chapter 3

Well I know it has been a while since I had continued on my life book so here goes. We go on forth from may 2002 till we'll say about oh Feb of 2003, this time frame alot happened in my navy time I will say all of which minus minor hiccups was relatively good. So where I left off I do believe was that I had graduated from Field Medical Service school and was off to MCB Quantico for operation bulldog, for those of you who don't know what that is, it is an officer candidate school for the United States Marine Corps. This school takes college graduates or college students who are in there 3-4 year of college and starts and/or finishes that transformation into Marine Corps officers which is pretty cool to watch(now mind you there is more too it than just that but you want to find out more go visit a Marine Corps recruiting office and find out for yourself! I was a lowly little E-1 at the time responsible for over 50 candidates of just above listed individuals. A daunting task you may say for someone with 12 weeks of training and at the ripe age of 18 but I was up for the challenge. We did everything from 5-15 mile force marches to the obstacle course, to the sand pit(fun i might add) to marine corps martial arts you name the physical activity we did it, the typical day started at 0430 when we would muster with our DI's and go over what the game plan was for the day and then go about having a "sick call." We would then go about taking care of the marines on there various day to day activities, now mind you in Quantico, V.A. it was one of the hottest summers in recorded history, and the heat causalities were a dime a dozen, and so were the twisted ankles and various other injuries. The three months that I was there I learned more about being a corpsman than I ever did in school, so come august my time is up and it is on to my next duty station which is where alot of events happened. I checked into NNMC Bethesda on August 16Th 2002 now at the ripe age of 19 and got myself a promotion(which was automatic) to E-2, and I checked into where I was going to be working which just so happened to be Labor and Delivery. I will say it was an interesting transition going from taking care of 19-30 y/o soon to be marines to taking care of babies that I could count there age in hours versus days, months or years. I soon began to learn the ropes as I went along making sure to suck up as much information as I could, because I wanted to be the best I could be at my job. So the work life was going alright minus the retarded uniforms we had to wear and the estrogen count being way to high for it's own good I enjoyed the job. The home life was well something to be lacked in, I lived with a roommate who first off was an E-4 and a shitty one at that and didn't give one crap about keeping OUR room clean along with me. So along comes Mr. Haines one day I see him in passing ( he worked on labor and delivery too) and I ask him do you like your roommate? He says "no" He asked me "do you like your roommate?" I say of course no. So we became roommates, I did start dating Ms. Benkert at the time too who was going to school full time at radford university to study I forget what but the times were gearing up to be better so to speak. Come December of 2002 I go on a much needed Christmas leave to go home see the folks etc etc. I get a phone call from Mr. Haines to say "hey dude just wanted to let you know I am deploying tomorrow on the USNS comfort, so my side of the room will be packed up just wanted to let ya know. " I say OK and off he goes, this is also the time I get my first of 5 tattoos that I currently have, which if you know me you know what it says. Well come February of 2003 we all get told hey FYI your all going to be getting deployed to the USNS comfort in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was excited but nervous at the same time, I would be forward deployed on a ship in a war zone! yes this is what I signed up for but not exactly what I was expecting. So we all get on our aircraft depart and get into baharan where we are to meet up with the ship. I get on board to meet Mr. Haines and this is where I meet my second best friend that came from the service, Mr. Sivengy. Haines and I are standing on the flight deck waiting for our bags to arrive when Siv shows up on board who Haines knows but I don't and blam that is that now I know two people on board this ship, which is a good feat I must say, of a ship with over 800 crew members. We shall continue with the story soon where I will talk about the war, and the memories that still haunt me vaguely today and all the ports that we enjoyed. SO until next time I am outta here.
P.S. In local news today I am happy to say I am back in good ol NY working on an ambulance yet again which is always nice and doing what I love to do.
Doc A. Signing off.