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Henry returns home to a hero's welcome
Photo by James Nix
Col. Hector Henry, a Concord councilman who recently returned from a tour in Iraq with the Army Reserve Medical Corps, was the grand marshal in the Concord Christmas Parade on Nov. 21.
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Published: November 25, 2009
Updated: 11/27/2009 09:02 am
CONCORD - Still a soldier at 71, Dr. Hector Henry III remembers returning from the Vietnam War to spitting, cursing war protestors and later returning from the Gulf War to a standing ovation at the Philadelphia airport, a welcome so drastically different from the first that the mention of it brings him to tears.
"That was my problem with the Vietnam War," he said. "People in the war were blamed for the war."
Henry, a Concord City Council member who served again in Iraq from July to October of this year, received a hero's welcome for his recent service when he was honored as the Grand Marshall of the 81st Concord Christmas Parade Saturday.
Henry, who holds the rank of colonel, is one of the oldest men ever deployed by the U.S. Army Reserves Medical Corps, according to city officials. But he said he'd return as long as he's in good health and truly needed.
"If one of my sons were there and got hurt, I'd want somebody there who can take care of him," Henry said, speaking slowly and wiping away tears. Henry and his wife have three sons and three grandchildren. "I think I owe it to the soldiers, their families and my country."
Henry's previous deployments include active duty as Task Force (medical) commander for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006 and the Gulf and Vietnam Wars.
This time, Henry served with the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the N.C. Army National Guard in a makeshift base at an old truck manufacturing plant just outside of Baghdad.
The base, called Forward Operating Base Falcon, had 3,000 soldiers. Henry served mostly as a physician, treating illness and sprains and other injuries from pickup games of basketball and other sports. But he also provided emergency care for soldiers injured by attacks from insurgents.
Nine soldiers from Henry's base died in the 90 days he was stationed in Iraq, he said. A suicide bomber killed three of them in an attack on a local village, he said. He didn't get to help them.
One was a recent West Point Academy graduate, Henry said shaking his head. Six others died in attacks on Humvees.
One attack on an armored Humvee blew the bone from one young soldier's lower leg, scattering fragments like shrapnel into another young soldier's face. Henry and the medical team at the base stabilized the young men and sent them via helicopter to the nearest hospital. It's not safe to transport patients by land, Henry said, because everything is a fair target to the insurgents.
"They don't respect the Red Cross. They'll shoot an ambulance as quickly as an army vehicle," Henry said.
The young men were in their early 20s. Both soldiers survived. The man who lost some of the bone in his leg is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and is expected to keep his leg thanks to Henry's help in Iraq. Henry said he hopes to visit the young man in the next few months.
Saving lives is what keeps Henry willing to return to war, despite having been shot at during his most recent tour.
"You don't go outside the wire without at least four vehicles," Henry said.
But even large convoys like the ones that took Henry and the other doctors to visit local tribal leaders
who wanted to see an American doctor were vulnerable.
"I was shot at a couple of times. They shot at the convoy," Henry said.
It's a different commute than he's accustomed to, he said.
"I'm always scared," he said, having seen the aftermath of the most brutal attacks.
Back home, Henry commutes from his Concord home to work at the W. G. (Bill) Hefner V.A. Medical Center in Salisbury, where he is chief of urology, and at CMC-NorthEast in Concord, where he is a member of the staff.
A pediatric and adult urologist, Henry has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a doctor of medicine from Tulane University School of Medicine. At NorthEast, Henry has served as chief of staff, chief of surgery and chief of urology.
Henry also serves as the director of the residency program at the Hefner V.A. Medical Center for Wake Forest University School of Medicine's Department of Urology and is a clinical professor for the school. Henry also has a consulting urology firm and is the urological consultant to the Cabarrus Health Alliance. He also serves as a consulting professor of urology for Duke University School of Medicine.
Henry said the medical community and medical schools in Iraq have been badly damaged because the
insurgents target them.
"They had several medical schools around the country," Henry said.
Many have had to suspended classes. The residency programs have been badly hurt by the loss of experienced doctors, who tire of being targets and leave the country, he said.
"One school in Baghdad and one in Tikrit is back up," he said.
Henry said he was surprised what a vast difference there is between Iraq and Afghanistan, where he has also served, in terms of education and the level of industrialization.
"Afghanistan is in the 15th century and Iraq is in the late 20th century," he said. "I had a patient who came in to see me in Afghanistan. A chicken was gutted and put on his head to draw the poison out of his head."
The young boy had a head injury from falling off a roof and the doctor treated it with the chicken, Henry said.
Henry operated with another doctor, saving the boy's life.
Henry said now that he's home, he's looking forward to the return of the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat
Team of the N.C. Army National Guard. They return to Raleigh soon, he said, and have invited him to participate in their parade.
"I'm just glad to be home," he said.
• Contact Karen Cimino Wilson: 704-789-9141.
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