Steve McLean had never experienced such a sustained sense of anxiety.

Nor had he ever felt his professional skills were so needed and appreciated.

McLean, a new La Grande dentist, was reflecting recently on his

eight-month stint at a U.S. military air base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

McLean served as a dentist there from October 2009 through May 2010.

One of two dentists on a base with 30,000 people, McLean saw about 20 patients a day. None were concerned about improving their smiles or flossing techniques. Everyone McLean treated was experiencing or on the verge of a dental emergency.

“We didn’t do anything that was routine,” McLean said.

The people he treated had impacted wisdom teeth, broken and abscessed teeth and many other serious problems. Conditions that an aspirin or two do not relieve.

“All were in tremendous pain,” McLean said.

Their discomfort heightened the challenges he faced and his feeling of accomplishment.

“It ended up being very rewarding. You felt a lot of satisfaction. They (his military base patients) were so grateful,” McLean said. “It was the first time in my life I worked with people who were almost happy to see the dentist.”

It was also the first time in McLean’s life he knew that death could rain from the sky at any moment. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortars were fired into the air base about every two weeks by the Taliban during the eight months McLean was there. The grenades and mortars could kill anyone, anywhere at the base because there were for no structures thick enough to keep out the shrapnel. Some buildings where many people gathered, like the meal hall, were fortified, but they were still vulnerable.

“It (a possible attack) was always in the back of my mind,” McLean said.

The dentist sometimes passed a stark reminder of the perpetual danger he and everyone faced. It was a living quarters building that a rocket-propelled grenade had recently blasted a large hole in. The structure was identical to one McLean slept in every night.

Unfortunately, there was no pattern to the Taliban’s attacks.

“It was so random,” McLean said. “There was no way to safeguard yourself. There was no sense of security.”

McLean never had any close calls from enemy attacks, but once a form of friendly fire almost got the best of him. McLean was in his dental office when a bullet flew four feet over his head into the ceiling.

“That gets your attention very fast,” McLean said. “It was so loud. I thought ‘What just happened?’ It was a total shock.”

The bullet came from an M16 rifle a soldier was cleaning in another room of the building the dental office was in. The man had thought the rifle’s chambers were empty when it discharged.

Land mines were another danger faced at the base. Many were two decades old after being planted in the 1980s by soldiers with the former Soviet Union. The Soviet troops planted the mines after their country invaded Afghanistan in 1980.

Fortunately the mines at the Bagram air base can be easily avoided as long as people remain on designated routes and stay clear of sites marked hazardous.

From generals to German shepherds

Virtually all of McLean’s patients were American military personnel or members of the Coalition Forces. The non-Americans there included troops from Germany, Poland, Great Britain and France. None of these nations had sent a single dentist to the Bagram air base.

McLean treated everyone from privates to high-ranking commanders including four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal, now retired. McChrystal was commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan when McLean treated him for a broken filling.

“He is a wonderful man,” the dentist said.

McLean also treated some Afghans who were brought into the base, and even a Taliban detainee held for interrogation. The detainee wore ear muffs and blinders so that he would not pick up any information or communicate.

The dentist’s patients also included a German shepherd used to sniff out bombs. McLean worked on one of the dog’s teeth after the dog had been put under anesthesia.

“I did a root canal for the canine of a canine,” he said.

Presidential visit

Morale in the base’s high stress environment was boosted by people such as President Barack Obama, who visited on the evening of March 28. Obama’s arrival was unannounced but McLean knew that something was up that evening because things became eerily quiet the hour before the president’s plane flight came in. Silence was not the norm on the base, a city that never slept.

“It’s almost always loud and bustling. It never shuts down,” McLean said.

The men and women Obama visited included the wounded at the base’s hospital. Obama pinned Purple Hearts on all the injured American men and women he visited, including one man who was severely injured and unconscious. Obama at first laid the Purple Heart next to the soldier, fearing that pinning it on him might complicate his condition. Maj. John Bini, the base’s trauma director, then stepped forward and almost commanded Obama to pin the Purple Heart on to him.

“You should do it. He is one of your soldiers,” Bini said.

Obama quickly agreed and pinned on the Purple Heart.

“It was an emotional moment,” said McLean, who did not meet Obama but was later told of his visit to the base’s hospital.

McLean believes the Taliban may have suspected Obama was at the air base because rockets were fired at it minutes after the president left.

Entertainers who visited the base included county singer Toby Keith and retired NFL star Michael Strahan. The former football player is recognizable to millions in the United States because of a gap in his front teeth which gives him a signature smile.

McLean told Strahan good naturedly during his visit that he could fix the gap in his teeth. Strahan said he would never consider it.

“No way,” Strahan said. “That’s my money maker.”

No K rations

Life was hard at Bagram air base but everyone ate well.

“We had steak and lobster every Friday,” he said. “That is the one real perk of being over there, you eat well on the base.”

Otherwise life was not only dangerous but hard. Food was plentiful but good water scarce. Only bottled water was available for drinking and everyone was limited to three-minute showers.

Conditions were always dry and dusty. So clouded was the air that men and women joked about getting the black lung disease which afflicts miners.

McLean and others at the base also endured a feeling of confinement since they could not leave.

“You lose a lot of freedoms you have at home because of the security restrictions.”

McLean said he received a morale boost each day when he talked with his wife, Kristine, and their children, Cole and Kade, via telephone and the Internet. They were living on the coast at Oceanside.

McLean, who graduated from Oregon Health and Science University in 2007, began practicing dentistry in La Grande in August. He assumed the practice of Lynn Harris, who retired after a 36-year career in La Grande.

McLean said he benefited greatly from serving in the U.S. Army in part because he received four months of oral surgery training before he went to Afghanistan. The oral surgery training gave him the ability to remove impacted wisdom teeth in Bagram and is helping him in his practice today

McLean credits his high stress experience at Bagram air base with making it easier for him to begin his dental practice in La Grande.

“It has made routine things easier to manage,” McLean said. “I have confidence that I can handle complex situations because I have been through a complex experience.”