Heidi Kraft
Former Lieutenant Commander Heidi Kraft spent nine years as a U.S. Navy psychologist. She was deployed to Iraq when her twin daughter and son were just over a year old, where she spent more than seven months caring for wounded service members at a remote air base in western Iraq.
While in Iraq, she wrote a poem called “The List,” about the bad and good of serving in a war zone. She wrote about the bravery and camaraderie and the beautiful sunsets, but also about the heart-wrenching stories of her patients, and the ever-present fear and moments of crushing loss.
The poem drew attention on the Internet, and Kraft was urged to expand it into a book. She wrote about her experiences as a doctor in Iraq in “Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital.” She drew the title of her book from an episode of the television series “M*A*S*H.” In the episode, in which Hawkeye is unable to save a dying friend, it is said, “There are two rules of war. Rule number one is that young men die. Rule number two is that doctors can’t change rule number one.”
The war left scars on Kraft, as well, and writing the book was one step to helping her on her road to overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder.
