Retired Lt. Col. Laurie Knepper is the very best kind of person, a Washington Examiner subscriber. She and I talked for a long time. There’s a certain ease and comfort when discussing life with Washington Examiner people. We don’t always agree about everything, but we generally have the right baseline values, engendering trust, especially among veterans.
She contacted me because, like me and every other veteran I talk to, she’s upset about the misguided leftist agenda in our military in general and the betrayal and abandonment of our missions in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. She offered a needed reminder of the wonderful people who’ve served in our military and the great things they’ve done.
Unlike many who start out in the service with very little experience, Knepper had a nursing degree and had worked in the most intense emergency medical situations at a hospital in inner-city Fort Worth, Texas. “I learned more in that hospital than anywhere,” she said.
One day, a heart surgeon suggested she join the Air Force. In 1988, she took a direct commission as a second lieutenant and began a military career that would last 21 years. Being a newbie, she was at first assigned the most basic tasks, but Knepper reminded her superiors that she had already seen the worst and could handle anything.
That self-assuredness was put to the test on June 25, 1996, when terrorists attacked the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia with a truck bomb. Many U.S. military members were staying there, working to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. Knepper was serving at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on air-evac alert. As soon as possible, she and her team were aboard a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter for an eight-hour flight to Saudi Arabia.
It was Knepper’s first mass casualty event. She thought they would land, load casualties, and return to Ramstein. But as happens so often in the military, the unexpected forced a change of plans. She encountered broken bones, lacerations, head injuries, and pressure injuries in lungs. The casualties were stabilized in a hangar but not ready to go.
“You can’t just load [the casualties] and not know who you have,” she said. “They have to be identified correctly in case you go down.”
Knepper also had to make sure they had the right drugs, as well as equipment including ventilators, backup ventilators, and generators. They had to determine the maximum altitude of the flight. Certain eye and lung injuries are dangerously sensitive to lower-pressure environments at higher altitude. These considerations affected fueling because flying at lower altitude through denser air slows an aircraft and requires more fuel. It took time to obtain air space clearance from the Saudis. As medical crew director, Knepper spent three days in Saudi Arabia dealing with many complex variables.
When at last 53 casualties were loaded onto the aircraft, everyone prepared for takeoff. Knepper and her medical team could see fuel leaking off the wings of the old C-141. “By that point, we were saying, get out the duct tape! Let’s go!”
Most of the casualties were lucid. People had to shout to be heard over the loud drone in the cargo plane. “You’re supposed to wear earplugs the whole time, but most of the nurses didn’t because they needed to hear the patients.”
At last, the 53 patients arrived for continued medical treatment at the hospital in Germany. How does she feel about her mission? “I’m proud of it. We did a good job in a bad situation. The patients stayed safe.”
Fifty-three good Americans survived to return to their families thanks to the hard work and dedication of Lt. Col. Laurie Knepper and her team. Her story is a much-needed reminder, in these troubled times, of the very best in all of us. As long as we still have people like her, there’s still hope.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
