Woman of the Week

A Navy Officer and a Gentle Woman: Dr. Heidi Kraft

This mom of twin 5-year-olds serves as guardian angel to wounded soldiers

-Mary Beth Sammons

Talk about pressure under fire on the mom front! San Diego clinical psychologist Heidi Kraft was deployed to a remote airbase in Iraq when her twins - Megan and Brian - were 15 months old...with only 11 days' notice. A week after she arrived in Iraq, this Navy doctor, former flight surgeon, and now psychologist experienced her unit being attacked. Several people were injured and several more died.

While in Irag, Heidi held the hand of a dying Marine, Cpl. Jason Dunham, who was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends and comrades. He was brought into the hospital assumed dead, but the mom in Heidi sensed otherwise, and she stood by his side until he squeezed her hand. Today, she is a close friend of Jason's mom.

Earlier in her Navy career, while on flight status, Heidi flew in nearly every aircraft in the Navy's and the Marine Corps' inventory, including logging more than 100 hours in the F/A-18 Hornet, primarily with Marine Corps squadrons. This Lt. Commander in the Navy chronicles her experiences in Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital (Little Brown & Company, 2007). Heidi will donate 10 percent of her royalties to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

Today, back home in San Diego, after leaving active duty in 2005, she serves as the deputy coordinator for the U.S. Navy Combat Stress Control Program. I caught up with her recently over breakfast when she was in Chicago on a speaking tour. Meeting Heidi in person is like meeting your friend who just got back from a cruise with her kids and is sharing memories. She's real. She's authentic, and she's a mom who had to leave her own kids but was at the side (and still is) of hundreds of young men who needed her compassion and caring.

What was it like the day you realized you were being sent into a combat zone and would have to leave your husband and two little children in less than two weeks?

The day I received my orders, my parents were visiting us, and I came home early. My mom was there at the house, and I dropped to my knees and hugged my little girl and started crying and told my mom, "I'm going to Iraq." Later that day I told my husband, but much to my relief (he is a Marine) he immediately understood what he would need to do and told me that the military needed me now and that everything would be okay on the home front. He was very supportive, and my parents, in an utter act of selflessness, packed up their belongings and moved in to help my husband care for Brian and Megan for seven months.

How did you balance your roles as mom and military officer during the months you were deployed to Iraq?

My first week there, we were attacked. I remember going to my tent, lying on my cot and crying. I could hear the gunfire, and I was scared I wouldn't see my children again. I decided the only way I could handle this is if I let go and had faith that my parents and husband were doing everything anyone could for the children and that I needed to step out of the role of 24/7 mom and do what I was called to do. I put their pictures away temporarily and tried to stay focused. I did allow myself, at times, to look at the photos and DVDs my husband sent.

Before you left Iraq, you sent an e-mail message home summing up the good and the bad of your tour of duty, for your own healing and closure. What were some of the things that were good about Iraq, as well as some things that were not good?

The Good: Meeting a young sergeant who had lost an eye in an explosion...he asked his surgeon if he could open the other one...when he did, he sat up and looked at the young Marines from his fire team who were being treated for superficial shrapnel wounds in the next room...He smiled, laid back down, and said, "I only have one good eye, Doc, but I can see that my Marines are OK."

My comrades, Alpha Surgical Company...some of the things [they] witnessed will traumatize them forever, but still they provided outstanding care to these Marines, day in and day out, sometimes for days at a time with no break, for seven endless months.

And...holding the hand of that dying Marine.

The Not Good: Walking a sobbing Marine colonel away from the trauma bay while several of his Marines bled and cried out in pain inside. Meeting that 21-year-old Marine with three Purple Hearts and listening to him weep because he felt ashamed of being afraid to go back.

Telling a room full of stunned Marines in blood-soaked uniforms that their comrade, whom they had tried to save, had just died of his wounds. Trying, as if in total futility, to do anything I could to ease the trauma of group after group that suffered loss after loss, grief after inconsolable grief.

What was the hardest part about reentry into "normal" mom life?

I was, of course, overjoyed to see my kids and my husband again, but regaining the mom momentum was tough, and I felt disconnected for several months. That was very hard, because I expected it to come naturally back, but I am a psychologist and should have known better.

Where did the title for your book, Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital, come from?

An episode from the first season of the M*A*S*H television series, "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet." In this 1973 episode, Hawkeye, a surgeon, realizes he cannot save an underage Marine. Henry says to Hawkeye: "In war, rule number 1 is that young men die. And rule number 2 is that doctors cannot change rule number 1."

Even in helping soldiers who were suffering tremendous losses process their grief - and knowing that there was nothing you could do to keep your friends from dying - you mention how the hard lessons were also filled with many moments of hope. What were some of those moments?

I met Jason as he lay in our company's expectant ward that day. I was one of many people who held his hand and talked to him, telling him we were proud of him and that he made the Marine Corps proud. Little did I know how true that statement would be for all of us. Corporal Dunham began squeezing my hand in response to my voice, and hence was moved out of the expectant ward and sent via urgent MEDEVAC to Baghdad, Germany, and finally to Bethesda, Maryland, where his parents were waiting for him. After several wrenching days, his parents decided to take him off life support. Ten days after we treated him, I was coming out of Mass, when the chief or our team was waiting for me. He told me that Jason had just died. He said: ‘Bethesda called this morning; they know we've been following his progress. I wanted you to hear first.' Nearly a week later, late one evening, a soldier came in to tell me: "Ma'am, it appears that Corporal Dunham threw himself on a grenade. He placed his helmet over a live grenade and tucked it under his body, to save his men. I've since gotten to know his mom Deb and she invited me to the White House when she accepted his medal from President Bush.

For Dunham and hundreds of other young men, Heidi was there when their moms couldn't be, a guardian angel providing comfort and aid for many children of our country. Her book is dedicated to Corporal Dunham's mom - the mother of a hero, and her husband, Mike. For more information, please click here.

Quick Questions

1. When you were 10 years old, what did you want to be when you
grew up?

A doctor. I never wanted to be anything else.

2. What type of kids did you hang out with in high school?

Mostly nerds, I guess ... the nerds who also played varsity sports.

3. What women from the past do you most identify with?

Amelia Earhart. She would have been amazing to know.

4. What's your workout?

Elliptical for 45 minutes and incline treadmill for 45 minutes, every other day. Lifting arms and abs every other day. I try to mix it up with a Spinning class at least once a week and a long walk on the beach with my friends whenever I possibly can.

5. Cat or dog?

Dog, definitely. Big dog, at that.

6. What do you do when you want to completely tune out?

I'm not sure if it's tuning out as much as it's being completely in the present and feeling alive deep in my pores, lungs, toes...but I always go to the beach. I'm totally at peace there.

7. What book is sitting on your shelf waiting to be read?

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. And Infidel.

8. If you could have dinner with any two people, who would choose?

My grandparents, who both died when my mom was a teenager. I'd love to have a short time to let them know what a wonderful woman their daughter turned out to be.

9. What is the one thing you want or do not want the next generation?
of girls to encounter?

Child abuse. I would wipe it completely out if I could change one thing for a future generation. Completely out.

10. If there were one thing you could change in your life, what
would it be?

I guess I might like to be one of those girls who could eat as much ice cream as she wanted and her skinny jeans would always fit ... but then again, who knows ... maybe I'd get sick of ice cream.

In the group shot above, Heidi is pictured with friends Karen Lovecchio Clark (left) and Katie Foster Saybolt (right).