For Army Doctor, No Patient Is the Enemy

For three weeks, Army Maj. Trey Kirby, the 41-year-old battalion surgeon with Cyclone Company, has been searching for a frame of reference for this war.

It’s not Vietnam, a conflict he can remember from childhood, though of late it has been that lush and humid here. It’s not quite Kosovo or Somalia, either, though it’s got the cat-and-mouse elements of those engagements.

For Kirby, Iraq is a war without enemies. He has treated more civilians and prisoners than his fellow troops -- not that he’s complaining.

“I hate having to do it, but I love doing it when I have to,” said Kirby, a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, his light drawl revealing his roots in McMinnville, Tenn.

On Sunday, Kirby was watching his staff stick intravenous needles into the arms of soldiers wilting in the wet-cotton humidity of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley when he was called to the front.

When he got to the forward surgical station, less than 10 miles from downtown Baghdad, Kirby once again found no wounded colleagues. He saw a boy, 14, with shrapnel in his leg and back and two men in their 20s with shrapnel wounds. Behind them was a stream of several hundred refugees heading out of Baghdad, carrying what they could, and looking for help.

“I don’t know where they were from,” Kirby said. “The funny thing is, I didn’t feel threatened. They were touching and patting us. They were very thankful.”

Most had wounds they could tend themselves, and Kirby and his team of medics handed out bandages. “They were offering me money; they were offering me cigarettes,” he said. “They were probably not used to getting anything for free.”

Kirby was aware that U.S. bombs and bullets probably caused the injuries he has been treating. U.S. forces have stepped up bombing in the capital, focusing their attacks on routes the troops expect to travel when they storm the city.

“I hope they stop fighting soon,” he said. “I’d hate to see more people get killed.”

Without a translator, Kirby and his medics were perplexed by what the refugees were saying. They would point to a body part and say, “Boom.”

“It’s like practicing veterinary medicine: They can’t tell you what’s wrong, but they all know the universal language of ‘ow,’ ” he said, breaking into a grin.

Born Homer E. Kirby -- a name that got laughs even before “The Simpsons” debuted on TV -- the surgeon came to the Army by way of a cocktail party. He was a laboratory technician in the Air Force, having believed a vague recruiting promise about becoming a doctor on the U.S. taxpayers’ tab, only to find himself assigned to Caribou, Maine.

When he got accepted at a medical school, the Air Force wouldn’t let him go, or pay, Kirby said. He decided to find a way to finance school himself.

One day at a cocktail party he met a man who would end up providing the solution to Kirby’s problem. “He introduced himself as Mike, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m Trey.’ We got to talking.”

The chat wound its way to what Kirby did for a living. He unloaded his bitter tale, then asked what kind of work Mike did.

“I’m a doctor in the Army,” Mike said.

“How long you been doing it?” a suddenly curious Kirby asked.

“Twenty-three years,” Mike replied.

“I calculated it out. I said, ‘I guess it must be “sir,” then,’ ” Kirby recalled. That’s when Mike introduced himself as Maj. Gen. Mike Scotty and said, “Give me your card or some way to reach you, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Kirby wondered whether it was the alcohol talking, but a few weeks later he got a frantic call from a captain who said a general was on his back to locate a Capt. Homer E. Kirby in the Air Force. They had a full-ride scholarship for him.

After an internship at Ft. Benning, Kirby became a family-practice doctor and arrived at Ft. Stewart, Ga., home to the 3rd Infantry Division, in July 2001.

“And I haven’t had a birthday there yet,” he said.

Kirby turned 41 on Saturday, and the only flickering lights he saw were those from burning tanks.