No, they absolutely did. I brought it out and used it on one of the first days I was in Kandahar, much to the amazement of these U.S. surgeons who were there, who couldn't believe it. I was doing a procedure where I was sticking this big catheter pretty deeply into this guy, and they said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Well, trust me, this is exactly where we need to go.” It worked, and they were duly impressed.
But I think even more to the case, further on in my tour...I guess my reputation had preceded me. I was able to call for evacuations for patients who looked fine but who were bleeding to death inside. That's the enormous advantage of ultrasound. You have two patients. One of them has both his legs ripped off, but he has tourniquets on his legs and he's not bleeding anymore. He's actually going to live for several hours. The other guy beside him looks pretty good, but his belly's full of blood; there's no way you can push on that and stop the bleeding. He's the guy who goes in the chopper first and the other guy waits. That's how you end up with two living soldiers at the end. That's the huge advantage.
I was able to call for these evacuations for people who normally wouldn't have warranted one, and I got them into the operating room in time.