Now, it’s Joe Heck’s war

When the sun comes up today over the Las Vegas Valley, Army Reserve Col. Joe Heck will look out the window of a jetliner and think about the family he's leaving behind and the task that lies ahead: tending to wounded soldiers and civilians on battlegrounds in Iraq.

"Our men and women over there are putting it on the line. They deserve 110 percent support from the American people, and this is my way of supporting them," Heck said Friday afternoon at his Henderson home before he stuffed socks, shirts, underwear and his duty gear into an olive-drab duffel bag.

Heck, a 46-year-old emergency room doctor and Republican state senator, expects he'll face some of the biggest challenges in his medical career. There will be people with traumatic brain injuries, mangled limbs and multiple gunshot wounds. And he knows he will be working the longest 90-day shift of his life.

His colleagues have warned him, "You'll be seeing potentially devastating things," he said.

He anticipates there will be scenarios that his schooling at Penn State University and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, or any other higher place of learning, couldn't prepare him for.

Nevertheless, he said, he welcomes the challenge and will draw on his experiences in the emergency room at University Medical Center, his field work as an emergency technician in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains and the lessons he learned in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Two days later, he was sent to ground zero in New York from Washington, D.C., to provide medical support to federal agency responders.

Heck, who commands the Reserve's 6252nd Army Hospital in San Diego, could have accepted the commander's deferment and declined a three-month tour in Iraq.

"But my number came up," he said.

As a volunteer citizen-soldier in the Army Reserve, he felt obligated to follow through after he was allowed to delay deployment in February last year while the Legislature was in session and before he assumed command of the 6252nd.

"I had given my word I would go on the next rotation," he said. "I'm going on 17 years in the Reserve. This is what you train for.

"Nobody wants to go to a combat zone, but there are dedicated men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our freedoms," he said.

Much of his motivation to serve stems from the sight he saw while driving through New Jersey toward New York City with paramedic Jason Kepp to provide support at ground zero after the attacks. The drive took them through an area where they had grown up.

"It was the most heart-wrenching experience I ever had," Heck said. "We looked across the river, and the towers weren't there. There was a huge plume of smoke and dust. We both fell silent and couldn't speak."

Heck's flight today is destined for Atlanta. From there he'll go to Fort Benning, Ga., where he'll be issued his equipment and a handgun. Then he'll go through a week of training before heading to Kuwait and "then to wherever we'll be assigned."

"My goal and my motivation is we've seen 44 casualties from Nevada in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and I want to make sure there's no 45," he said.

Back in Henderson, wife Lisa, whom he described as "the most understanding wife in the country," will be waiting for him along with Joey, 10, Chelsea, 20, and Monica, 21.

Lisa said she realized "a long time ago when I met him" that there would be times when his obligations with the Army Reserve would send him away for months at a time.

"It wasn't a shock to me," she said. "But this one is a little different because of where he's going."

His mother, Mary Heck, and father Joe Heck Sr. said they, too, are concerned.

"Like all moms, I'm worried," Mary Heck said. "I've got to be positive."

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0308.