Since September 11, 2001, hundreds of thousands of men and women have entered the armed forces to serve this country in myriad ways. Some are called to cook, some are called to drive or to fly and some are called to decide the fate of someone’s life. Still others are called to save them. Former City College student and now combat medic Anil Shandil has been doing just that for most of the last 20 years.


“I’m doing good for this country because I’m taking care of these wounded warriors. I go out there and my job is to take care of them, my job is to bring them home safely, my job is to bring them back to their loved one … if I can,” says Shandil.


Shandil has been posted in various places throughout his military career including humanitarian missions in Guatemala during the Hurricane Mitch crisis as well as in Honduras. His first stint of duty involving Iraq, however, took place at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) in Germany, which acquainted him with the gruesome realities of war. According to the medical center’s Web site, LRMC provides medical treatment to those injured during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“The 98 percent, 95 percent burn victims; they’re the ones that I still have dreams about. I still see them at night sometimes, I don’t think that’s ever going to go away,” says Shandil. “Their skin becomes leather.”

Shandil was born on the island of Fiji in 1971, and immigrated to the United States in 1986, when he was 14. Graduating high school at 16, Shandil enlisted in the Army and began active duty when he was 17.

“The reason I joined the military is because I wanted to give something back to this country. I think it’s the best country in the world.”

Shandil began his service as a combat medic and has been in the medical service ever since, going through the licensed vocational nurse training in 1996, then graduating in 2002 from the nursing program here at City College.

Looking back on his service in Iraq, Shandil vividly recalls the mental toll that war can take on the soldiers.

“In the morning in Iraq, [he’s a soldier] having breakfast with his friends, and then lunchtime he had to pick up these friends that he had breakfast with, their bodies from the streets, their ears, their eyes, so that really screwed him up. All in combination, he became suicidal, ended up in a medical ward,” he says.

Stories like this are not uncommon these days among veterans. According to the Birmingham, Veterans A ffairs medical center in Alabama, post-traumatic stress is on the rise. The hospital reports that the number of cases has doubled since 2003, with the war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan being diagnosed with the disorder. Although the number of veterans diagnosed with PTSD is rising, according to a survey conducted by the Army, less then half of these people are seeking the help they need. The survey revealed that the reluctance to report was largely due to the fear of being stigmatized by their peers and superiors.

While serving in Germany, Shandil saw firsthand the way these soldiers had to think. “Some of them say, ‘patch me up, “I wanna go down there with my buddies, the mentality down there is different. If you don’t have that mentality, you lose, you die.”

For Shandil it is tough hearing and seeing what these men and women go through, but he knows his job, and he knows he has to get the job done.

“Once you’re down there you focus on your goal, taking care of the soldiers. You have to believe in the idea that I didn’t make this decision [to have the war] but I’m here to do my job, and do it honorably.”

One day hopefully this war will end, and while many criticisms will be brought up and laid to rest, for right now, Shandil and countless others continue to fight on, literally and figuratively.

“Is it worth it? I don’t know. I mean I’m hoping that it’s for a good cause, I don’t know if I really believe that … I have to find a positive thing about it, and the positive thing is I’m doing good, because I’m trying to save lives,” he says.