By Lori EhdeIt’s been nearly three months since Sgt. Amy Althoff completed her deployment in Iraq, but she’s still recovering from her combat experiences."It was very stressful," she said in a telephone interview with the Star Herald Tuesday. "I saw a lot of things I never thought I’d see in my entire life, and I saw things I wish I had never seen."Althoff, a 2001 Luverne High School graduate, worked four months as an army medic in the 801st combat support hospital in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Her patients were primarily Iraqi detainees, but she also treated American soldiers and civilian contractors."On my first day in Iraq, we were hit with 25 mortar rounds within an hour. We saw 125 patients in only a few hours, and 20 of them died," Althoff said."I saw a lot of injuries I didn’t think could happen. There was a lot of suffering. … It was the longest day of my life."She ended up in Iraq after serving a year in Kuwait. "Three hours before I was supposed to fly home we were sent to Iraq," she said.Despite the trauma, Althoff describes her work in Iraq as the best experience she’s ever had."I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything," she said. "I feel like I’ve grown up so fast. I feel like I know how precious life is."She said her military medic work taught her not to take life for granted."I’ve learned to be thankful and not to be so selfish," she said. "There are a lot of things going on in the world that people don’t realize. I look at life from a completely different perspective than before I left. Little things are more important to me now."Abu Ghraib scandal overplayed in mediaAlthoff worked in the Abu Ghraib prison hospital where the scandal over the abused Iraqi detainees made headlines.She wasn’t there at the time the abuses occurred last November, but she said it was an isolated incident and that the military has taken many steps to prevent it from happening again."I never once witnessed abuse take place," Althoff said. "In fact, those Iraqi detainees were treated better than many of our military that was over there fighting. They had better living conditions, better food, etc."She said medical care in itself was a luxury for many Iraqi prisoners."Some Iraqis had never seen a doctor before. The Iraqi detainees were so grateful for everything that we did for them," she said. "The media tends to take the bad and dwell on that, and no one seems to want to report the good that has taken place in Iraq … the differences that we have made in so many people's lives."For example, she said Iraqi detainees had air conditioning in their tents, they had coolers to put bottles of water in to keep them cold, and they watched movies on a TV."We went out into the Iraqi community and bought clothes and shoes from the Iraqis for the detainees, we were getting glasses for those who couldn't see, and detainees who had amputated limbs — whether it was caused by us or not — were fitted for prosthetics."All these things, Althoff said, made big differences in the lives of Iraqi people they encountered."Millions and millions of dollars are being spent on the Iraqi people to ensure that they are being treated humanly and justly," she said. "I just wish that the American people could see that."‘I feel nowhere near back to normal’Althoff, daughter of Luverne’s Terry and Deb Althoff, hasn’t lived at home in Luverne since she left for basic training in the summer of 2001, and she doesn’t intend to move back."I’m ready to move on," she said.She’s living in Cleveland, Tenn., with fellow Army medic and good friend Lauren McCord about 20 miles north of Chattanooga."I love it here," she said. "It’s beautiful. The weather’s so mild and the people are so nice."Althoff has plenty of minutes on her cell phone plan, however. "I miss my parents to death," she said. "I talk to them all the time on the phone."Deb Althoff said she’s glad to have her daughter back in the United States, even if she’s not home. "She’s always been very independent and feisty, but I never would have thought when she joined the Army that she’d have to go and fight in a war," Deb said. "That little stinker lied to us a lot when she was over there. She told us she was in a safe place, and I didn’t really know until she got home how much danger she was in. Apparently they got mortared quite often."A good share of their phone time is spent helping Amy adjust to civilian life again."I feel nowhere near back to normal," Amy said, when asked if she’s recovered from her medic experiences. "I have to call my dad all the time about things like car insurance and other details I haven’t had to think about until now."Althoff is returning to school for a degree in crime scene investigation, rather than continue to work in civilian medicine. "I wouldn’t feel like I was doing as much of a good thing on the civilian side," she said. "Over there, I felt like I was serving my country. … I felt like I was there for a reason."Meanwhile, she’s renewing her EMT certification. "I’m pretty sure I’ll be over there again before the war is over," she said. "And I’m ready. If I have to go back I’m more than willing to go."
