FTX

This blog will have more pictures as I aquire them!

Just 3 days after I got to my unit (after in-processing), I went to the field for training. We set up a hospital in tents and used it! We had a kitchen, dining tent, ER, OR, ICU and ICW (where I was working), Lab, Radiology, PAD, Chapel, etc! We had done this in training, but we were actually doing surgeries in the OR and then they would come to me in the ICU for recovery. Across the street is a military airport. As patients were coming out of sedation, they would see the tent shake as a Chinook or blackhawk flew overhead!

We aparently do this twice a year to stay up on our skills, inventory all of our supplies (the same ones that we would deploy with) and to just have fun. I'm in the medical field (not infantry) so we had airconditioned tents! The airconditioning actually works better than in the barracks!

During our daily tasks and patient care in the field, you have to stay prepared for an attack. They set up mock attacks frequently. They are fun to respond to because they try to make them real! We had a casualty or 2 that got their face smashed or stepped on during the struggle! We have to stay prepared, so we were doing our nursing tasks with M-16 rifles on our back! This was an awesome hospital!!

For 2 days, I got to pretend to be a North Korean enemy. I would hide in the bushes, and as the patrols would walk by, I would jump out at them and wrestle them into the forest! This was an eye-opener for some of the soldiers. Several of them didn't put up a struggle at all. Most of them didn't do nearly enough to resist. The last soldier that I jumped out at, however, was ready to roll. We wrestled for a good 2 minutes, took it to the ground and rolled around on the gravel and eventually I tapped out when he started eye-gouging me! I came out a little bloody from that one, but had the most fun of them all!!!

This is a view out the back of the truck that drove us to FTX. You can see Seoul in the background. The blue truck behind us has all of our explosives!

The guy beside me is my current roommate. We've been in the same company since basic training. A 2-47 at Ft Benning, GA, E 232nd at Fort Sam Houston, TX, C 264th also at Fort Sam Houston, C 247 Stu Det and Fort Bliss, Texas and B 121st CSH in Yongsan, Korea.

This is from inside the ICU. SGT Gilcrest was one of the NCOIC's. PFC Hauffe (behind me) was with me in every company except basic training (but he was at Fort Benning in another company while I was there)

This is another view of the ICU. The big tube running down the center of the tent is the A/C or heater. In the back, you'll see a blue sheet hanging on the left. That is our bathroom for the ward. In Iraq, before they had stationary hospitals inside buildings, they had to use this and sinks that were pump powered by foot. Privacy is still provided as much as possible, but is extremely limited.

This is PFC Hauffe and SGT Tobin pulling guard duty. About an hour later, just after dark, we had a half dozen people attempt to break thru that fence. I wasn't in my gear, but I helped as much as I could. I'm glad my camera didn't get broken!!

This is the kitchen. I really liked the gravel floor!!

This is the tent I slept in. It is NOT normally this nice looking! One of the things we do for family members, is on the last day, we let them come out and tour the hospital. This helps the families be a little more comfortable with what we do. When we deploy, they have fewer questions/concerns and are a LITTLE less worried. We were a little crazy about our cleaning for this event. We made everything look nice and clean, then we trashed it!!

After FTX, we pack everything back into shipping crates. If or when we deploy, these crates are already packed and inventoried. This will be the same tent that I'll sleep in, the same equipment that we'll treat our patients with. If North Korea invades again, all we have to grab is our body armor, weapon and a couple pairs of clothes.