People

There beats the heart of a healer

As soldier and civilian, nurse is dedicated to serving ill and injured, whether at home or abroad

It’s not often you find a Kiwanian who is as confident teaching a young child to read as she is working side-by-side with surgeons in war-torn Iraq. But not every Kiwanian is Mary Bolk.

Lt. Col. Mary Bolk poses with Iraqi Col. Mohomed, commander of an Iraqi Army Battalion in Mosul, during one of her tours of duty.

Mary’s list of accomplishments and degrees is, well, too long to list here. But to highlight: She was honored by United States Senator Richard Lugar for her “Excellence in Public Service”; she helped raise more than US$200,000 for Kiwanis’ Worldwide Service Project to battle iodine deficiency disorders; and she has traveled to Ecuador to work in a leper hospital.

Some people call her Mary. Some people call her friend. Others call her lieutenant colonel Bolk. Yes, Mary is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, where she has served more than 20 years of service as a nurse.

Mary, a member of the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis, has served two tours of duty in Iraq. She was the executive officer of the 932nd Forward Surgical Team (FST) during her first tour, which lasted five months, and the officer in charge of the operating rooms of the 399th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) on her second tour, which lasted 12 months.

“Providing excellent healthcare to anyone who comes through the doors is always a great feeling,” says Mary, now at home in Indianapolis. “We treated US and allied military personnel, Iraqi Army and police, Iraqi civilians, including children caught in IED (improvised explosive device) blasts, as well as insurgents and contract personnel. We even treated a few working canines.”

To anyone who has never been at battle or in the armed forces, the Forward Surgical Team likely is an unfamiliar term, but to the service men and women, the FST is their lifeline—literally.

According to an article about Mary in the American Legion Auxiliary National News, the FST is a wounded service member’s first line of defense—and because of this, the surgeons, nurses, and paramedics are stationed extremely close to the hostile areas—anywhere from two miles to 200 yards. Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) are larger and usually take a wounded person only after the FST has stabilized the patient’s condition.

But talking to anyone who knows Mary, it’s quick to see she’s much, much more than a nurse in fatigues. Aside from her current role as executive officer of the 307th Medical Group out of Columbus, Ohio, and being enrolled in the US Army War College master’s degree program for strategic studies, she still finds time to feed her strong passion for helping children—children from Indianapolis to Ecuador to Iraq.

“Mary has always been committed and supportive to her country and the ideals of Kiwanis,” says Jay Brill, past president of the Indianapolis club. “On several occasions, she has unselfishly postponed her hospital administration career to serve her country, and during her past deployment to Iraq, she found opportunities to serve the kids of Iraq. In 2007 while serving in Iraq, she honored our country and our club and was presented the Kiwanian of the Year Award by the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis.”

But all awards and distinctions aside, Mary still enjoys helping children the most.

“One of my favorite Kiwanis committees is Young Children: Priority One,” she says. “My club goes into a preschool class in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Indianapolis and helps the teacher in whatever capacity she needs assistance. We read to children; help them with their colors, shapes, and numbers; or practice the alphabet with them. It is so rewarding to give and receive such great hugs from these little ones. It is so heartwarming to open the door to the classroom and see the children immediately put smiles on their faces and come hug us.”

While in Iraq, Mary couldn’t leave behind her passion for helping children. In fact, she says, “the Kiwanis mission of helping children came through.”

“I raised more than US$660 in four months, and used the funds to purchase chalkboards, space heaters, and other supplies for some of the grades the American soldiers recently had opened in Mosul, Iraq. For some of the girls in Mosul, this was the first opportunity to ever go to school.”

And how did Mary succeed in collecting money during the stressful hours in a surgical unit at war? She used some creative thinking, that’s how.

“I put a large coffee can labeled ‘Cuss Can’ in the surgery department of the hospital,” she says. “Depending on the word used, the price was from $1 to $5. Some of the young soldiers would put $20 in at the beginning of the day, because they knew they would say many bad words throughout the day. I got a lot of flak about it, but I shared that since a hospital is a professional setting and we are professionals, everyone needed to clean up their mouths. If they wanted to use curse words, they needed to transfer over to the infantry or join the Marines.”