Gunnery Sgt.'s vigil at Landstuhl aided war wounded

[thedrifter]

Gunnery Sgt.'s vigil at Landstuhl aided war wounded


By David Josar, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, June 25, 2003


STUTTGART, Germany ? For more than three months, every injured Marine passing through Landstuhl Regional Medical Center saw the face of Marine Gunnery Sgt. Stanley Clark.

He was the Marine at their bedside handing them his cellular phone so they could call their family. He spent hours making phone calls or using the Internet to try and find where a Marine?s unit was in Iraq.

Clark, a 40-year-old reservist from Ohio, saw Marines passing through on their way to stateside hospitals with bones broken in accidents, faces damaged by gunfire and limbs lost in combat.

He would answer their questions, help them if he could and, generally, be a soothing presence in the aftermath of battle.

?Every Marine has a Marine as a point person,? explained Marine Maj. Tim Keefe, a spokesman for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe.

Emotionally, the assignment was grueling.

?It was hard but a great experience. It was a great opportunity to support Marines,? Clark said before returning to Ohio on Saturday. He plans to take a few weeks to spend with his wife, daughter and adult stepdaughter before returning to his job as a prison corrections officer.

Clark will be replaced by Marine Capt. Shannon Gainey. Gainey did a similar job at the U.S. military hospital in Rota, Spain, but nearly all casualties are now coming into Landstuhl.

A spokesman for Landstuhl said the other services also have liaison officers and that nearly every casualty flown into Germany is accompanied by a fellow servicemember.

Clark estimated 800 injured Marines came through Landstuhl and Rota.

One of Clark?s most difficult moments was when a Marine who sustained a crushing blow to the skull was flown to Germany. Doctors said ?time was running out? for the Marine, Clark recalled.

He and Gainey coordinated efforts to get the man?s wife and mother flown to Germany from the United States. When problems arose because family members did not have U.S. passports, Gainey contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., which was able to help get the family to Europe.

Other experiences he recalled included one in early March when a Marine injured in Iraq arrived. He had sustained severe face and leg injuries from a land mine. ?But he was still motivated,? Clark said. ?That?s a Marine.?

Another time, a Marine injured outside of Baghdad told Clark that before he was wounded, he never understood why training was so repetitive and constant.

Clark recalled the Marine telling him that as his buddies dragged his damaged body off the battlefield and got him medical care, he now understood why they worked so hard.

?He told me he wanted to get back in the fight. That before he was hurt, he was considering leaving the Marine Corps. Now he wants to stay,? Clark said.

Clark was a Marine for 13 years before joining the Reserves. He was activated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and worked as a hospital liaison. His military training is as a hospital administrator.

When combat began in Iraq, Clark said, he and other liaison officers began working nearly nonstop. A normal day could easily be 23 hours, he said.

Clark said while the Marines he dealt with had different injuries, their attitudes were constant.

?They always wanted to know where their unit was and what happened and where they were going,? he said. ?And they wanted to get back to the fight.?

Tracking down a Marine?s unit provided a challenge. Nearly every day, Clark would spend hours searching for one. Official sources were often slow to provide answers, but CNN would often have the information more quickly.

The job was taxing, and Clark said he shielded his wife and daughter from information about the casualties.

?What I was going through was nothing like what the other Marines were going through,? he said. ?I just told them I was taking care of Marines.?

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...&article=16235


Sempers,

Roger