August 16, 2005
Major ButaniMilitary
Yahoo India has the story of returning Army doctor Major Raj Butani:
They could see the buses rolling out across the airbase tarmac but were not sure their soldier son, Iraq returnee Major Raj Butani of the US 2nd Brigade, was in one of them.
But Chandru Butani’s account of his son’s experiences is immediate, raw, throbbing and is perhaps the first authentic, first-hand account by an Indian American of life with the US army in Iraq.
Sleeping on top of an ambulance… gazing at the night sky in a steamy, dark desert… seeing friends blown to pieces…
Butani and his wife had heard from their son sparingly, once in a while when he could send an email or talk over the phone, but army regulations did not allow him to give much detail.
Butani explained why they had been ‘on the racks’ all the while. Raj had been posted in Ramadi, which forms part of the Sunni Triangle, an area with the highest resistance to US presence.
The “first authentic, first hand account” part is wrong of course, but a doctor does provide a different perspective than a tank commander. My own cousin was a Devil Doc in the group of Marines that sped toward Baghdad during the opening week of the war. Having to care for friend and foe with equal vigor is a difficult situation from what he told me.
Said father Butani, ‘One of the worst incidents happened when his Physician Assistant and closest friend, who shared room with him at the Ramadi Base, was slain when an IED blew his vehicle to smithereens. I remember Raj being devastated for several weeks. Being his closest friend, he read out the eulogy, and he completely broke down.
You can read more about this Lehigh University Alum here.
abhi on August 16, 2005 12:38 AM in Military · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Another desi American doc in Iraq: Dr. Sudip Bose.
abhi,
The top link seems to go to the Lehigh site instead of the yahoo article? Or am I just clicking wrong? (yes, it can be done, and yes, I do it all the time. Still haven't got the reading glasses I need. Which old lady style should I get? :)
Anyway, interesting post. He seems to have graduated from one of those six year combined medical programs. I have a lot of respect for those grads - I needed the extra couple years for, well, emotional maturity really.
*Oh, and please thank your cousin for his service, abhi. It is much appreciated. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been.
Oh, and Manish, re: the Franken meat thread. I'm still trying to track down the slide we made of the hot dog so I can post it on my site.
There was some sort of glandular tissue - don't know what organ it was, I don't usually look at animal tissues under the microscope - that made me gag. The residents kept joking it was testicular tissue or some sort of anal glands.....they like to gross each other out for some reason. Hard to do with pathologists.
Sorry MD. The link is fixed now.
Abhi wrote, "My own cousin [...]"
You can take a desi out of India, but....
:-)