An experienced emergency room physician who joined the Florida Army National Guard after 9/11 "to serve my country," Major (Dr.) Lisa DeWitt - by November 2004 - was in Iraq voluntarily serving as the surgeon for 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment and played a key medical role in Operation Phantom Fury (Al Fajr), the combined-joint assault to retake the city of Fallujah. In this especially revealing interview focusing primarily on the Fallujah operation, Dr. DeWitt discusses the lifesaving care she and her medical staff provided to the roughly 80 soldiers from 2-2 who were wounded during this decisive urban fight. She also talks, in powerfully detailed but reverential terms, about the five soldiers - or "angels" - whose lives they were ultimately not able to save. In addition, Dr. DeWitt speaks at length on the issue of noncombatants in the city, insisting that "there was not one old person, not one female, not one child in our entire sector, not one"; about the controversy over the Army’s use of white phosphorous rounds; the care she provided to Iraqi detainees; and about her experiences dealing with embedded reporters and her perceptions of the media in general. Beyond this, she offers unique insider perspectives on many of the principal leaders from 2-2, as well as on the battalion’s working (and fighting) relationship with Regimental Combat Team 7, the Marine Corps unit to which Task Force 2-2 was attached.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited