by Tara Beverly

Imagine life in a war zone. While you sleep you can hear mortars, gunfire and missiles exploding in the night. You sleep in a trailer guarded by soldiers. But you’re there not to fight but to save lives. Maj. Tracy Ringo, D.O. (’00), lived this life for three months, serving as chief medical officer for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

In Iraq, Ringo served with three fellow medical school alums, Maj. Tim Wagner, D.O. (’98); Lt. Col. Gregory Hill, D.O. (’86); and Lt. Col. Terry Johnson, D.O. (’91). All are graduates of OU-COM and members of the Ohio Army National Guard. The quartet served in a rotation of senior medical officers who relieved each other after three months of service in Iraq. Ringo was the only female in the group.

After coming back to the United States in November 2004, Ringo reflected on her wartime experience.

“It was difficult to go to Iraq, and before leaving, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go,” says Ringo. To her surprise, once she was there she says she found the job very fulfilling. “I was needed and depended on.” Two weeks after getting to Iraq, she was promoted from captain to major.

“It was the clinical skills I acquired during my family practice residency at Richmond Heights Hospital that prepared me for the mission in Iraq,” says Ringo.

“In the states, I practice family medicine at Lake Hospital in Willowick,” she says. “In Iraq, I lived in a trailer with three other soldiers.”

Although she and the others had indoor plumbing, air conditioning, laundry facilities and four “square” meals a day, living in Iraq was a different life, she says.

“We lived in what the military calls ‘The Green Zone.’ This is also known as the International Zone. It was supposed to be, in theory, a safe zone,” says Ringo. “But mortars and rockets were constantly fired into the zone.”

As chief medical officer, she was in charge of the medical care for the thousands of residents within the Presidential Palace, which included ambassadors and generals. There were also more than 5,000 Iraqis living there. Ringo and her staff also had to come up with a mass casualty plan.

“After producing the plan, we had to convince the generals and ambassadors that it would work,” she says.

Ringo was not only in charge of the Presidential Palace clinic but also in charge of emergency medical services; so even when Ringo and her team were not in the clinic, they were on call 24 hours a day.

“Calls at 2 or 3 a.m. to treat people needing emergency care for cardiac problems and heat stroke were not at all unusual,” says Ringo. When she went out at night, she says, “It was very scary because of the constant gunfire. It seemed like the team was always in danger. The situation was very stressful. Fortunately, I never had to travel alone.”

 While working in the embassy, Ringo says hypertension among the soldiers and civilians was something that worried her a great deal.

“I was very concerned about their blood pressures. The soldiers from Nepal had the worse pressures.”

People — both civilian and military — often worked 18- to 20-hour days, seven days a week and could work these hours for six months straight, she says. Personnel found themselves suffering illnesses resulting from the lack of adequate sleep.

“I had to remind them that it ‘didn’t matter if you were killed by a weapon or a heart attack, your family would still be affected by it.’ We really pushed for preventive care as much as we could in a war zone,” says Ringo.

In the Green Zone, she treated Iraqi citizens as well. She talked about an experience that she had with an Iraqi woman.

“The Iraqi women are very stoic and don’t complain. There was a 50-year-old Iraqi woman that I treated that was one of the housekeepers at the palace. She was about five feet tall and weighed about 300 pounds. Her legs were very swollen, and her shoes didn’t fit very well. I don’t think she could afford new ones. The woman was having a heart attack, and we were trying to take her out of the palace to an ambulance in a makeshift wheelchair. She was so calm; she didn’t seem frightened at all. She ended up okay, and I was really amazed by how strong she was,” says Ringo.

“She was a very sweet lady. We couldn’t communicate through language, but we did through hugs and smiles,” she adds.

She also described an incident in which a civilian contractor was hurt. While writing an e-mail to his wife, he was hit by mortar explosion. He was in serious condition, sustaining injuries to his upper body. Ringo says she was inspired by seeing, despite how shook up he was, how determined he was to stay, believing that he was going to be okay.

To serve in Iraq, Ringo had to leave behind her family. While in Iraq, her father died unexpectedly.

“My dad died suddenly, and I came home for a week for the funeral services. After that, it was very hard going back to Iraq — I had to try to get through his death alone. Even though I had support from my colleagues, it still wasn’t easy. We did have cell phones, and through those, our families could contact us. That helped,” she says.

“People felt safer with us there, which was very rewarding to me. It was sort of like a college campus, because you are treating people you might see five to seven times a day. If it wasn’t for my family and the situation of losing my dad, I probably would have opted to stay a little longer,” says Ringo.

“Everyone should support the troops,” she says. “Send them packages, and write them letters. We started something huge over there, and it is going to be very hard to walk away. We are in it for the long run; I think we will be there for a while.”