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Korea (South)14 Posts
Hi TL, I'm new to the site in the actually participating sense but i've lurked for years, I suppose just because I figured I was just a high school kid with nothing interesting at all to talk about. Well after finishing high school, the thought of school loans after seeing my cousin's experience with them (80k+ in debt (dollars) and no job), steered me right into my local recrtuiter's office. Granted, her degree was in communications and not a STEM field. After the army i'll definitely be working on a BA in CS. I graudated HS a year early and I was 17 at the time of enlistment.
I left my home august 26th of 2013, and I haven't looked back. After basic training in Fort Sill(9 weeks went fast when you're whole life is planned out for you) I departed for Texas to Fort Sam Houston (yes that place they're currently keeping Bergdahl) for medic school. A few of my buddies from BCT came along with me and were part of my company. We spent 5 months there. We waited a month just to get to a training company and then began the EMT-B portion of training. 8 Weeks later we finished that up with the NREMT (it felt good getting something to show for my newly learned skills) and then moved onto the "Whiskey" side of training which revolves around combat medicine.
It's called whiskey because the MOS (job) or Military Occupational Specialty is 68W, and the "W" is said as Whiskey in the military phonetic alphabet, (sorry if this is obvious but there are some people who have no clue.) This part involved a lot of time spent outside (felt good to be out of classroom) in full gear (or "full battle rattle" as we called it). I won't go too far into what we learn as not to bore anyone reading this but i'll highlight some of the more important things.
CAT's or combat action tourniquets and combat gauze (impregnated with clotting agent, Kaolin) were the main items we were taught about, as bleeding from an extremity is the largest preventable cause of death on the battlefield. Here is a video of the CAT being used if you're that intruiged We also did some IV's and practice emergency cricothryroidotomys on dummies. Emergency cric is just cutting a hole in someone's neck to make sure they have a patent (open) airway.
So after medic school (it felt really long) I got my orders to Korea! I was really happy because I wanted to get sent here since basic training, and it's pretty much random how you get a first assignment. So i live in dongducheon or 동두전 and so far it's been interesting. The first month of being here (i've been here two months) we were not allowed off post, so it was boring! But after the first month I could finally get out and explore korea. So for the end of this initial post I have some random pictures from my little exploration.
Since coming here my korean has gotten so much better! I took one evening to finally memorize the korean keyboard layout so that i can touchtype the sounds. I already knew how to read hangul (very slowly) when i got here but having signs and advertisements all the time to read I've aspired to the level of a korean 2nd grader. As for speaking, it's slowly coming along. i've been using memrise to get my vocabulary up and I (try) to have a small conversation with the koreans that i play on ladder! my favorite phrase with the most use to me is 내 한국어 짜증! or, "my korean sucks"
These are all i'll post for now, maybe i'll include some army stuff next time.
+ Show Spoiler +Walking around in the evening ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KAvaj5j.jpg) Bullet train speed! ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jjCVSvT.jpg) Bullet train ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MniLUtT.jpg) Gundams in gangnam ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cZZGneW.jpg) Lotteria! it's like korean mcdonalds but with healthier choices. I heard these exist in other asian countries too. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mCfIVKH.jpg) Korean BBQ with friends! My favorite place is in Jihaeng ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eWgfJqO.jpg) Some street view ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NugRACW.jpg)
 
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If the US military could guarantee I would be in Korea, or I got to choose some place interesting would have increased my willingness to join ten fold. My father would have kicked my ass though, lucky assignment.
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Is your skills transferable to the civilian side of things when you are finished? You had mentioned IV access, did you do any training on IO? I heard from a few people in the military that the IOs were just a lot easier than starting an IV in the field. Do a lot of the uniforms have the CATs built into them? I know a few guys in the military here, the uniforms have them on the arms and legs.
Has the focus mostly been on trauma? Have you learned needle decompression, pericardial synthesis, and how to treat MIs?
I'm a full time Paramedic and teach our Department of National Defence Med Tech (Paramedic) labs casually.
Also, Korea looks awesome. I always thought there would be a lot more people though.
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Hes in stationed closer to the 38th parallel, its not a dense city compared to Seoul so you're not going to see a metropolis. Although its not a very long drive from Seoul City itself, just a bit further north.
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United States24644 Posts
I'm glad things have worked out so well for you.
I have to say the phonetic alphabet is really handy to know both in and out of the military.
Enjoy Korea! When you get back to the states, don't get suckered into a car purchase or other shady business deal targeting recently deployed returnees.
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Korea (South)14 Posts
On June 25 2014 03:57 LonelyIslands wrote:
Is your skills transferable to the civilian side of things when you are finished? You had mentioned IV access, did you do any training on IO? I heard from a few people in the military that the IOs were just a lot easier than starting an IV in the field. Do a lot of the uniforms have the CATs built into them? I know a few guys in the military here, the uniforms have them on the arms and legs.
Has the focus mostly been on trauma? Have you learned needle decompression, pericardial synthesis, and how to treat MIs?
I'm a full time Paramedic and teach our Department of National Defence Med Tech (Paramedic) labs casually.
Also, Korea looks awesome. I always thought there would be a lot more people though.
Hey fellow medic! All of the skills that we learned while getting our EMT-B cert are transferable and recognized by civilians but the entire army medicine part is ignored unfortunately. We are trained in IO but our procedure is to only use IO as a last resort, because it has to be surgically removed from the suprasternal notch, and surgery can be hard to get in a combat environment, so IV's are always preferred if possible.
Our uniforms do not have CAT's built into them but depending on your units SOP (standard operating procedure) you would carry them in your shoulder pockets/leg pockets. In full gear everyone carries a IFAK (improved first aid kid) which contains 1 CAT, 1 14 gauge 3.25inch for NCD, a package of chest seals for sucking chest wounds, gloves, combat gauze, and an NPA
You have a lot more knowledge than I do! we just get the basics, but you learn a lot more once you're at your first duty station, like our unit's PA (physicians assistant) taught me how to do sutures one day at the aid station. We don't know how to do pericardial synthesis and treating MI's is never a concern for us. Those are all handled by a higher echelon of care. Our aid bags can only carry so much so we pack them as much for trauma as possible. If you're interested you can google the ranger medic handbook and find what they put into their bags. We pack ours similar to theirs, but they are more trained than us and hold a paramedic certified too.
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Korea (South)14 Posts
On June 25 2014 07:48 micronesia wrote:
I'm glad things have worked out so well for you.
I have to say the phonetic alphabet is really handy to know both in and out of the military.
Enjoy Korea! When you get back to the states, don't get suckered into a car purchase or other shady business deal targeting recently deployed returnees.
Will do!.........the enjoying korea part not the getting suckered into a car purchase. I currently putting away about 80% of what I make purely into a college/career account so I live frugally so I can not have to eat ramen every day in university.
Thanks for the warning though!
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EPT
