09/06/06 Serving Time in Iraq

Serving time in Iraq. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. When you think of the military in Iraq you normally picture troops with guns but one Lieutenant Colonel is also a veterinarian working with the Iraqi agricultural sector. Lt Col. Deanna Brown is working with Iraqi veterinarians refocus on large animal health. She recently held a large workshop in Iraq. BROWN: This was a capacity building workshop. There about 90 veterinarians from throughout Iraq from the various levels of government. Brown said that the main focus was on livestock. BROWN: All livestock primarily. You got sheep, cattle, goats, poultry. Those are the primary livestock species that they are concerned with here. According to Brown there are many challenges being faced regarding the Iraqis and animal healthcare. BROWN: They have many different issues they have to deal with that we don't have to deal with in the United States. They have many diseases; very significant diseases such as foot and mouth disease, several other very significant diseases that we don't have in the U.S. as well as an infrastructure that has not allowed them to develop good over-arching programs to control these diseases. Brown says that American tax dollars are really helping get things back on track. BROWN: We've developed an interagency working group of veterinarians from many different organizations with military, USDA, working with universities in the United States; we've had Colorado State, University of Kentucky, Georgia. Many of the other players have been involved as well as the American Veterinary Medical Association trying to help the Iraqi veterinarians to pull together to develop a good plan here. Serving in Iraq and helping their agricultural programs was not really what Brown envisioned for her life. BROWN: No that wasn't something I thought about. My plans at that time was to be a dairy practitioner which I did for a while. I was a private practitioner up in Wisconsin and a dairy practice and decided to join the Army in 1991 and have gone on and so here I am. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.