Page 108 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Fall 2016

Trauma is the blood-and-guts stuff where individuals see Institute [DMRTI]. I had the opportunity to start out as
themselves coming in to save the day, but nursing skills the training NCO for the Combat Casualty Care Course
are part of the sustainment phase that combine to make [C4]. Later, I became the NCOIC [NCO-in-Charge] of the
you a great medic. It's not just the adrenaline heroic course. My Company Commander was Troy Vaughn and I
skills. You have to look at the problem holistically and had two SF Ranger-tabbed leaders at Fort Sam Houston.
be prepared to learn something new that will make you It was the kind of leadership that I was used to, so I under-
better equipped to help your team when they need it stood their way of working. They came down there, and
the most. started implementing tactical medicine for the course
and other programs at DMRTI.
You went from 3d [Ranger Battalion] to Regiment?
Yeah, Ranger Reconnaissance Detachment [RRD]. They It was eye-opening for me, going from the Ranger Regi-
were doing incredible missions that were different than ment culture to the medical culture of Fort Sam Houston.
the standard Ranger missions. These guys were going out The different styles of teaching and different expectations
in small groups without any medical support. They were of instructors presented me with a new set of challenges
going to these high-speed shooting, communications, as a leader than what I had experienced in the Ranger
and survival courses, but they weren’t doing any medical Regiment. It was a time of some of my highest personal
training. accomplishments as a leader, because of the leadership
challenges required to navigate these differences.
Unfortunately, we had a team hit in RRD that resulted in
all of them being injured. They didn’t have a medic on the One time, in order to ensure that the students had a qual-
team and their medical training was not where it should ity class, I took over presenting for an instructor who was
have been. When you hear the story of these guys, you struggling. I felt that changes were needed in order to
find out they took shelter under a train overpass. The hard optimize the instructor presentations and determined
question was, why didn’t they all have the self-aid train- that an instructor boot camp could significantly assist
ing? There was a single infantryman that was acting as the with these goals. Implementing an instructor boot camp
medic treating everyone, but his medical training wasn’t was not easy. During the slow summer season, I wanted
focused on as much as it should have been. to take the opportunity to have all the instructors pres-
ent their classes to me. That idea was not an easy sell to
When I went to RRD, they were in the process of updat- the leadership, so it took me a year-and-a-half to insti-
ing their training course. It was the perfect opportunity for tute the instructor boot camp. [Student] critiques identi-
me to develop the RRD Medical Course and have it inte- fied the problems beforehand and verified the complete
grated into the training course. Because of their unique turnaround afterward. The instructors were [then] ready to
profile, we had to adapt certain things to give them a skill present their courses.
set above and beyond the basic TC3 course. They had
the potential to be doing continuous operations with lim- It was Troy Vaughn who told me this: “Think how much
ited resources, so I really challenged them. Initially, they you are learning here, how much you’re growing as a
looked at medical training like NBC [Nuclear, Biological, leader [here] because of the challenges you have that you
and Chemical casualty] training: no one really wanted to didn’t have in Special Operations.” It was true. In Special
do them. They would have rather gone to shoot at the Operations, we took for granted that people were moti-
range or gone to workout. By employing a good imagina- vated, disciplined, and knew that this was life-and-death.
tion and integrating medical into all the operational train-
ing, I was able to more successfully engage them. From DMRTI, I went on to the John F. Kennedy Special
Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, where I became the Medi-
A shift in paradigm was required so that medicine was not cal Operations Sergeant. I helped develop a couple of
just thought about as an initial medical training course. In- the USASOC [US Army Special Operations Command]
stead, I was able to shift the way of thinking to consider First Responder Courses. Retiring from there, I started
how to incorporate medical training into time shooting at getting job offers from all these different companies, so I
the range or when they would go out to do other opera- figured I would venture out for these good opportunities.
tions. By thinking this way, new questions started expos- By working with corporations tied to the SOF community,
ing gaps in preparation: How are you going to [evacuate] I would still be given the opportunity to work with SOF
these guys? What medical assets do you have available? guys [and] still do some of the medical stuff. So going way
How much equipment can you take with you? Training their back to when I decided to join the Army, I was still follow-
minds to think this way had high dividends for the RRD as ing the advice that my dad gave me and seeing that be-
they started realizing that previous solutions had not been ing a medic truly gave me opportunities that an infantry
challenged thoroughly. When they started taking it out to guy wouldn’t have had.
the field, they had to adapt solutions to be realistic.
Your dad was right.
I was there until 2005, and then COL [Al] Moloff gave me Yeah, he was! He gave me good advice. When you see or
a position at the Defense Medical Readiness Training hear the story, you have guys like Holcomb, Monty, Miller,

90 Journal of Special Operations Medicine Volume 15, Edition 3/Fall 2016