Photos

For many of the sailors at Taqaddum Surgical, it?s an indescribable feeling to lose a fellow service member. Navy Lt. Darren C. Cherry, flight surgeon with the Air Combat Element Clinic here, takes a moment to collect himself April 13, 2006, after losing a patient who was injured in an insurgent attack in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. Cherry, a 28-year-old native of Denver, said, ?I was pretty much just mentally exhausted. We? spent over two hours trying to save him.? Cherry and the rest of the ACE Clinic often lend a hand to Taqaddum Surgical as the busy unit handles the duties of both a shock trauma platoon and a forward resuscitative surgical suite here, which are essentially makeshift emergency and operating rooms. When a service member is injured in battle in the Al Anbar Province, he receives specialized resuscitative treatment from the STP, with surgery provided by the FRSS. More extensive care is provided at one of the Combat Army Surgical Hospitals in Baghdad or Balad.