Geek in a War Zone

Leaving

Training at this point has started to pick up, and today was to be known as "Death by Powerpoint". This is a misnomer as PowerPoint was barely used, it was mostly video and live training. I have to be careful about what I write, I cannot say too much and be as descriptive as I would like because I do not want to have the US Army on my ass and possible have privileges taken away and possibly not be deployed or worse. this does affect my writing and in a way I'm struggling with content for one of the days and in the end will do my best to relay my experience without breaking any rules.

What I can say is that what I learned that day really brought home the situation I was going to be in. It was a warzone after all. Training was to be appropriate for anyone entering a warzone situation. I did receive emergency medical care training which I found to be really informative and useful. You are shown how to evaluate a situation and start treating wounded and possibly unconsious soldiers and/or civilians according to severit of there wounds. This training would benefit anyone in an emergency situation.

There were specifics such as treating a head or abdominal wound, some of the footage shown was real to life but mnostly it was the instructors in the videos. No matter the case, knowing the fact that I need to secure any missing "parts" of a wounded's body to that person before transport really drives home the situations you could; however unlikely; face. It wasn't just footage or instructors talking but we were given a chance to practice the methods taught on a mannequin or each other. I particularly enjoyed applying a tourniquet to a fellow classmate and actually feeling no pulse in the extremity. Which means no blood flow and equals no blood loss. Very effective I'd like to say.

Most of the day consisted of the medical training but we were also shown either through video, PowerPoint slides, or actual mock situations which I can say can be very startling and used training explosives. No details can be given for now but know that if it had been real life I wouldve been dead... twice. Not through fault of my own but through the complacency of other classmates and failure to pay attention. It did rid me of any thoughts of carelessness and I thought to myslef how I would never let it happen to me. There would be a fine balance of paranoia and still trying to maintain sanity while I was to be deployed. What was stressed though is that to an alert person these all could be avoided. I wondered the truth in that. I have always said that if God wants me alive, nothing can be done to change that, well the opposite can also be true. Not even the US Army could argue that.

This training lasted close to twelve hours and was exhausting even after being exhausted for days. Whiel still tired this did mark the completion of training for most! You can imagine my relief to the fact that I only one deficiency which was through no fault of my own and would be remedied the very next day. It wouldn't take long at all to receive my identification (CAC) and be 100% ready to deploy. The next day was to be one of relaxation and levity where I could celebrate with all of my new found friends the accomplishment we shared. Little did I know how wrong I was.

I called my wife Kelly while on my way out to celebrate the good news and was quickly shut down with the news that her father had been admitted to the hospital. He had become very very sick. He had recently has an open heart surgery and well he became septic from an infection and it wasn't looking good. She was very upset. I did my best to calm her but the sheer feeling of helplessness took over. I could talk all I wanted but I wanted nothing more than to be able to hold and comfort her. There was literally nothing I could do, his surgery was scheduled for the next day and I was a 1000 miles away and soon to be 7500 miles away. I would actually be losing contact with her for who knows how long. We hung up with each other after talking awhile and this laid very heavily upon me, thoughts of accomplishment were washed away with the urge to return and do everything I could. The urged stayed with me until the blackness of sleep fell upon me.

This journal means alot to me and I am doing my best to complete it on a daily basis, so far so good. But as I write this I am furiously preparing to leave the country tomorrow. I'm struggling with writing about today but I literally have minutes until computer accesss is taken away I literally have no idea when I will be able to add more. Don't worry I came prepared with a notebook and while the adventure continues it may not be in electronic format for a while. I apologize, but I knew this was too happen, it may be a week or two weeks, no way to know. As soon as I can I will return to you all. Wish me luck!