This is the ARMY Mr. Jones. . .

Well, I thought I ought to post a little bit about what I’ve been doing for the last 8 weeks or so. Actually, let me correct that – for the first 5 of those 8 weeks, I was sitting in a classroom watching powerpoints most of the day. Not much to report there. However, when that was over, we got to go out to the Field Training Exercise (FTX) – that was actually a little bit fun.

The purpose of the FTX is to introduce us to what it means to be a deployed medical officer. I got to participate in one back in May at Ft. Polk – but that was for reserve units. It was a little more fun because I got to do specific optometry stuff. This FTX was cooked up just for new medical officers and went over general stuff. Because I’d gotten to go to the exercise back in May I was already somewhat familiar with a lot of the stuff we were doing, but some of it was new. They took me away from Kristin and the Kids for three weeks – although I did get to visit home over the weekends.

The first week we spent a lot of time on the range – I got to shoot an M16 (rifle) and an M9 (pistol). The M9 was a lot more fun to shoot – M16s are big and a pain to carry around. We were issued one (M16) at the start of the exercise and had to keep it on us EVERYWHERE (even when we went to the shower). When I’d gone to the exercise last May I was told that a lost weapon can even mean a federal investigation (i.e. FBI), so they take it very seriously. The only time ammunition ever came close to the weapons was when we were at the range, and we had to have a pat-down before we left to make sure we weren’t sneaking any back to our bunks. Anyway, the only time we got to hold an M9 was also at the range, and it was a lot of fun to just stand up there and pop away at targets :-).

The second week was fun in that we got to do land navigation. They taught us how to take bearings on a map and with a compass, how to find out where we are and plot coordinates. The last day of the week ended with us going out on a course at 3am – we had a list of coordinates which we were supposed to find, each of which was marked with an orange flag and had a punch and a letter code attached to it. We had to find our 8 markers (the course was about 4 square kilometers) in 5 hours time, and return with list completed (each coordinate on the sheet had to have the appropriate letter code and punch-mark from it’s flag). I was actually a lot of fun – we hiked all over in the dark lugging empty M16s and the load-bearing vests which they made us wear. We had red flashlights that we had to use in the dark. One of the guys said it felt like we were going to hunt vampires :-). My partner and I finished really early.

That second week we also got to spend a day doing an obstacle course. We got to climb up a really tall ladder (the rungs were 3-4 feet apart). We also got to climb up a 25 ft rope and ring a bell at the top. There were other cool things as well – all in all it felt a lot like being on a playground, but one for adults.

The third and final week was specific medical army stuff. We learned about the different types of medical facilities that are set up in theater, how they work together, and what we might end up doing in them. Then we got to role play and spend one day in each setting, as groups, pretending. We had mock patients and mass-casualty drills where we had to scramble out and get people into the hospital fast and pretend to treat whatever their condition is, or send them out to higher levels of care as warranted. I don’t think I ever played doctor much as a kid, but it was still a lot of fun. Of course, as an optometrist, I don’t do surgery or push meds, so I was basically a litter bearer (carries sick people in) or a triage officer (tells litter  bearers where to put the sick people and prioritizes them   for treatment based on severity). The coolest part was the last day when I was a mock patient, and I got to ride on a blackhawk to go to the role 2 clinic. First time on a helicopter :-).

So all in all, it was fun, but I am grateful to be back with my family. I have been forced to be apart from my family probably a total of almost 8 weeks this past year since starting my residency, and each time it has helped me to appreciate them much more. It also has made me appreciate how difficult it would really be for all of us if I was deployed. It also made me appreciate that while some people gun for deployments, others really do take it as an incredible sacrifice just as I would. It’s good to remember, and it helps to keep life in perspective and to keep priorities straight.