Former POW uses her past experiences to help soldiers returning from war zones

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Then-Maj. Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 229th Aviation Brigade, sits next to U.S. Army Col. Richard Williams on a C-141B Starlifter transport aircraft after her release by the Iraqi government during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Cornum was held for eight days as a prisoner of war.


Former POW uses her past experiences to help soldiers returning from war zones
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, January 3, 2010

No one can tell Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum that she doesn’t know what combat trauma’s like.

She is, after all, one of the two female soldiers held as a prisoner in the Persian Gulf War. She was captured after her medevac Black Hawk came under fire and went down, slamming into the desert at 140 mph.

Five soldiers died in the crash. Cornum, then a flight surgeon, was among three survivors.

“Pinned under the wreckage, she dug her way out with two broken arms, a broken finger, a gunshot wound, torn knee ligaments, an eye glued shut with blood, and other injuries,” Time magazine reported.

Then she saw five Iraqi soldiers pointing their rifles at her.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66993