Here's the answer: We are augmentees working as a Navy medical unit, for the Army. There are actual Navy medical units in Afghanistan (and other places such as Djibouti, Cuba, and Kuwait) which provide care to Navy and Marine Corps personnel mainly. This latter group goes through medical training as a group on Marine Corps bases such as Camp LeJeune. Their training is much different than ours. The groups like ours are heading to Army Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) or Army-run hospitals.
The Army chain of command in these downrange places such as Kandahar, where I am going, have decided that non-Army augmentees are all to be treated alike and receive the same training, with few exceptions. The one exception that comes to mind is the military police - they get even more time on the firing range, which makes sense. What does not make sense is that a medical unit comprised of surgeons, internists, intensivists, nurses and corpsmen are treated as if they had no specialized training, or as if they were a group of JAGs, veterinarians, or entomologists. The Army leaders feel that it is more important to train us in the use of M-16s, how to drive HUMVEEs, how to do hand-to-hand combat, and so forth. In the 30 days we have been here we have had essentially no training in trauma (to include no Advanced Trauma Life Support, which should be a requirement), no training in Mass Casualities (MASCAL), no training in the unique aspects of massive blood product transfusions in the trauma setting, and no training on any unique medical threats which we may be exposed to (is the enemy getting desperate enough to use chemical or biological weapons, and if so, which ones?).
The leaders and senior folks whom I bunk with all feel that this type of training would have been vastly more beneficial. We should be running MASCAL drills every day, as far as we are concerned. Some of the surgeons have suggested that we - as a group - should be spending our days working together in a trauma center like Shock Trauma or one of the other regional trauma centers. This would have been tough to pull off, but then again, getting 63 of us to run a coordinated "Live Fire Exercise" as we will be doing in the upcoming 2 days is not easy either.
The Live Fire Exercise is the culmination of what we have learned up to this point. We have already taken custody of numerous HUMVEEs (they fill the quad, I haven't counted them yet) and the Crew Cert Weapons -- essentially HUMVEE-mounted machine guns -- and we will begin convoy operations in a simulated battlefield scenario, complete with fake IEDs and other hazards. We will shoot weapons at some point as well, presumably at something simulating the enemy. Combat docs, weekday warriors! Maybe if we finish early we can fit in a MASCAL...
This past weekend we were granted a pass - Friday night through tonight at 7:30 pm. Many people were able to tee up last minute flights, some at eye watering rates (we found out about the weekend passes last Monday morning). The last minute pass submission was generated because it appears we may be leaving earlier than anticipated for Kuwait and points beyond. We are supposed to depart on Thursday morning at 0720. But there is a special surprise awaiting before then.
We have our last evolution scheduled to end at about 1600 on Wed afternoon. We then commence barracks and bathroom cleanup and continue until 3am when we get inspected. We then get bused to the military air terminal at 4am where we are hoping that a cup of coffee awaits us at the USO. I can't figure out why the folks in charge feel compelled to make our last night in the Continental US before a 7 month deployment feel so... punitive. From Ft. Lewis we fly to Topeka, KS, then somewhere in Maine, then Ramstein AFB, Germany, then onto Kuwait. Should take about 24 hours I am guessing. Regardless, most of us just had a great time visiting our loved ones one last time, or hanging out together in Portland or Seattle. Hard to focus on that truly bogus departure plan just yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment