A local woman opened the first dental clinic in a town just north of Baghdad in Iraq, and her mission was not only to make sure our soldiers were given proper dental care; she also offered her services to anyone who needed it. Melanie Newman always knew she wanted to be a dentist, but she didn't know she would be doing it in the middle of a war.

“At that point I said, ‘This is what I need to be doing.’  In Balad, where we saw the children, they only had… they were really in desperate need of dental care.  A lot of children were walking around in pain and discomfort," Newman said.

She first arrived in Iraq in 2003.  Her mission was to open a clinic, the first and only dental clinic in Balad, located just north of Baghdad. It was primarily for soldiers, but regardless of who came to the clinic, they received dental care. “I think it made a difference for them,” she added.  “Because they would say, ‘Oh I haven’t even had a cleaning in a few years because I’ve been deployed so much.  So just those things made me feel grateful.  I was so happy, I couldn’t do enough.  Why not? They deserve it."

Although she was dealing with extremely adverse conditions like not having the proper equipment and being in the midst of a war, Newman still had a job to do. She said, “You just make do with what you have.  And in some ways it was easier because it was a simpler way of living.  You have to worry about dying, but once you kind of know that you are relatively safe on the base, you do whatever you can to make it work.  I feel honored to have served my country.  I really do, I feel honored to have served the troops."

While a trip to the dentist might be scary for some, Newman says it doesn't compare to serving in a war. She’s opening her own practice alongside her uncle at Crestwood Dental in Hagerstown.