Kevin has done a lot of good articles in our community
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Special Forces medics undergo rigorous training By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer
RICHMOND, Va. — The shift's first emergency call crackled over the fire station's P.A. system just before 9 in the morning: a possible heart attack in the Richmond suburbs.
Sgt. Chris Meeker, a Special Forces soldier from Fort Bragg, jumped into an ambulance with a paramedic from Henrico County. They raced to the woman's house and took her to the hospital. Another call came quickly - a cleaning woman had swallowed bleach. She didn't want to go to the hospital, so Meeker and the paramedic treated her at home.
Meeker was working a 24-hour shift and it was busy. It was just what he needed - he is learning to be a medic.
By the time he was rolling out on ambulance calls in Richmond, he had already made it through two phases of training. In the first - selection - he survived a rigorous weeding-out process to pick the men best suited to wear the Green Beret. Then came five weeks of combat skills training that all Special Forces soldiers go through.
He is now almost halfway through the one-year medic program for one of the toughest Special Forces specialties. His training covers everything from treating gunshot wounds to veterinary medicine.
During the 20th week in the course, students are sent to hospitals in Tampa and Jacksonville, Fla., or Richmond for hands-on training. The four-week clinical rotation is required to complete the nationally accredited paramedic program.
The students serve as medics in the emergency room and on ambulances. They also work in some of the hospital’s other departments, including the wards that handle burns and brain injuries.
The goal is to get the soldiers as much experience as possible and give them the confidence to treat everything from severe wounds or injuries to an Afghan villager's cough.
Observing the veterans
Meeker, who is 35, joined the Army to become a Special Forces medic. He had finished a tour in the Air Force and was attending a seminary in Pittsburgh when a friend told him that the Special Forces was taking recruits directly into its training program. He joined the West Virginia National Guard and was selected.
In Richmond, Meeker was nervous on each call because the civilian paramedics were observing. But he said he could see the training paying off.
He said watching some of the senior civilian paramedics calm a patient had been helpful.
"The biggest thing I've learned is how to walk up to a patient and be personable," he said.
Sgt. 1st Class James Kaltenbaugh coordinates the Special Forces training at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in downtown Richmond. He said the pressure that Meeker felt helps build good medics.
"It is good to feel pressure," he said. "If one guy goes down on a team, you are going to have everybody around you saying, 'Come on, Doc.'"
Once his training is complete, Meeker will join a 12-man A-team - the basic operational unit of Special Forces. He could be the only available medical care for his teammates in the field.
By the time the student medics reach the hospital phase, they have had a lot of medical knowledge poured into their heads quickly. Maj. Alan Davis, the officer in charge of the Special Operations Combat Medic Course, said that in 30 days the students cover a lot of the ground that is the curriculum in the first two years of medical school.
Meanwhile, the medic trainees have also practiced treating trauma injuries on each other. Sometimes they mimic how they would treat an injury. Other things they do for real, such as starting IVs on one another.
The simulations stop after the 20th week. When the students arrive at the hospital or the firehouse, they are expected to perform.
12-hour shifts
Sgt. 1st Class Jason Strominger's patient was 50 years older than the soldiers he’s likely to be treating when he gets to a team.
Hardy Nance, a frail 86-year-old man, sat in the hospital bed. He was dazed, with a large gash over his right eye.
Wearing gloves and a protective mask over his mouth and eyes, Strominger flushed the wound with water before helping a doctor stitch it up.
This was Strominger's second week working in the emergency department at the VCU Medical Center. The students work 12-hour shifts six days a week.
During his 12-hour shifts, he also took blood and started IVs. Before he leaves in a month, he’ll have completed more advanced procedures, including starting chest tubes and delivering babies.
"Its good training," Strominger said. "It takes a lot of stuff out of the books and makes it hands-on."
There are 11 soldiers on the rotation in Richmond. The medical center is the main trauma center in the area - giving the medic trainees plenty to see. The hospital caters to poor people and those without insurance.
In the first six hours of Strominger's shift, several patients were shuttled into the trauma treatment rooms. Each time, doctors found one of the three student medics in the emergency department to show them advanced procedures.
On one day alone, the three students in the emergency room cleaned a head wound, helped suture a man's wrist, took blood, started IVs and assisted on several trauma cases.
"Our goal here is to provide them with the experience they can use in the field," said Dr. Stein Bronsky, an emergency medicine resident.
He spent a few weeks at Fort Bragg in the medics' initial training. He said it gave him a lot of confidence in what they would do in the emergency department.
Spc. Josh Tarsky, a 30-year-old recruit, said seeing the variety of injuries and diseases is valuable training since most of the medics’ patients won't be 18- to 30-year-old commandos. They are going to treat villagers and the soldiers of the foreign armies the Special Forces trains.
"Doing this job is like a backstage pass to every room in the hospital," he said.
Staff photo by Stephanie Bruce
Sgt. 1st Class Jason Strominger, a Special Forces student medic, irrigates a wound above the eye of Hardy Nance as Nance's wife, Verner, watches in the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center emergency department in Richmond, Va.
He had finished a tour in the Air Force and was attending a seminary in Pittsburgh when a friend told him that the Special Forces was taking recruits directly into its training program.
What an interesting career path from the seminary to the Special Forces. Good for him.
If you didn't work the ER under Ron B. at Womack 22:00-06 when the Flaming Mug was having pitcher chugging contests and the 82nd just got a batt back from the Sinai - I ain't impressed.
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Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
What an interesting career path from the seminary to the Special Forces. Good for him.
You would be surprised by the number of very religious people in SF. I should add that to the diversity I saw on my team...Catholics, Protestants, atheists, etc...
LTG Boykin would be the highest ranking I know of the top of my head, but there are plenty throughout the ranks.
In the bible, there are a number of positive references to soldiers. The profession calls for one to be willing to lay his life down for another.
On a related note, one of the Rangers involved in the Somalia mission depicted in Blackhawk Down became an Army Chaplain on active duty.
WM, it wasn't my intent to imply anything other than it was an interesting career path from the air force to the seminary to being a quiet professional. I suppose there have been a number of guys that have left the service to become clergy but this is the first time I have heard of someone leaving the clergy to serve.
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On a related note, one of the Rangers involved in the Somalia mission depicted in Blackhawk Down became an Army Chaplain on active duty.
If I am not mistaken Jeff S. also won the best Ranger competition before heading off to the seminary. There was an article posted either here or on SOCNET a year or two ago about a QP that went through the seminary and is now serving as a Chaplin.
I'm in the Delta course right now and we have a guy that was a Youth Minister before joining. That was a cool article. I'd like to go to Richmond for my rotation. Thanks for posting that.
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