Just before Christmas last year, Navy Nurse Renee Brown said goodbye to her family for what she thought would be a year-long stint in Afghanistan. This year, her family is celebrating her return just a little earlier than they planned.

Brown spent the last nine months serving the United States in the hot desert sands of Afghanistan. This weekend, however, she spent time with her mom, Pam Edwards, grandmother Carol Smith and sisters Sara Harrell and Christy Wagoner.

Brown is a Mount Airy native, but is stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, Ill. Brown joined the Navy after Sept. 11, 2001.

The last place she visited in the states before her deployment was Fort Jackson, S.C. From there, she went to Kuwait for an introduction into desert life.

“We stayed out there for about four days before heading out to Bagram, which is a U.S. airfield in the north. We were there for a few days just to get processed. From there we went to Kandahar, which is a NATO compound that is run by the United States Army, it’s in the south. I was there for about four months doing blood running, which is taking different blood products to different locations in Afghanistan where we have shock trauma teams,” Brown said.

Brown said danger in that part of the world is ever present. She flew in helicopters during most of her missions.

“We were flying so low, they can shoot you with a gun if they have a strong enough weapon.”

In Kandahar, which is closer to Pakistan, she was part of a surgical team throughout the elections, which was a particularly dangerous time in that country, she said.

“One thing that I’m very proud of is that our medical unit had a 92-percent survival rate,” she said.

While serving, she dealt with a lot of Class A traumas. That is what she said they consider the worst of the worst.

“When you think of a Class A trauma, you think of someone who has lost both legs or who has been blown up. If they lost a hand, it’s not even considered trauma to us. We had the first ever synthetic lung transplant.”

She explained that a soldier from the United Kingdom got shot in the chest. The shot deflated his lung cavity.

“It penetrated his lung and his diaphragm was deflated. When he came in, they put balloons and stints in. The U.S. lung specialist came in from Germany. They did the transplant and he’s doing OK. He’s not out doing marathons, but he is up and walking and doing OK,” she said. “That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.”

Brown is an HM3 or Hospital Corpsman Third class.

She said wearing 60 pounds of gear and dealing with temperatures in upwards of 120 degrees during the day helped her shed 30 pounds. She said conditions on Afghanistan are extremely dry. She laughed when she said it would get to be a cool 80 degrees at night.

She slept on cots while she was overseas. There were about 12 people sleeping in her tent. She said people are up working and doing security 24 hours a day.

Although she had just arrived home last week, she already said she would be glad to go back.

“If the president wants us to stay there, then we do need more troops so it would help relive some of the stress off the ones that are already there,” Brown said.

While overseas, she said she met former Sen. John McCain, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who is the prime minister of Denmark, and Gordon Brown, the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

While there, she was a part of the Army 440th Blood Support Detachment of San Antonio, Texas. She was IA (Individual Augmentee) with that unit.

After visiting with her family over the weekend, she left Mount Airy on Monday headed back to Chicago where she is stationed. She is going back to work on Nov. 20.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.