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Less than a year after a tumor was found and removed from her brain, an Army Civilian deploys to Iraq a fourth time
By Andrew Stamer, Transatlantic Programs Center Public Affairs
For the fourth time since 2004, Gail Thearle is deploying to Iraq.
One reason is that she loves the work. The other reason is to finish up a tour that ended early for her last year.
It was last September that Thearle learned the headaches she was having during her third tour were the result of a brain tumor – discovered by an Army doctor after a CT scan.
She had been living for years with headaches thinking they were a normal part of her life; her family doctor, never identifying the root of the problem, told her there was nothing to be worried about. But when she went to the military hospital in Iraq, the Army doctor wanted to see if there was an underlying cause. “This says a lot for military doctors,” Thearle said, because this led to the tumor’s discovery.
“We were all shocked to hear the news,” said Lt. Col. Stanley Heath, deputy public affairs officer with Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who was deployed last year to the Gulf Region Division and working with Thearle when the tumor was found.
“One day she was in Iraq and the next day she was gone on a flight headed for Germany,” Heath said.
It was an additional stress the Corps of Engineers’ team members weren’t expecting.
“We were all biting our nails worried if she would make it to Landstuhl (Germany) and back to the U.S. in a timely manner,” Heath said.
Doctors estimated the benign tumor had been growing for 10 years, and when it was removed, it was about five centimeters in diameter, Thearle said.
Less than a year has passed since the tumor was removed, and Thearle leaves for the Gulf Region South District on May 18. She laughs about it because if the doctors hadn’t found the tumor she would be returning home from her third Iraq tour about now.
“It’s like having a new lease on life. I lived with a headache for three years,” she said. And now that the tumor is gone, the headaches have gone too, so she expects this tour to be “perfect.”
That’s because Iraq is in her now. “It gets in your blood,” she said. “Once you go over, you want to go back.” This comes from a sense of accomplishment and pride in the mission – working with Iraqis on the reconstruction program and supporting the military forces.
Thearle had never intended to deploy to Iraq. She did, however, want to serve overseas, which lead her to apply and accept a Department of the Army job in Kuwait. But she declined the Kuwait job when the Corps asked her if she would help set up the human resources office at the new Gulf Region Division because she was needed there. At the South Pacific Division in Sacramento, Calif., Thearle works as a senior human resources specialist.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said.
And things have changed drastically since her first deployment. When she arrived in February 2004 she could look up and “see bombs flying over.” And by her third deployment in August 2005 this wasn’t a commonplace thing to happen.
And despite the inherent danger of being in a war zone, Thearle said she was never afraid.
“I never would have gone if I was afraid, and I wouldn’t be going back,” she said. For her, it’s better to take a chance to do something meaningful, and that’s what she focused on opposed to what could happen.
War zone or not, being part of the team rebuilding schools, hospitals and much of the infrastructure was the good she was looking for.
“We’re over there for the right reason,” she said. “It’s an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world and as long as I’m needed I’ll keep going back.”
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