INTERVIEW: Sgt. Major Doug Libby

Sergeant Major Doug Libby is from St. Stephen, New Brunswick. He is a career soldier who has been in the army for 23 years. He has been stationed in the Balkans and Rwanda before this tour in Afghanistan. He is a physician's assistant in addition to being in charge of all the company's medics. He was in Afghanistan from August 2007 until March 2008.

Watch the interview online.

Gillian Findlay: It strikes me there's not a lot of time for sentimentality here. You've got to get finished with one patient because you don't know when the next one is coming.

Sergeant Major Doug Libby: So true. The patients could knock on your door two minutes after we have three casualties show up. And the first couple of months it was like that. The helicopter would land on the pad. We would just get them in here and then the helicopter would land again and drop more patients off.

And the first part of the tour was probably the very busiest. Patients have slown down a little bit since then. But it's definitely – you're not sure. You have no idea. And for the time, whatever time you get, you try to get your soldiers down, you try to get the rest that's required so that you can work again the next night or the next day or whatever is required.

Gillian Findlay: I know you treat all comers here. We've seen that in our own short time here. But it different when it's Canadians coming through the door isn't it? There's a different mood here.

Sergeant Major Doug Libby: It's a quiet mood. When we hear it's Canadians you can almost hear a pin drop here in the trauma bay until we hear what the injuries are, how they're coming in. And then we start talking within ourselves what the game plan is.

It's like that for every person that comes in somewhat, but it's more – it's more of a hush quiet when we hear it's Canadians cause it is closer to the heart. But no one gets treated differently. Everybody is treated with the best of care. As soon as those doors open in the back of the van and we start bringing them in, it's everybody's – then you can hear the tone pick up and the pace pick up.

Gillian Findlay: Why is there that initial hush though? Why do people react that way?

Sergeant Major Doug Libby: We have a lot of friends that are outside the wire. We know a lot of the soldiers on an individual basis and it's hard when it's your friend sitting on the stretcher in front of you. One of the first incidents that I had was one of the medics that I knew from his fives course. I was on my 6B course and he was o his fives and we always talked in between exams.

And next thing you know, I'm looking after him on my stretcher. That was a little bit difficult. But – and in one way it was reassuring for me that I knew that he was alright, but it was still a little bit difficult so – It's always difficult working on friends, you know, friends and family is always difficult.

Gillian Findlay: You've lost medics in your time here.

Sergeant Major Doug Libby: We've lost two good quality medics. One in the first of the tour and one just before I went on my HLTA before I went home. That was very hard. And Corporal Crampton that worked for me also went home. It was her loved one that she lost. And it was hard. It was – it hit really close to home. And it hurt the medical community because not only do we lose one medic, we actually lost the second one to go home because of family and friends.

And we also have to move our medics forwards. So we have to refill those positions up forward in the fobs if we lose medics. And the troops still need to be looked after.

Gillian Findlay: Did you have to go out and deal with those matters?

Sergeant Major Doug Libby: Yes. I flew out and I did something that was probably beyond my scope of practice. I've never had to do what I did that day, recover bodies. And it was very hard. It was not easy, especially when I knew it was a medic. But he's still a Canadian soldier and he was still part of our brigade, part of our team family. And that made it very hard.

I was gone for about 12 to 14 hours and it just was very hard to deal with.