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that must have been fun, with o'neills, if you don't mind me asking, how long were you in the millitary? and what did you do?...peachy
 
military

Me and my military career - a brief overview:

21 & 1/2 years, active and reserve in the US Army. Enlisted in 1975. Mostly medical: everything from combat medic, through nurse, OR tech, Respiratory therapist and on into admin when I promoted to E-8 just before Desert Storm.

Additional skills/assignments were 'Unit Supply and Armorer' [took care of stock and weapons], 'Reserve Recuriting and Retention' - working with folks to see if the Reserve had good things for them to enlist/re-enlist for.

My last active duty assignment was as 'Assistant Chief Wardmaster - Evening/Nights' for Madigan Army Medical Center - a 1500 bed major medical facility with multiple teaching and physician residency programs [was the senior enlisted nurse in the facility from 1500 through to 0700 the next day - just below the Chief Ward Master who was a Sergeant Major - E-9] as an E-8 Master Sergeant when I came back from Desert Storm.

My last reserve assignment was as a First Sergeant [Top] for a medical detatchment [the second senior administrative enlisted next to the unit Command Sergeant Major - E-9].

I was on the list for the 'Sergeant's Major Academy' [automatic promotion to E-9] when my last enlistment came due, but RL got in the may of my re-enlisting. That and the fact the only reserve E-8 slot anyone could find was in a unit in Sacramento, California and I live near Seattle, WA. I could have taken it, but just could Not have handled all the commute four ot five times a month and still work my wierd hours in health care as a civilian.

My assignment in Desert Storm was 'Assistant Chief Wardmaster' to a 1000 bed General Hospital stationed in Rhyiadh, Saudi Arabia. From there I did some time in Kuwait and parts 'north' with nice names like 'Log Base Echo'. That's where I earned my 'Combat Medical badge'. I learned to dislike 0300 SCUD alerts, getting shot at, getting caned, living in my MOPP suit and trying to change my 'gas mask filters' in the middle of a SCUD attack. Getting rocketed is no fun.

Being a female soldier with some rank made being stationed in an Muslim country - different. It was an interesting place to have a war.
 
Getting around

Remember, the years I was in the Reserves, all I was required to do was do one weekend a month and a two week stretch during the year. I pulled more than that because there were things I wanted to do and learn. For a time in the Reserves, I was drilling at the hospital I worked for as a civilian - Madigan Army Medical Center - so everyone knew me and I was given a lot of free reign to learn different skills. Kinda 'multi-tasking', as it were.

On active duty, that *is* your job. Now the service has you for 24/7. There is no concept of 'overtime' so there were times I worked long, hard stretches. But in medicine, they usually try not to over extend you. that can lead to mistakes being made.

Now, in Desert storm, all bets were off. We were on a 12/7 schedule: you worked 12 hours at the hospital seven days a week as a minimum and your 'down time' was when you ate, did your laundry, hit the water point and brought back drinking water to the billets, pulled guard duty, things like that. there were times I did 48-72 hours straight because it was needed - I'd nap on a litter or something if I could.

Especially right after we started bombing Baghdad and the start of the ground offensive. We were told to expect 15,000 casualties within the first 36 hours of the war. And we weren't one of the units at the front at that time, although I did end up going forward myself.

Luckily this did not happen. But we didn't know that at the time and Department of Nursing was up for that entire 100+ hours until we were sure.
 
wow rowan, what an interesting career you've had.
and all those different places you've visited, i remember
when desert storm was being reported on the t.v. it looked really frightening, can't imagine how all you guys
out there coped with it, especially the gas threat. are you still in the millitary?...peachy
 
Still in?

Officially, I'm retired at 21&1/2 years. But due to my rank, job skills and experience, I am recallable if things fall apart big time. The same goes for my husband, who's a bit younger than I am.

He's the Airborne Paratrooper, Long Range Recon, Special Forces Guy-With-the-Green-Hat soldier. He was tasked to go to DS also, but be the time his unit finished moving him around [from 12th Special Forces group to 448th Civil Affairs - 12th SFG wasn't 'tasked' for the Mid-East, they were for the Pacific] so he could be sent and the orders caught cut, the war was pretty much over.

He was really ticked! As only someone in Special Ops who had to sit out a war can be ticked. It was kinda funny, in a macabre sort of way. He's trained for this stuff all his life and they send his wife, the nurse.

He was not a happy camper.
 
Wars

They - soldiers- are glad to miss it, in a way. But it's always what they've spent so many hours training for and it's the 'Comrade In Arms' espirit de corps that binds them together. And not just the front line folks.

I wasn't all that jacked up about it, believe me, but... I signed my name and raised my hand in the air. I went to drills and let them pay me money and send me off to schools at their expense for 15 years before Desert Storm. I probably could have found a way our of goin... Lord knows enough did.

But ... I made a promise on 'my life, my honor and my sacred trust' and I was honor and duty bound to carry through with it. The same went for him.

We had both 'Taken the King's Schilling' and our personal honor could accept no less that holding ourselves to our given word.

With my husband, he truly did and does believe that his skills and training can make a difference somewhere, at sometime for someone. To be left behind as others of his unit went was a bitter pill for him.

To put it in 'Gate' terms. His team mates left without him. He wasn't there to watch their backs. It was a hard cross to bear and a hard set of orders to carry out.

I'm proud of him: as my husband, as a man and as a soldier.
 
Joining the service

To serve your country and it's ideas can be an honest and noble ideal, but it can come with a mighty cost. And it's a cost not all can make the commitment and take the risk to pay.

Those who stay home and support also fight their own battle. We at the front and back along the supply lines could never survive without you folk back home being there for us... giving us a reason to be there - inprotection of our loved ones, home land and it's way of life.

You do you part by being there for us. And it's not an easy assignment. It's full of hard work and fear.

War is not wonderful or glorious. Soldiering is a deadly, dirty, but at times, necessary profession.

My heart and hand go out to all who wear the uniforms of their country and those who have lost a loved one who wore it.
 
War and Words

Thank you. I like to think my editors agree. :D

For a reality war movie, there are none, IMHO, that can best 'Saving Private Ryan'.
 
The Patriot

Saw it. Enjoyed it as a film, not a piece of historical fiction.

Only see 'Saving Private Ryan' if you are ready for it. I've seen the open 'beach attack scene' cause people to cry and turn green. The WW II Vet I know were they say it is 'very authentic'.

I've seen it. In private. So I don't embarrass myself cryin' my eyes out. I can see the first half [the beach] and I'm 'numb' about 5 minutes into it [coping mechanism that goes back to mass causality situations in health care and the Army] and I can see the last half of it and watch one of the finest, truest war films every made.

To see all of it at one sitting... well... my Docs and Nurses at VA didn't like me when I did that.

It hits hard and pulls no punches. A damn fine film that I put right up there with 'Schindeler's List'.
 
Satrs and team

Yep, Peachy... easy 5 out of five.

As for being a team... if we present ourselves as a team, do'ya think we could get into the Mountain?

{Got a friend stationed there with the 10th Special Forces at Ft. Carson and he still can't find a way that'll get me inside. Sigh...}
 
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