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.