Y’all”

-It is okay to be very impressed with President Obama when he tells us he doesn’t know how we do what we do every day.

-It is okay to smile at the end of the day when you know you are a hospital chaplain when you empty your pockets and pull out a pulse O2 meter and 3 Saint Medallions