A Q&A with Chiropractor
and USMC Lt. Col. Mark Losack
By Mark Farmer
Lt. Col. Mark Losack of the United States Marines is no stranger to the Middle
East. He served in the first Gulf War as an infantry officer and, as an intelligence
officer, he was part of the forces entering Baghdad last year a week or so after
the fighting began. As of this writing he’s back in the States, but was
scheduled to depart at the end of February to begin his second tour of duty
in Iraq.
Inside the Colonel’s uniform, however, beats the heart of a chiropractor. When Losack returned home from the first Gulf War and entered the reserves, he planned to attend medical school but was drawn instead to a chiropractic education when, around this same time, he experienced his first adjustment. In 1996, he received his D.C. degree from the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic, now part of the Southern California University of Health Sciences. He set up practice in Oceanside, Calif.
In 2002, Losack was recalled
for active duty in Iraq. He left behind a practice, but not chiropractic, finding
time to provide care to his comrades in arms whenever he could. He’s been
a hero of sorts to the chiropractic profession, most notably at the 2004 Parker
Seminars Las Vegas conference where he stumped for “Save our Subluxation.”
Shortly before his slated second stint in Iraq, he answered a few questions
for Today’s Chiropractic about his wartime experiences.
Today’s Chiropractic: You were a working
chiropractor before being shuttled to Iraq. How did your deployment come about
and how does that affect your practice?
Mark Losack: In October of 2002, we were doing a two-week exercise
[in the reserves]. And at this point in my career, I tend to be a little bit
more direct than as a younger officer and so I just went in to see my boss.
I said, hey sir, are you planning on calling up any more reserves? And he was
emphatic about it and said, “Absolutely not. We don’t plan on calling
up any more reserves. We don’t need any more reserves.” Four days
later I get a phone call and they tell me they’re going to mobilize me.
I go, OK, well when? They say the first of November.
I had two weeks to shut things down. I want to have a practice to come back
to when I leave active duty. So, I referred my patients to three other doctors,
just depending on the technique I used [on the respective patient], whether
it was Activator, ART or diversified. I called the docs and told them what I
was going to do, with the caveat that when I got back I would be contacting
the patients. Realistically, some of those patients will stay with the doctors
that I referred them to and some will come back to me. The ones that come back
will be the ones I will rebuild my practice with.
In January of 2003 I embarked on the USS Boxer and floated to the Northern Arabian
Gulf. From there, I flew off the Boxer into Kuwait. From the First Marine Expeditionary
Force I joined the First Marine Division and crossed the line of departure with
the First Marine Division into Iraq. That was the 19th of March.
I functioned as an intelligence officer in the forward combat operations center—pulling
reports in from the lead units and down from the higher headquarters. We analyze
what the enemy is doing, how that impacts the operation, and then advise the
commander as to what we think his best course of action would be to defeat the
enemy.
TC:
When did you start adjusting?
I was adjusting people onboard the Boxer. All of the Marines knew I was a chiropractor,
and I worked on Marines of all ranks. Some of the medical doctors asked me to
take a look at some of the patients because the Motrin just wasn’t working.
TC: The members of our Armed Forces aren’t known for bringing
lots of luggage. Did you have a portable table at least?
Yes, there are some advantages to being a lieutenant colonel. One is that I
get to bring a little bit more gear than, say, a young corporal. [Note: Losack
was scheduled to receive a promotion to colonel within three months of this
interview.] So I had my sea bag, my pack, and my portable adjusting table. And,
I brought an activator.
I just set up in the ready room where the pilots work, and I worked on the pilots.
Helicopter pilots are sitting in those vibrating machines; there are a lot of
bad backs among helo pilots.
TC: Your official duties, then, don’t involve chiropractic. You
were adjusting people by your own initiative. How was that received by your
superiors?
The Bureau of Medicine—BuMed—in Washington found out that I was
treating patients onboard the ship and they sent the message to the senior medical
officer that I wasn’t allowed to treat anybody onboard the ship. I continued
to treat because my boss called me in and said, “Hey, you know what you’re
doing. You’ve worked on me. I’m confident you know what you’re
doing. Take care of our Marines.”
And so I did.
[The Bureau of Medicine oversees the Navy’s medical affairs.]
TC: After you left the Boxer and entered Iraq, were you
able to continue providing chiropractic care?
When I joined First Marine division, I continued to treat. There were plenty
of people that needed chiropractic care. Plenty of people knew I was a chiropractor
and asked me to treat them. I did.
I went over and I spoke with the medical doctor there with the division and
I offered my services for any neuromusculoskeletal conditions that were showing
up. I taught some soft tissue techniques to the corpsmen that helped them give
the Marines and sailors more than Motrin.
All these people get a treatment and they are like, “Gosh! What was that?
Man, I feel so much better.”
TC: What kinds of problems did you see with the patients?
You obviously have some people with chronic conditions—some of the older
Marines, the more senior people. But the younger Marines, these [soldiers] are
young [and] healthy Americans who are carrying around 40 extra pounds of gear,
sleeping on the ground, driving long distances in machines that aren’t
made for comfort. So, if you sit in a cramped space and travel four hours, periodically
having to jump out of that vehicle and maneuver, you’re going to get a
whole lot of aches and pains, and subluxations are going to start to show up
all over the place.
TC: Did you still have your table once you entered
Iraq?
I brought my table with me off the Boxer. At first I thought I was going to
be able to carry it with me because initially I was going to be staying with
the higher headquarters. However, once I found I out was going to be with First
Marine Division, I had to travel light. I really didn’t have the space
for it.
TC: What did you use instead?
Whatever was about the right height, including embarkation boxes—we call
them ebark boxes—or MRE (meals ready to eat) boxes. Those were pretty
low, and, I tell you what, after my first long day of adjusting on MRE boxes
I was hurting.
I thank God for the Activator on that one [for self-adjustment]. There were
no other chiropractors around. I could reach up and put it on atlas and go and
hope that would get it.
TC: Did you face any challenges adjusting personnel in
heavy uniform?
Not really. For the chemical protective gear, maybe we’d take off
part of it, but for the most part we kept it on. The chemical protective gear
we had in this [war] wasn’t too bad. I mean it served two functions: it
kept out the chemicals and it kept in the smell of Marines who hadn’t
showered for a week or so. So we really appreciated it, especially when we finally
took them off. That would get your attention real quick.
You’d have to take [some] gear off. I didn’t adjust many people
with a flack jacket on. And then right outside of Baghdad, we were able to change
back into our regular uniforms.
TC: Were you ever called upon to adjust someone
near active combat?
No. It tended to be during the lesser intense times, “lesser intense”
being a relative term. At one point, there were civilian vehicles moving back
and forth on the road, and one of them pulled up and we got shot at. That was
probably one of the most intense times that I was adjusting.
TC: That probably ended the adjusting session.
That it did.
TC: You’ve talked about the physical challenges
the troops faced, but war is notorious for the stress it induces. How much of
what you addressed as a chiropractor was a result of stress?
Most of it was stress-related. Let’s face it, everybody’s under
stress. And depending on their level of responsibility, [they may face] greater
stress. In the Hollywood movies, you see the officers who don’t know what
they’re doing and that kind of thing. [In reality] the officers are very
well trained, and they know what they’re doing. They’re exceptional
leaders, and we’ve got very high quality Marines and sailors of all ranks,
but when you’re responsible for 30 people or you’re responsible
for 800 people and their equipment—that’s stress.
We all handle it, but the stress was still there. You don’t really consciously
think about it at the time, but when you do sit back, you reflect on the opportunities
for snipers, for mortars, and for attack to occur at any time. And, you don’t
know who’s going to be attacking you.
TC: When did you arrive in Baghdad and did you stay there
for much of your tour?
A good week or so into the fight, we got into Baghdad and we spent two or three
days in and around the city. At that point, we were ordered forward again and
we formed a task force—task force Tripoli—that was the group that
pushed forward and attacked and seized Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown.
We were there about a week and then turned it over to the Fourth Infantry Division.
As a matter of fact, [that was] the brigade that captured Saddam.
TC: Were you able to adjust any Iraqi citizens?
No. There were a couple of times I was looking at Iraqis who needed care. They
were being evaluated by the corpsmen and I would walk over to see if there was
a way that chiropractic could help the situation. Most of the time it was beyond
that. The people needed serious medical care.
I could have adjusted these people, and I’m sure they’d get some
relief, but you don’t want just one adjustment. You’d like to be
able to get a series of adjustments for long-lasting effect, and I never really
had that opportunity.
For the Marines I was with, I was able to follow up and do multiple adjustments
as required. For the Iraqis, we were just passing through.
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