Captain wounded in blast gets medal Published Feb. 18, 2011 By Wayne Crenshaw 78 ABW/PA ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Shortly after she deployed to Afghanistan last year, Capt. Jordan Lindeke and some colleagues joked about medals they did not want to receive. Those included the Prisoner of War Medal, the Combat Action Medal and the Purple Heart. Little did Lindeke know she would soon earn one of those medals. As a medical professional whose work was largely confined to a large, well-secured base, she didn't have a great sense of being in danger. Lindeke, who is assigned to the 78th Air Base Wing Medical Group, was a medical logistics mentor to Afghans at a 60-bed hospital. "I'm a paperwork person," she said. "How often to do you see anyone who pushes paperwork getting a Purple Heart?" She was stationed at Forward Operating Base Thunder at an Afghan army base in Gardez. On Dec. 5, she was shopping, just as she had done many times previously, at a Saturday bazaar just outside the gates of the FOB. She was bartering over a price with a vendor when 10 feet away, a suicide bomber set off a blast. It killed two Americans - a Soldier and a Marine - and two Afghan vendors. Lindeke and her battle buddy, Maj. Sean McNamara, were among the 18 injured. She doesn't remember the explosion itself. The first thing she can recall is frantically trying to find McNamara. The two went everywhere together, and he was standing within a few feet of her when the blast occurred. He had been blown back and they became separated. "This is the person I had spent so much time with, and I had made him go shopping with me," she said. She followed her combat skills training, which was to flee the scene in case of a secondary blast. All the while she was looking for McNamara, but she also joined in the response, calling in medical evacuation helicopters. She did not immediately recognize she was injured and initially refused treatment. But, at the insistence of others, she eventually did. Tests showed she had a ruptured ear drum and a brain bleed. She finally found McNamara at the base clinic when she was taken in for treatment. His wounds were more severe, and she saw blood on the floor where he being treated. He had suffered shrapnel wounds. Both were awarded the Purple Heart on their hospital beds, and both have made a full recovery. McNamara, stationed at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., recently returned to work. Lindeke expects to return to work here in early March. Her new assignment is to be in charge of the medical readiness flight. She still has some memory problems as a result of the explosion and is unsure how long that may last, but she is learning to cope by writing things down more often. Although she did not aspire to earn the Purple Heart, she said having been awarded the honor means a lot, especially when she thinks of all the veterans who have earned the medal. "There is such a legacy and a heritage that goes with it, it's hard to put into words," she said. She also said the aftermath of the explosion has given her a deeper appreciation for her career, and she has hard time imagining she might ever do anything else. "It's been a weirdly good experience because there's been this Air Force family all along the way," she said. "Even the Soldiers and Army civilians I was deployed with, they've sent e-mails and checked on me. Everybody has been unbelievable."