Wings of a Bird

Military Doctor is on His Own Mission of Mercy - Seattle P-I
Sometimes the ways in which American soldiers serve on foreign soil makes us proudest when they are actually out of uniform and on their own time and dime.
Tomorrow Lt. Col. Jeffrey Clemons deploys himself to Niger for service in a cause that many of us would find it tough to talk about much less endure.
An Army doc and chief of urogynecology and pelvic reconstructive surgery ..., the father of two scraped together the cost of an airplane ticket with a little help from sponsors. He'll use another $2,000 of his own to cover expenses. And he has gathered enough "expired" but still-good supplies such as gauze and surgical gloves to burst the hinges on two suitcases.
By week's end his non-combat boots will hit the ground running on a mission the Army would not give him time off to accomplish -- so he's using his own vacation.
What Clemons will do in Niger is have the kind of instant impact on lives of misery that most doctors only dream of. Unarmed, he will enter a nightmare world from which young, doomed and desolate mothers will awaken thanks to his hands....