Robert’s Third Post

Hey everybody,

I hope everyone is doing well on this fine Sunday. Today is the 17th of February, 2008 and a lot has happened since the last time I gave a post on here. We have almost finished training, we took our record PT test, I’ve had fun out on the town, gotten my orders for what I am doing and where I am going when I’m done with training, gotten some new ideas on how I can advance my rank to officer!! These past 2 weeks has been very interesting!!

We have four weeks of training left until graduation on March 14th. We just completed our validation, which is a hands on training test where we have to complete 10 random tasks, such as an Emergency Cricothyroidotomy (cutting a whole in the throat to put in a breathing tube), Tourniquets, Interosseous Infusions (iv’s in the bone!), Combitubes (inserting an oral airway), and some other random stuff. Those aren’t the hard part though! The difficult part is that these tasks are supposed to be in a combat situation with bullets and stress and stuff, so while performing these tasks, the SGT’s and instructors were yelling in our hears and throwing stuff at us. It was funny but very hard. Each task had to be performed by a certain standard and it was actually quite simple; I passed all 10 with 100% on all of them. Next, we’ve got STX (Situation Training Exercises) which is the same thing as validation, except we do it outside, with all of our gear (helmet, M-16, Load Bearing Vest, etc) and there are a lot more things we have to do. For example, in validation, we had to do a needle chest decompression for a bullet wound to the chest. However, in STX we will have to do that, and stop an arterial bleed to the femoral artery and fix a shrapnel wound in the back! This will be over the next week and a half and after that, we have FTX (field training excercise) where we sleep in the field at Camp Bullis and do the same stuff. Then we graduate on March 14th and it’s off to the next place.

I found out this past week, my next scheduled place of duty begins on June 6th!! On March 28th, I begin M6 (nursing training) and I graduate phase I on May 23rd. I then go to Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington! for phase II (clinicals). I then graduate on May 19th in 2009 from school. I have volunteered for a two year tour of korea for extra dollars a month, but if I don’t get that (which is likely), I also requested DC, TX, Colorado, Alaska, Germany, and Italy, so we’ll see where the Army will put me. Wherever I go, I definately want to go officer.

That’s another thing that I did this week! I found out about the PA program (Physician’s Assistant). I am definately interested in everything about it, and it will be a very difficult journey. Captain Williams (the PA that is in charge of our training) told us a lot about it. After the pre-requisites are accomplished (M6 can help with them), we come back to Fort Sam Houston for a whole year to train. We would be considered prior service, which gives us the ability to live off post, have cars and basically, complete freedom! Once training has begun, we would be automatically be promoted to an E-5 SGT. The first year is a lot of class work, but once we are done, we are promoted to a Second Lieutenant, which is the first rank of officer status. After that, we can be shipped to our duty station and the next year of school is all clinicals. Once the 2 year PA training program is complete, we are promoted to a First Lieutenant and 6 months later, we are captain promotable. Because the PA program in the civilian world is paying so well, the army is paying $BIG bonuses a year!!!! Another benefit of being a PA is since there are so few of them in the army, the army ships them into the field all the time. M6’s are almost always in hospitals, psych wards, and even nursing homes. I don’t want to be in a psych ward and being sent to the field would be awesome! The PA program would be very cool to get into, even if it is so difficult.

I hope everything is going good for everyone at home! My M6 training doesn’t start for two weeks after I graduate Combat Medic School, so I might be getting some time off here in the near future to come home and visit!! Looking forward to hearing from you and I wish you the best for those of you in school still, cause the end is almost near. Take care ya’ll and I will talk to you later.

Sincerely,
PV2 Rob Pate