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NANGARHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 12, 2007 – Army Pfc. Sarah Becker has spent most of her year deployed as an Army medic gaining the respect of soldiers across Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. Army Pfc. Sarah Becker, 173rd Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), Special Troops Battalion, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Military Police platoon, greets local children before teaching a first aid class conducted Dec. 1, 2007, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Photo by Pfc. Daniel M. Rangel, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “It’s a very prestigious thing to be called ‘Doc’ when you’re around people that you work with,” said Becker, of 173rd...

Soldier Journals Her Run at Miss America Nov 19, 2007 BY Beth Reece Sgt. Jill Stevens of the Utah National Guard is a top contender for the 2008 Miss America competition, which takes place Jan. 26. Catch print and video coverage of Sgt. Stevens' journey through pageantry and the Army's ranks at www.army.mil/gijill Photo by Beth Reece WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Nov. 19, 2007) - One of the Army's own will take a shot at the "Miss America 2008" title Jan. 26 in Las Vegas and a new Army Web site that goes live today will follow her progress. A...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 15, 2007 – The 514th Medical Company from Fort Lewis, Wash., held the first event of a basic medical skills training series with four Iraqi soldiers Nov. 11 at Camp Liberty here. The Iraqi soldiers and their American counterparts, spent the day together reviewing proper techniques and procedures for safely moving a casualty from the point of injury to the transport vehicle and then on to the medical treatment facility safely and efficiently. The training also included each step of the basic trauma assessment that should be executed prior to casualty movement. Army Capt. Rodemil Fuentes, commander of...

Two soldiers from Alaska were among four killed in Iraq on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee, the U.S. Department of Defense said today. Staff Sgt. Carletta S. Davis, 34, of Anchorage and Sgt. Derek T. Stenroos, 24, of North Pole were serving with a unit from Fort Drum, N.Y., post spokesmen said in a written statement. They died during combat operations in Tal Al-Dahab, Iraq. Davis was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). Stenroos was assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat...

JALALABAD AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Nov. 2, 2007 – A new partnership between U.S. and Afghan doctors here is helping the Afghan physicians do a better job of treating their own citizens. Army Spc. Amy Long, an x-ray technician with Company C, Brigade Support Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, prepares to screen an Afghan man Oct. 8, 2007, at a forward operating base near the northeastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. At right, another local man sits on a litter waiting for an assessment at the 555th Forward Surgical Team clinic. Photos by Spc. Gregory J. Argentieri, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2007 – A veteran Air Force combat medic helped to transform the way wounded troops are treated and evacuated during a recent deployment to Afghanistan. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte is participating in the Defense Department’s “Why We Serve” public-outreach program. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Tech Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte recalled the previous practice when unarmed battlefield medics were flown in to treat and evacuate injured servicemembers usually after an area had been cleared of the enemy. However, DeCorte emphasized, “When you have a wounded soldier on...

Unexploded Rocket-Propelled Grenade Impales Army Private in Afghanistan By RUTH REISS [snip] One RPG skidded past Lt. Mariani's vehicle. All of the vehicles had to quickly get out of the "kill zone." But before they could get to safety, two rockets hit Pvt. Moss' Humvee. Staff Sgt. Eric Wynn, 33, the soldier in the front passenger seat, felt one slice through his face. Moss remembers the truck practically lift up. He was thrown up against the Humvee and then moved to return fire. "I smelled something smoking and I looked down ... and I was smoking," he said. Wynn turned...

VICTORY BASE COMPLEX, Iraq, Aug. 27, 2007 — Since the beginning of the war Americans have provided basic medical care to Iraqis, but more and more Iraqi medics are treating their own countrymen. Members of Task Force Vigilant, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y., coordinated with Iraqi medics and doctors to conduct a combined medical engagement outside Victory Base Complex, Aug. 24 "Today is a good day to show the Iraqi people we can help them. It is my job to help them and I am glad that I am able to." Dr. Zetad...

Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal. The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary's three authors write in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. "In medicine, you can't force treatment on a person who doesn't give their voluntary informed consent," said Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston University, one of the authors. "A military physician needs to be a physician first and a military officer second, in my opinion." As of...

A combat medic’s job is to save lives. They are armed, but their real weapons are the syringes, bandages and medicines and the knowledge how to use them if any of the soldiers they are responsible for are wounded. In Iraq it is never known when an attack will leave GIs wounded, but when on convoy duty each soldier — to include the medics — is on heightened alert, Spc. Rudy Nuñez said Monday. He is home for a two-week leave from patrolling the streets in Sadr City, a place in Baghdad that has been described by the media as...

Austin woman sought a way to connect with soldiers. In the middle of a 120-degree Iraqi day, with 40 pounds of armor strapped to his body and most of life's indulgences half a world away, Pfc. Floyd White Jr. finally realized just how sweet grape Kool-Aid can taste. Part of what made it so sweet was that it came from Central Texas. The Kool-Aid was sent by an Austin woman, a civilian, the type of person White said he sometimes feels disconnected from as a soldier. "It is an awesome feeling," he said in an e-mail, "when a soldier has...

PISMO BEACH, Calif. - As a child of 1970s California, Derek McGinnis felt that riding waves was like a birthright, and losing his left leg to a suicide bomber in Iraq wasn't going to stop him from surfing again. So, he rallied nearly a dozen other wounded-in-action amputees he met in a military hospital and brought them to one of California's last old-fashioned beach towns. For some of them, the roiling ocean was a second home. The closest others had come to riding waves were movies. McGinnis brought determination. "I have a board and (have to) make sure I keep...

8/11/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- During a 24-hour shift that began at 7 a.m. on Aug. 7, an Air Force surgeon treated 18 patients with injuries that varied from a crushed foot and multiple improvised explosive device penetrations to gunshot wounds through the thigh and head. For Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Steve Barnes, the surgeon of the day, this meant nine operations, five of which were performed on Americans, three on Iraqis and one insurgent. "I volunteered to come to Balad for both personal and professional reasons," said the trauma surgeon instructor based at Cincinnati's University Hospital in...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan, Aug. 11, 2006 — When a suicide bomber slammed and ignited his missile-laden vehicle into the Humvee in front of Staff Sgt. Eric Mathiasen, the Air Force medic exploded into action. He said he did not think about his wife or two children, or that there was unexploded ordnance lying about. He just grabbed his medical bag and sprinted toward the blast area. "While I was running to the wounded guy, I just hoped I could help him," Mathiasen said. "I just hoped I wouldn't screw anything up." He had questioned his abilities before...

8/7/2006 - FORWARD OPERATING BASE TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- When a suicide bomber slammed and ignited his missile-laden vehicle into the Humvee in front of Staff Sgt. Eric Mathiasen, the Air Force medic exploded into action. He did not think about his wife or two children, or that there was unexploded ordnance lying about. He just grabbed his medical bag and sprinted toward the blast area. "While I was running to the wounded guy, I just hoped I could help him," Sergeant Mathiasen said. "I just hoped I wouldn't screw anything up." He had questioned his abilities before this...

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo (Army News Service, Aug. 8, 2006) – The new Combat Medic Advanced Skills Training is ensuring medics understand the difference between garrison and combat trauma care. Medics at Camp Bondsteel recently participated in the new course, taught via video teleconference by the Army’s Medical Department Center and School at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. The weeklong course tested student medics through a simulated combat scenario that involved treating Soldiers wounded by IEDs and small arms fire. Qualified instructors measured medics’ skills during a culminating field exercise, and medics were also given a written test to...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi army medic on Sunday told a U.S. military hearing of the horrific scene that confronted him in a tiny home south of Baghdad where he found the naked and burned body of a 14-year-old girl allegedly raped and murdered by American soldiers. The medic testified on the opening day of a hearing to determine whether five U.S. soldiers must stand trial in the March 12 rape-slaying of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killing of her parents and sister in the town of Mahmoudiya. It is among the worst in a series of cases of alleged...

Israeli firm working on blood pack to save lives In about two years? time, Israeli soldiers may carry with them to the battlefield packets with their own powdered blood, as though it were powdered soup. A Nes Tziona-based company is working on a revolutionary product that could change the future battle field, IDF Medical ..officers say. The idea is to take a soldier's blood, freeze it in laboratory conditions, take out the ice crystals leaving only the blood components. It will look like freeze-dried coffee in a little bag, said Lieutenant colonel Amir Blumenfeld, head of the IDF medical corps?...

MANAMA, Bahrain - U.S. military medical personnel, either on standby or already aboard ships, will act as first responders in the assisted departure of American citizens from Lebanon. One U.S. Navy physician and two corpsmen from Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) Kuwait, are aboard the civilian cruise vessel Orient Queen as it ferries passengers to the safety of Lanarca, Cyprus, said Capt. Vernon Morgan, force surgeon at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain. The U.S. Air Force has also stationed one physician and two medics at the entry points where American citizens are arriving in Cyprus. A 23-member Air Force...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (June 28, 2006) -- When many people think of a field hospital, often scenes from the popular sitcom “M.A.S.H.” come to mind. For the sailors of Bravo Surgical Co., 2nd Medical Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, a field hospital is serious business. “We are setting up an mock (Surgical/Shock Trauma Platoon) you would see set up as a quick reaction force,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Michael D. Whaley, the lead petty officer for Bravo Surgical Co. “This SSTP can provide everything from surgical to basic care and ancillary services such as X-ray and...