An orthopedic surgeon in command of the 274th Forward Surgical Team in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from February to August 2003, Lieutenant Colonel (Dr.) Richard Pope was tasked with providing surgical support to enemy prisoners of war, displaced Iraqi civilians and U.S. and coalition forces prior to, during and immediately following the major combat phase. Dealing with everything from severe burns to gunshot and shrapnel wounds, at various times his team was assigned to the 3rd Infantry and 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, and, with them, traveled the full length of the battlespace. Pope discusses at length his work with interpreters, Iraqi physicians, the state of the country's medical infrastructure, and how coalition forces - as well as his personnel - were greeted and perceived by the populace. The most difficult aspect of his deployment was operating on Iraqi children who had "picked up ordnance and had it explode on them," and most frustrating was how some medical units were either unable or unwilling to take pediatric cases. According to Pope, great things could very well result from being better able to care for civilians. Case in point was a conversation he had with an Iraqi imam. “‘I don’t like U.S. soldiers being here,’” the religious leader said to Pope. “‘I don’t like the influence you’re exerting on our country. But when I see what you, as doctors, do for my people when they’re wounded, it softens my heart towards you.’ Otherwise, this guy would have spit in our eye the first chance he got, but what we were doing medically for those people in that area changed his mind about the U.S.”

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