The physician’s credo is “first do no harm.”
Like any dedicated doctor, Donnelly Wilkes took that universal creed to heart. Unlike most others, however, Dr. Wilkes did so with an M9 strapped across his chest.
The then-recent Tulane Medical school graduate wasn’t looking to shoot anyone. But without question, he would use the weapon if he had to.
Dr. Wilkes, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant, was performing combat medicine. He was embedded with the 1st Marine Division in the first battle of Fallujah, one of the most violent episodes in the Iraq war, triggered when Iraqi insurgents ambushed a convoy containing four American private contractors, whose bodies were set ablaze and dragged through the streets.
Rarely have U.S. military physicians been so close to combat in a major conflict as they were when the American military attempted to take back those chaotic war-torn neighborhoods – the setting for Dr. Wilkes’s compelling new memoir Code Red Fallujah: A Doctor’s Memoir at War.
Dr. Wilkes will attend the PBR First PREMIER Bank/PREMIER Bankcard Invitational this weekend in Sioux Falls, signing copies of the new book on the venue concourse at the first sporting event since the COVID-19 shutdown to be opened to fans at full-arena capacity. He will also be feted with PBR’s “Be Cowboy” honors for his sacrifices and service.
Amid the ever-present threat of incoming rockets and mortar fire, his book chronicles the spiritual awakening of a likable young doctor, who describes himself as “an unproven man entering a place that has seen turmoil and death.”
Dr. Wilkes is a positive, observant, gracious, thoughtful person. Yet, thrust into the bloody chaos of war, fighting an enemy ignoring all rules of modern warfare, he was a man suffocating in self-doubt, even as he represented the last line of hope for the severely wounded.
He saved many lives – keeping the wounded breathing, stopping them from bleeding to death.
But sometimes, the struggle to preserve a life in the battlefield aid station ended in defeat.
When that happened, the doctor realized it was his duty to help the men make sense of their loss. Remarkably, the 29-year-old physician found the wisdom and words to become a source of strength and solace for those looking to him as a savior of sorts.
Once comforted by Dr. Wilkes, they’d be turned right back into the danger zone.
On September 11, 2001, Donnelly Wilkes was in his fourth and final year at Tulane medical school in New Orleans on a full Navy scholarship. Finishing his morning medical rounds in Charity Hospital, he noticed residents huddled around a television.
Smoke was streaming from the two tallest buildings in lower Manhattan. New Yorkers were scrambling through ashen streets. The intern doctor felt a sense of bewilderment and dread. America was under attack.
“I knew my Navy career would change dramatically, but how was unclear,” he said. “The post-9/11 brochure for the Navy didn’t exist. I had thought I’d maybe do a Pacific tour. The Twin Towers came down and changed all of that.”
He had six months to go until active duty. Only one year out of med school, he would wind up in Fallujah – a daunting assignment for a young doctor.
Before Donnelly shipped out, he and his fiancé Katie snuck off to get married at a Las Vegas wedding chapel – a secret revealed to their families in Code Red Fallujah.
(He notes this is the ultimate litmus test to see if a family member has read the book; if they don’t immediately mention the Vegas vows, they haven’t read it.)
Dr. Wilkes’s deployment was demanding yet thrilling, an adventure fraught with constant danger. A medical degree does not guarantee a trip home.
At times, rocket explosions and mortar charges would literally knock him off his feet. Luckily, his tent never took a direct hit.
The medical challenges were immense, even beyond the extreme heat, wind, dust and sandstorms.
“The environment is unforgiving; the lighting is poor, the heat intense, and working conditions harsh on the ground,” Dr. Wilkes wrote. “Add combat in the mix, and it’s like ballet with a bull. Despite all the combat medical training I had, which was excellent, nothing can prepare you for what it’s like when injured men are brought to you in a war zone with direct mortar and rocket fire coming in.”
Dr. Wilkes says that amid the raging chaos and ground-shaking thunderclaps, when examining a broken, bloodied body, he was able to block out the distractions and let his training kick in.
“When I look back at how I handled it, things slow down a bit, and you go to the locked up memory chambers in your brain – how to put in a chest tube, how to put in a surgical airway and how to patch up a mortar wound. I pulled out that ‘reference card’ and accessed it and got to work.
“In most cases, I was on my own with no senior doctor to help or counsel me amidst life-and-death decision making. There was also the emotional strain of caring for severely wounded men with gunshot, shrapnel and blast wounds.”
Sometimes enemy combatants were brought in – men he despised to the core but would nevertheless care for.
He was trained to be a healer, but once, when confirming the deaths of filthy insurgents lying motionless in the back of a truck, performing his necessary duties of examining those who have inflicted terrible violence against his brothers unleashed a flood of conflicting emotions trumped by his basic humanity.
“Walking among their bodies, I see and feel their dehumanization, and I am unlinking them from the living world as I pronounce them dead. It’s an unintentional action, more of a survival mechanism – to help me navigate the horror of it all. Tonight, I may see them in my sleep, and even feel pity for their tormented souls. I tell myself that it’s okay because I’m human. I’m a doctor. I’m a spiritual warrior, and I need to keep my heart from entering a black hole. No matter how much I despise what they stand for, witnessing the destruction of these men is a humbling and morbid part of war I could never prepare for, and now I am crawling, stumbling, and learning to walk my way through it.”
With steady candor, the grounded young doctor chronicles the spiritual journey of a paradoxical “medical warrior” dispatched to the war front. His moment of reckoning is the conscious act of surrendering control of his life to God.
“I’ve always been raised Catholic, and God has been a part of my life. That changed and evolved over time,” he explained. “The most impactful way my faith changed is when I found myself in a place I didn’t expect to be in. I had gone into medical school on a Navy scholarship before 9/11. When I wound up in Fallujah, it was hard for me to accept that I’m with a Marine Battalion going head-on with insurgents near the front lines. I was asking some serious questions. I had to come to grips with all that and release those last threads of me trying to control my life.”
He let go by finally realizing it was God’s plan for him to be in Fallujah using the medical talents and training he was blessed with.
“Once I accepted that I’m supposed to be here, and I should do what was asked of me, I had a weight taken from my shoulders. I knew I would be OK. God would help see me through this. That’s what carried me forward.”
He also leaned into his relationships with the servicemen he was charged with saving. Part of their unrelenting resolve as Marines was the knowledge of having the best medical care possible if they are injured.
“It was the commonality and unity of the mission that bound us closely,” Dr. Wilkes said. “Where we came from didn’t matter. There was only one way to get back home, and all that matters was the guy next to you.”
Marines don’t care if a soldier is Black or white. Nor do the bullets of the enemy.
Everyone commits to a code and would lay his life down for his brother, regardless of appearance.
Marines on a battlefield go to work in a mindset of pure equality and unity instead of seeing differences and emphasizing competing identities that divide people. Unbreakable human bonds are formed.
In the Battalion, the only colors that matter are the shades of pale green on their camouflage fatigues and the red, white and blue of the flag being defended.
Ironically, one place on earth that’s truly colorblind is a war zone.
“The relationships and lasting friendships I formed helped me reconcile and deal with the pain that follows any deployment where men are lost,” Dr. Wilkes said. “To this day, my inspiration from these men drives me to carry on the honor, courage and commitment that was always at the heart of our training.”
Dr. Wilkes finished his Naval career as the Senior Medical Officer at Port Hueneme Naval Clinic, responsible for the medical oversight of active duty members, their families, and local Veterans.
He was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor for his actions in the notorious battle of Fallujah in April of 2004 and would return to a second Navy deployment in 2008.
Saturday night at Denny Sanford PREMIER Center, where he’ll accept the “Be Cowboy” award, will mark Dr. Wilkes’s second PBR event. He attended Helldorado Days in Las Vegas when the sport bucked outside on the Strip in 2016.
He and Katie enjoy celebrating their secret original wedding in Vegas and had been invited to PBR by an executive at CBS who is a close friend. The couple loved the intensity of the bull riding and the pageantry of a PBR event held on the famed Las Vegas Strip.
Little did they know that Dr. Wilkes would be part of that pageantry at a PBR event five years later, honored for his sacrifice and heroism in Iraq.
“To be able to be recognized for my journey and what I’ve done in my life is a blessing and an honor,” Dr. Wilkes said. “I’m proud and thankful for that. I’m honored to share my story with PBR fans and everyone.”
