BWH Nurses Back from Iraq

When Thomas Chafe, RN, BSN and Christopher Day, RN, are called into action, it is not always confined to the halls of BWH. Chafe and Day join several other BWH employees returning from service in Iraq. The two nurses served with the 514th Aeromedical Division from Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

A former Navy service and rescue technician, Chafe served in Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti and Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq as an Air Force Reserves medical crew director. Upholding the Air Force motto, “Providing care in the air for the wounded warrior,” Chafe went to Kuwait at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, where he flew in and out of Iraq transporting patients to hospitals in Kuwait and Germany.

Day was the medical director in charge of an Air Force flight crew, and flew in and out of Iraq transporting injured comrades to hospitals for care. Day’s BWH colleagues in the ICU Float Pool sent care packages to him overseas. “I was only at BWH for a year before being deployed, but receiving the packages was just great and something I will always be thankful for,” he said.