As a chaplain’s assistant who has worked in the biggest military medical facility serving the European area, Darla James has seen a lot.
She remembers a soldier who came through the facility after making an attempt to commit suicide.
He intended to shoot himself in the face, but the gun recoiled and he blew his nose off instead, James said.
The simple act of holding his hand got him to open up and talk about his problems, so he could get the help he needed, she said.
James shared this story and several others recently with Mooreland Moms in the Military, an organization that sends gift packages to soldiers fighting overseas.
The Woodward native is with the Naval Reserves and recently served two years as an attachment to the U.S. Marines at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
She is now home.
“We cared for wounded from Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa,” she said of the medical center.
She showed a photo of another soldier she called “Gunther,” who was hospitalized after surviving a bomb attack.
“He and his partner were in a Humvee,” she said. “Not much was left of it. The explosion formed a crater. But everyone in the Humvee survived.”
“Gunther” escaped with a broken arm and facial lacerations, she said, noting he was only 21-years-old.
“Most of the people who come through the hospital are 18- to 50-years old,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter what uniform you wear, she said of the soldiers and officers who passed through. “It’s all the same country and the same fight.”
James’ official title with the military is “religious program specialist,” she said.
Among her duties under that title during her recent stay in Germany, she served as a clerk, chaplain manager, chaplain body guard and chauffeur.
Part of her duties also included taking ambulatory patients on trips around Germany, she said.
Though she previously served a tour in Iraq from February to August of 2004, she didn’t share much about her experiences there with the Mooreland Moms in the Military.
However, she did address the affects the conflict there had on her.
She said she no longer likes thunder and lightning because it reminds her of rounds of enemy fire coming in. She no longer attends Fourth of July fireworks displays, because she doesn’t like the explosions.
All together, she has served 15 years in the Naval Reserves. She is home now, she said, and hopes to finish her last five years of service in the United States.
