Originally Posted by Marvin Blank
Late to the party, but here is my opinion.
I understand what a lot of you are saying about your front being only for bullets and grenades, etc. However, I disagree for a couple of reasons.
As a medic, you are often walking around without an aid bag, and never know when something bad is gonna happen (shura, district center, 200 meters from an mrap playing with kids). It's not practical to think you are always gonna have an aid bag on you for every second outside the wire.
Also, with care under fire, you need to be able to do minimal interventions on short notice.....often in situations not conducive to pulling an aid bag off your back, and opening it up, and then packing it back up and loading in back on your back. Or, if you have to move to someone (while under fire, be it running behind a low wall, climbing thru a rear gun hatch) you often are just trying to get them to a better position, and don't want a big assed bag on your back (but might want more than a TQ if you have a spare minute or two behind a wall as CAS goes crazy, or your TS tells you to hold fast while he maneuvers on the shitheads (since you are still "under fire", but are relatively safe staying put)
Therefore, I keep a medical pouch on my kit to work out of without going to the aid bag. HOWEVER, DO NOT SUFFER THE MEDIC CURSE OF OVERPACKING. It is a small pouch. I have ONE c gauze, one h and h compressed gauze, one narp needle d cath, one cric kit, one npa, one pair of gloves. Elsewhere on my kit, like everyone, I have scissors, tqs (I carried 4 as the medic, so i Could use them for others without using up any in case I needed self aid), and a sharpie. Stuffed into the little Velcro pocket on my front flap (not all kits have this, but I believe the mbav does) was a halo dressing, which has 2 in it.
Very compact (magazine pouch size), and able to handle one gunshot/facial trauma/small packing job/basic airway. I considered this part of my assault bag when I packed the bag, since I would always have the mag pouch on me (ie, didn't need an additional crick kit in the bag).
Again, as long as you keep it minimalist, it is very helpful and efficient, and I felt comfortable going to a patient during care under fire phase and the initial tccc phase (still under threat or non effective ish fire and needing to move to better position) without an aid bag if speed or keeping a low profile dictated it.....since if that little pouch couldn't handle it, it wasn't going to be something i should be doing under fire anyways.
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