Paramedic Navy corpsman Eric Stanton doesn't care much about getting his 15 minutes of fame, but when fellow citizens aren't getting a true picture of American accomplishments in Afghanistan, he wants the record set straight.
After four months as a field medic dispensing health care to primitive villages and supporting the Marines - dodging Taliban ambushes and hidden explosives along the way - Stanton can claim the inside track.
A nationally certified paramedic with a business degree from Clemson University, Stanton, 32, left his Ocean Lakes home and career with Horry County Fire Rescue in April to assist a specialized shock-trauma platoon roaming remote fringes of Afghanistan, where medical personnel are in short supply.
The first thing you need to understand is the place.
"Pictures of Mars are perfect," Stanton said of the reddish-brown rock that defines Afghanistan. Then there's the ubiquitous sand. "Take baby powder, and blow it in your face. That's what it feels like all day."
Working in windy altitudes around 8,000 feet was another adjustment. And the heat, even for a native South Carolinian, was oppressive.
"The coldest it got was 90 degrees, the hottest was 130. And we were wearing heavy armor," Stanton said.
Next, there's the culture, a generous term by most standards.
"Out in the villages, they're still riding donkeys and camels. Houses are twigs and mud. Animal storage is inside the house - even in the bedroom," Stanton said. "It was like living in biblical times again. They sleep in goat and sheep feces, and it wasn't a major issue to them. They had no sense of hygiene, urinate in the water sources, but would wash their hands and feet before prayer."
Stanton, who missed his wife, Theresa, more than anything else, said medics were required to treat men first, then children. Women were always last, if at all.
"Adult women are considered lesser beings than animals. Their only value is child bearing and work in the home," said Stanton, who heard that females who can't conceive can be killed or sold into slavery.
While overseas, Stanton discovered he would become a first-time father, but his joy was short-lived. "We can make a 10-minute phone call once a week. By chance, it was the day Theresa found out she had a miscarriage."
Beyond torturous topography, culture shock and personal angst, Americans still have the Taliban to contend with, whose tactics remind Stanton of the 1920s Mafia.
"They tell villagers Americans have come to destroy their livelihood - to rape and pillage," he said. Posing as friends, the Taliban promise poor villagers protection in exchange for a percentage of their opium crops. Fighting propaganda through interpreters is another battle.
"Taliban were too chicken to come up to us. They fire from a distance," said Stanton, who is grateful that an ambush claimed only one colleague in six months. "The AK-47s are terrible shots." But rocket-propelled grenades, which can sustain casualties within a 50-meter radius, were another story. "We only carry weapons to defend ourselves and our patients," Stanton said.
The primary threat to American convoys is improvised explosive devices. Designing death traps from discarded land mines is a favorite Taliban hobby, but the real art is concealing them.
"When you learn Taliban techniques - where they place IEDs - everybody tenses up. You're hoping it won't be your vehicle, then you hope it won't be the next," Stanton said. "You wonder if this is it."
Like most soldiers, Stanton says he accepted that aiding Afghanistan would cost American lives, possibly his. But he knows he's made a difference.
"We'd set up mobile medical clinics to treat general complaints. We were establishing friendly communication with people who usually travel for days to get substandard medical treatment," he said.
Stanton says initial gratitude becomes trust, and that rapport translates to valuable military intelligence only insiders such as village elders can pass along. But that takes time.
Stanton was on call at Forward Operating Base Ripley, while a medical team traveled to Tarin Kowt Hospital where doctors would routinely diagnose more than 300 people in four or five hours inside a security perimeter.
One of them was a child who'd been playing in an opium field, got thirsty and drank the milky substance used to manufacture heroin and morphine. The girl, 7, was in grave condition by the time the medical team called Stanton to get a trauma bed ready. When she arrived, unresponsive and turning blue, he spent several hours stabilizing her.
"She was critical enough to go all the way to Bagram the next level of care -- a three-hour flight by C-130 cargo prop plane," Stanton said. "We actually flew in an eight-person crew to pick her up with her nurse."
Stanton earned one of his eight citations for helping the girl, who spent a week in the hospital before a helicopter returned her to her village.
"I was hoping she'd make it," he said. "Since the '70s, these people have only known war and battle. They didn't know anyone would take care of them."
And that's the story Stanton wants you to hear.
"We offer them a better life through improved health care. The Army Corps of Engineers is building wells. That's the first step: a clean water source," he said. The next is education. "We're trying to establish schools."
Stanton fears reports from Afghanistan "make it sound like we're losing Operation Enduring Freedom, when we were winning the hearts and minds of these people. They were begging us to come back."
One story said the Afghani National Army is young and poorly trained.
"That's very untrue. We had Freedom Fighters that once fought the Russians fighting with us," Stanton said. "I would trust them any day to do their job."
"President Bush told us this isn't short term. It will take more than 10 years. But Americans want it now," Stanton said. "We can't have it now."
In February, Marines will deploy to Iraq, where qualified medics will again be in short supply. Until then, Stanton enjoys what he has in life and prays that war-torn country isn't in his future. He's sure "Mars" was a picnic compared with Iraq.
"Just hope my name doesn't get pulled from the special jar," he said.
