Tulsi Gabbard Instagram – Quote 1/2 “You never really know completely what to expect on a deployment. You hear a lot, you feel like you go through an endless amount of training, but when push comes to shove, the reality is never a carbon copy of what you trained for. For me, serving in a medical unit, the realities of the human cost of war were ever present. We were primarily at LSA (Logistical Support Area) Anaconda in Iraq. Just about everybody went through there at one point or another, and our brigade went to four different battle spaces in the country. I moved around a little bit to help our medical guys who were out supporting the other teams. 
On day two, I was walking around the camp at the north gate. For those who were there, you will remember very clearly, there’s a huge sign. I don’t know who made it, but there’s a huge sign with big block letters at the gate. Before you leave every day, you see this sign that reads, ‘IS TODAY THE DAY?’ That was an ever present reminder that any day could be our last. Personally understanding and accepting that reality of life and death, and wanting to make the most of life, not knowing how much time we have was massive for me. This was further settled in and reinforced when we had our first casualty. And again every single day, as I executed my first duty each morning — to review the latest list generated by the Force Commander for the country. Name by name, I went through the list of everyone who had been hurt or injured in the previous 24 hours, and I would look for any of the people who belonged to our brigade combat team. My job was to make sure they were getting the care they needed. Some would stay in-country, and others needed to be evacuated as quickly as possible. I would follow them until they were back home to their families. It was tough seeing the names of people I knew, and there were a lot of people who I didn’t know, but understanding with every one of those names, there’s a loved one or a family or a child back home who were worried sick about them.” — LTC Tulsi Gabbard (Army, OIF Veteran) @tulsigabbard Project No. 62 Podcast No. 52