Sgt. 1st Class Mark Schenk, the medical noncommissioned officer assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, listens to an Iraqi boy's chest during a combined medical engagement at a clinic near F...

Pfc. Rachelle Halaska, a combat medic assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, from Hartland, Wis., inspects a child's ear during a combined medical engagement at a clinic near Forward Operati...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HUNTER - The Head Hunter Squadron's medical experts visited a small clinic, near the squadron's headquarters in southeastern Iraq to provide medical assistance Jan. 30.

The local Iraqis lined up in single file near the clinic's perimeter fence eagerly awaiting basic examinations and medical advice from combat medics and a physician assistant assigned to the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division.

"(The Head Hunter Squadron's) help is very good for us," said Amle Jaffer, one of the Iraqi nurses at the clinic. "We've generally have only Aspirin, water and basic medicines. Small clinics need lots of things that we don't always have."

The Head Hunter medical personnel taught the clinic's nurses how to get more out of the medicines and treatments than they were able to provide before the event. Despite the village's lackluster medical inventory, the Iraqi nurses learned when to use certain medicines and the best way to apply them.

"These people don't have a lot," said Capt. Julie Cyr, the 27th Brigade Support Battalion's medical planner who assisted during the mission. "It was a heartfelt deed because they need our help."

The medical advice varied from explaining to parents why their children won't sleep well at night to dealing with bacterial infections in the children's ears and mouths.

The 1-9's troopers also provided shoes and clothing to as many Iraqi children as possible during the event.

The operation was the squadron's first combined medical engagement since building Forward Operating Base Hunter in the Maysan province during September.