Fall 2008 - Austin Peay State University

to speak at the International Conference on
Iraqi War Amputees.
As a civilian, he gained a new perspective.
“When you don’t carry a gun, they look at
you differently,” he says. “There are many
educated people inside Iraq.
“The most interesting part of the conference
was talking to them over meals and getting
their take on the war. It was unanimous:
The No. 1 mistake they say America made
was giving sovereignty back to the people of
Iraq too early.
“They didn’t have the basic infrastructure
in place to form a sustainable government.
“These are men, women and children who
never had a local government, much less a
regional or federal government that they
could trust. There was no rule of law.
Saddam’s government could harm, even kill,
its citizens and routinely did so when it was
expedient.
“Think about you and your family living in
an environment where the government, not
the people, is sovereign, and the government
is by far your most dangerous enemy.”
Guts and glory
Mosley wasn’t always a grizzled veteran.
He recalls his first trip to the Middle East.
“Everything was good at home. I was fine
spiritually and in every way. But I was called
up, so I said to myself, ‘OK. You’re a member
of the Guard, and this is your job. Go do it.’”
When his plane arrived in Afghanistan, he
and the others aboard were instructed to walk
in single file and keep a close watch for land
mines. Looking around his desolate destination,
Mosley admits he thought to himself:
“How did I get here?”
“But you have responsibilities in this
world,” he says. “You go and face them. You
don’t look back.”
His responsibilities took him next to Iraq,
where he was deployed, not only as a surgeon,
but also as deputy commander for clinical
services for the Mosul hospital.
“My unit had 140 soldiers. There were
three operating rooms,” he says. “And we
worked all three 24-7. It was grueling, but our
mission was to save life, limb and eye sight.”
After wounded soldiers received treatment
at Mosley’s hospital, he had to decide
whether each could return to duty or would
be evacuated to other medical centers, such as
Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., for convalescence
and physical therapy.
Interestingly, the majority of the patients
Mosley saw in the hospital were not
Mosley operates to save the foot of an Iraqi soldier injured as a result of multiple AK-47 rounds during a firefight
against the al-Qaida. Mosley worked with vendors in the U.S. to piece together an external fixator
being placed on the soldier’s foot. Mosley says such medical equipment is not readily available in Iraq.
Americans. Counting off on his fingers, he
says, “By order of the number of wounded
we saw, the largest number was local national
civilians; the second largest was local national
military; the third largest was detainees—
those people we are fighting; the fourth
largest, our coalition partners.
“The smallest group was U.S. civilians,
including U.S. military and contractors.”
Mosley recalls March 27, 2007, as “the single
largest day of carnage” in Iraq. “It was Muslim
on Muslim violence,” Mosley says. “Wellarmed
terrorists against women and children.
“In a small, peaceful village near our hospital,
al-Qaida detonated a bomb hidden inside a
flour truck. More than 300 women and children
were killed or injured by those cowards,”
he says. “As Americans, we should pause and
consider why terrorists choose to commit such
atrocities against women and children of their
own race and religion.”
The answer, he insists, lies in what terrorists
fear most—freedom.
People to people
Mosley savored opportunities to interact
with the local nationals in Iraq—as he put it:
“To let them see an American without a
gun—it’s the best part of America we have to
offer. And it’s an awesome responsibility.”
Watching members of Congress discuss the
war after his most recent return to the U.S.
brought his ire to a boil. “Congress—our
elected representatives and senators—simply
do not have a good handle on what’s happening
in this war,” he says, frustration rising in
his voice. “The quality of their ‘photo ops’ is
inversely proportional to the quality of the
insight gained from their weekend junkets.”
He is concerned that our military is being
tasked to carry out two diametrically opposed
missions in the Middle East. “At first, our military
was told to find and eliminate the enemy.
And they’ve done a great job with that mission,”
he says. “Now, we ask the same military
to go win the hearts of the Iraqi and Afghani
civilians. Those two missions just don’t go
hand in hand—not for our military and certainly
not for the affected civilian populations.”
Nevertheless, Mosley is convinced peace in
the Middle East can be accomplished. How?
He says, “We have to be creative and focus
on our commonalities. The concern of mothers
and fathers is universal. They want safety,
security and opportunity for themselves and
their children.
Photo Courtesy Wayne Mosley, M.D.
4 Austin Peay