One of the unusual aspects of the war in Iraq is the number of injured Americans compared with American fatalities--a consequence of better medical procedures and better protective gear in the field. That fact has brought new meaning to the work of Mary Jo Abernethy A.M. '89.

Abernethy worked for eighteen years as a critical-care nurse at Duke. In 1992, she joined the Air National Guard, based in Charlotte, where she was part of a medical evacuation squadron. Five years later, she was working out of Scott Air Force Base in Illinois as a member of the Air Force Reserve. She was mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom during the early phase of the invasion. From February 2003 until November of that year, she was a flight nurse, at first flying in the military version of the DC-9, dubbed the "Nightingale," later flying in tankers and cargo planes--all resembling small, noisy hospital wards. (As a lieutenant colonel and chief nurse of the 932nd Medical Squadron, she continues to go back at least once a month for training missions.)

From Iraq, soldiers would be evacuated to Germany, and later to a major stateside recovery center like Walter Reed Army Medical Center or Bethesda Naval Hospital. Abernethy would be involved in the final leg of their trip, when they were flown from Washington to home squadrons and anxious families in Texas, Iowa, California, or elsewhere.

She's been impressed by the soldiers' selflessness. "For some of them, their lives are never going to be the same. And yet, I saw very little self-pity, if any. They were very proud of what they had done, and very ready to go back and do more."

While tending to medical needs in-flight--starting intravenous feeding or inserting a tube to aid breathing--she would spend a lot of time just talking with her patients. Part of her job, as she saw it, was to help them decompress from life on the battlefield and readjust to ordinary life. She notes that many of these soldiers are reservists who would be thrust back immediately into civilian jobs.

Abernethy says the work is taxing. None of the planes flown in her missions is designed to take care of patients, so she had to haul all of the medical supplies she needed, from bandages to defibrillators--and help carry "a litter with a 230-pound Marine on it." But, she adds, "The rewards are absolutely immeasurable--keeping them safe, making them as comfortable as you possibly can, and getting them back home."