Class is out!

I finished the last day of my medical refresher course today. It has been a hectic past couple of days. We went out to the medical "lanes" to run through rapid trauma assessments. I will put some pictures up when I get the chance that will show you where we were and what it looked like.

Each team, a collective of two medics, has to go through five different stations. Each station has a different scenario, but all have the same mission. We needed to get all of our patients out of the line of fire and the perform a rapid treatment, you only get ten minutes. It really tested our ability to stay focused with multiple casualties, gun fire/ explosions, real patients, and the instructors breathing down our neck and yelling. I didn't even mention the smoke and the low light conditions. My team did pretty good, we had a few issues but we got the mission accomplished. As tiring as the whole ordeal was, it was a lot of fun and should serve as our baseline when we respond to real emergencies in Iraq.

This will probably be my last post before Ft Polk, so I can't guarantee any posts until we get back. I will try to leave an audio message when I get the chance. We have a meeting with the BN Commander tonight to get a briefing with more detail on our mission (as a company) overseas.

Have a great rest of the week and February for that matter!!!

Bope out.

Have you ever thought about your dream home?

Ok, So I had just a little bit too much time on my hands in class today. We finished our basic/advanced PHTLS yesterday. Today we started TC3 (tactical combat casualty care), but I don't think that I could tell you what they said. Instead of listening to the instructors, as I probably should have, I was thinking about how I would design my dream house. It ended up that it is settled on a lake in Minnesota, nestled in the pines but still accessible. It has a four car garage with heated floors so that I can work on my cars and had a guest room above. I apparently lost so much track that I drew a full schematic of it out on a piece of paper, detailed down to the siding and the lilacs bordering the walkway to the front entrance. It is oh so much fun to dream. . . .

When I am not dazed out into space, I have been reading my MCAT study guide book. So far I have gotten 3/4 the way through the physics section, but I seem to be stuck on electromagnetism. Classes will be done on the 26th and sometime thereafter we will be leaving for JRTC (joint regional training center) at Fort Polk, LA. Just a heads up: I will probably have no contact with the outside world for the month of February. We have already packed up an turned in three of our duffel bags and our tote box. That means that we only have one bag and our rucksack left. We won't see the bags that we turned in until we get in country at our FOB.

Things will be happening quickly now and before we know it we will be on the plane with our rifles headed over to the sandbox. It still seems so weird that we haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg on this deployment, we still have another 14-16 months left to go. I can only imagine the amount of stress this is to all those people who have families at home. I go through the barracks and look at the pictures of their wives and kids and it just makes me want this whole thing to be over so that they can go home to their families. It is almost more difficult for the ones left at home to deal with this deployment and in turn the stress can be shifted onto their marriage. Let's hope that everyone back home is doing what they can to support the families through this whole ordeal.

Well I think that I have said enough for one day. I added pictures to the yahoo photos (link on the right side of the page Christina) if I didn't already say that. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!!!

Nick

A Weekend Update. . . .

Ok, I have to make this quick because I only have ten minutes left on the internet.

Yes, If you haven't heard I am back in beautiful Mississippi. Since I got back, I have been in my medical classes every single day. I am getting a little bit worn out, I'll admit. Getting up every day at 5:30 for class at 7:00 is not exactly my cup of tea. We have been going through our continuing ed. credits for our EMT registration and so it is pretty easy stuff. On Wednesday we begin PHTLS (pre hospital trauma life support) certification which should be a little more interesting. My classes won't finish until around the 26th or so, which at least means I have a set schedule until then which is a plus.

Also. I mentioned the other day that we have a tentative mission plan for when we get to Iraq. NOTHING is ever set in stone, I can't stress this enough. We were told where our company is going to go and what we may be doing. Right now I can't tell you if I will be performing medical tasks or not. The troop strength for the missions will determine where everyone will go and what task they will be doing, so it may turn out that I could be tasked to something non-medical.

Well, I have to go but of course I will let everyone know as much information as OPSEC allows. Some things I can't share, but most is safe. Have a great week everyone!

Nick

P.S. I will really try to get a day when I can put some more pictures from here on my yahoo photos site. I will let you know.