Caring for Victor: A U. S. Army Nurse and Saddam Hussein

Caring for Victor: A U. S. Army Nurse and Saddam Hussein by Robert Ellis with Marianna Riley, 185 pages.

Ellis, a St. Louis native, and Riley, a former Post-Dispatch reporter, team up to tell of Ellis's time in Iraq, as an Army nurse. As one of the few medical practitioners in Camp Cropper, a prison compound for HVDs (high value detainees), Ellis ended up spending more time with the deposed Iraqi dictator, code-named "Victor," than any other American.
Camp Cropper was located within the larger Camp Victory, inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. Camp Cropper was also right next to a garbage dump, where waste was both piled and incinerated. So, things smelled bad, the soldiers at Camp Cropper came under mortar fire, and supplies were limited, at first. Ellis and his unit got the clinic going and took care of Saddam, Tariq Aziz, Barzan Hasan Al-Tikriti, and other former government officials, until they were turned over to the Iraqi government. Care sometimes involved transporting detainees to the local military hospital for tests or treatment. Doing this involved running through "route Irish," a dangerous stretch of road that left the soldiers exposed to IED attack or car-bombs. Ellis had several close calls, and once ended up treating wounded civilians and contractors who had been caught in a blast aimed at Ellis's Humvee.
Ellis weaves in details of his own life in St Louis, growing up in the Pruitt Igoe housing development, and stories of his siblings, his mother, and his wife. His deployment was interrupted twice by family emergencies; he flew back to St. Louis to attend his mother's funeral, and later, that of his brother.
It is an interesting story with a strong local connection.
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