AFGHANISTAN, - Suspended 5,000 feet above the arid foothills of the Hindu Kush in western Afghanistan, an Afghan army soldier lies prostrate on the floor of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter.
Tubes and wires dangle over his still body.
The scene is commonplace for the Louisiana National Guard members of the "Bayou Dustoff," Foxtrot Company, 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment, a MEDEVAC unit currently deployed in support of Task Force Comanche, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade.
Since the beginning of their deployment in May 2010, F Company has flown more than 350 patients. Nearly 200 of those patients were either civilians or Afghan National Security Forces. Many of the Afghan civilians are children, who live in remote areas with little access to emergency medical care.
"We get a lot of calls for kids. You'd be surprised how many kids we pick up," said Sgt. 1st Class David Jacob, the senior flight medic. "We got a call once for an insect sting, a 15 month-old child was having an allergic reaction.
"When the father handed the baby to us, I thought it was dead," he said. "I can honestly say that, if the U.S. Army had not been there, that baby would have died."
Although trained to primarily treat injured soldiers on the battlefield, taking care of children isn't new to these soldiers. Some of the pilots and medics of F Company were the first crews to begin rescue missions in and around New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Flight medics are a different breed of medical personnel, and these medics are certainly no exception. This Louisiana Guard unit has a saying that perfectly frames the stuttered pace of the MEDEVAC mission: "Standby to standby."
Sometimes it will be days before F Company receives a call. Sometimes, calls come in twos and threes. With their gear prepped and ready beforehand, the soldiers pass the time in any way they can; playing cards, doing pushups, some even taking online college courses.
After a morning shift change, the next order of business is to wait; to be prepared for the call to come down from the Tactical Operations Center: "MEDEVAC! MEDEVAC! MEDEVAC!"
As if those three words were a secret command to the crew members on shift, the living area explodes into action, Soldiers donning jackets and sprinting toward their aircraft - chaos with a purpose.
Coming at almost midnight, this particular call was for two troops and their interpreter whose vehicle was struck by an IED.
Arrival at the scene revealed a wrecked, burning Humvee and a few frantic Soldiers concerned about the safety of the wounded. The scene is familiar to fans of most military movies - post-apocalyptic but shocking in its realism.
"A ground medic can deploy and never see an incident. Whenever we get called up, it's for a reason," said Spc. Mason Courtney, a flight medic with F Company.
And there is no shortage of reasons in a country as hostile as Afghanistan, rampant with unexploded ordnance from years of occupation and civil war. Primitive living conditions, lawlessness and the ongoing war on terror are only a few of the more obvious dangers in such an unforgiving environment.
The medics themselves are by no means free from danger either, considering they fly without the security of mounted weapons. Under the Geneva Convention, MEDEVAC helicopters cannot be armed, so they are usually "chased" by another helicopter acting as a gunship, usually a UH-60 Black Hawk.
"We fly around without any weapons, we're obviously a target of opportunity," Courtney said. "That big red cross sticks out pretty clearly."
Still, the MEDEVAC crews fly on, treating civilians, servicemembers and suspected enemies indiscriminately.
"We're there to answer the call for MEDEVAC 24 hours a day, whether it's Afghan National Army, Afghan citizens, U.S. service members, or the Taliban," Jacob said. "When you're treating a patient, you don't have time to think about whose side he's on."
The tactical benefits of saving the life of the enemy can be invaluable.
"If we save the life of one Taliban, the intelligence that is gathered from them later could save the lives of 10 Americans," Courtney said.
At the end of the day, there is an amount of personal satisfaction that comes with the job, as Courtney admits.
"It's so gratifying when someone looks up at you for answers, for an answer to their pain, for help, and you can actually help them," Courtney said. "In the end, I'm just here to do a job that I enjoy doing."