RANGER medics are among the most highly trained and competent in the military. Their skills in trauma care on the battlefield are without question.
But the injured ranger who hurts his knee on a jump onto an airfield doesn't need a medic -- he just gets up and drives on with the mission. Days, weeks and months later, his knee still bothers him. Rangers are the Army's premier special operations light-infantry force, trained in lightning strikes from the air, ground or water. Training to meet standards much higher than those for average soldiers can take an extreme toll on a ranger's body.
"We've realized two things in looking at our injury data," said COL Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga. "First, guys miss a lot of training. Second, we lose a lot of good rangers."
Introducing sports medicine, McChrystal hopes, will be the answer -- and the remedy -- to his rangers' athletic injuries.
A sports medicine program has been active in the regiment's 2nd Battalion at Fort Lewis since February 1998, and entered a nine-month test period in September. Statistics will be taken at all three of the regiment's battalions to test the program's effectiveness.
"One statistic we got from 3rd Bn. shows that 78 percent of the profiles and lost time we had in that battalion for a year were sports related, not sickness related," he said. Sports medicine is where CPT Daniel Norvell enters the picture. A physical therapist at Fort Lewis's Madigan Army Hospital, Norvell has set up shop at the 2nd Bn. physical fitness center along with Jim Davis, a Madigan physical therapy specialist who serves as the battalion strength and conditioning coach.
Norvell and Davis have been seeing rangers at their sports medicine clinic since February 1998. Instead of going to Madigan for physical therapy, rangers simply come to the clinic. Both McChrystal and Norvell agree that one of the most positive things the program provides is that it takes away the stigma of admitting injury.
"Rangers don't want to go on profile -- it's a psychological thing," McChrystal said. "They don't want to be viewed as being broken, and don't want to go across town to do physical therapy. It's not as convenient, and there's a certain stigma attached to it in their minds." Norvell and Davis understand how rangers train and what their mission is, giving them the ability to provide quality care to the battalion.
"Our goal is to try to intervene as quickly as possible when a ranger is injured, with the goal of getting that ranger back on the battlefield as quickly as possible, just like getting an athlete back on the playing field," said Norvell.
The sports medicine program, McChrystal said, sends the right message to his rangers. "We ask these guys to perform at a professional athlete level," McChrystal said, "and when you provide this kind of care and focus, it sends a message to the ranger that his body is very, very important to us."
-- U.S. Army Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office
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