I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when our security guy came up and said "what's your blood type?" I used to know this, I was even an EMT once, but frankly no one had asked me in over a decade and I couldn't remember with any certainty ... so off the to the hospital I go to find out.
The good news is that we go to a US Military hospital here. So all the needles are clean etc. and security is nice and tight too. In fact, side note, I carry a pocket knife around here. It's big for a pocket knife, and airport security would have a fit if you tried to bring it on the plane in the U.S., but here it's a joke. Every time I go through security and get patted down "Do you have a weapon?". "Just a pocket knife". The response is usually just a roll of the eyes and a dismissive wave to pass. Going into the hospital the other day the female soldier asked to see it, I pulled it out, and she said "oh, that's cute and all... go on in". I made an agreeing comment about the value of brining a knife to a gun fight. I want a weapons card. I have three guns in CA and zero in Baghdad; and they ship over so many soldier with guns to look after each of us you would think they'd just arm us too. In the early days of the CPA they did, I've heard stories of wire rimmed accountants walking around with a .45 under each arm.
Anyway, when we were walking into the hospital a helicopter came in to land and I said "I'll bet they're really busy in a few minutes". A few minutes later 3-4 soldiers came in carrying a local Iraqi on a stretcher/bed, he was apparently sedated. They started talking to a female doctor in the lobby, who was lounging outside when the helicopter came, and a couple other people in scrubs. The one soldier was saying "he's got a gunshot wound here (pointing to the guy's shoulder/arm, which was bandaged) and another one here (pointing to his hip/leg), and something down here too (pointing to one of his legs)". The doc said "okay thanks" and they took him to the back.
Dunno why they flew this guy into the hospital in the GZ. Maybe he was working for us and we wanted to make sure he was well treated (or not in danger from the other side), maybe he's a bad guy they want to interrogate when he wakes up, I dunno.
I do know that I was having a much better day than he was.
My sister's blog just had this same topic (www.davisworldtour.com); if I was born here I would probably would have been on that stretcher, or worse, a long time ago.