I can safely say that I’ve never had a day quite like this one in my entire life. It started out pretty inconspicuously. I woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off, which always sets me in a better mood than the alarm does, got ready, headed downstairs for breakfast with some friends, then went into the training. I’m no stranger to medical stuff. I’ve always been intrigued by it and always hope to learn more. I want to understand it all. The fact that we were going to be learning about first aid was great to me. Bring it on. When I walked into the room, I knew that we’d be doing IEDs, First Aid 1 and 2, and having a 2-minute drill. I’ve never done a 2-minute drill before. Didn’t know what to expect but I’m really up for anything here. That’s part of the challenge of what I’m doing. Part of what makes it so much fun. And so scary.
The instructors made some very good points. They made us feel very stupid without being rude about it. More like they opened our eyes to how safe we allow ourselves to feel. Hopefully we don’t need to be quite as paranoid while at the Marriott, but it’ll be good knowledge to have on our side in Afghanistan, for sure. They brought out some IEDs for us to see, talked about different types, the methods used for hiding them, then showed videos of detonations, after-effects, some things that really threw me into the reality of what I’m about to do. My mind was starting to spin around that point.
Shortly after that, we got to the first aid training. Bullet wounds, sucking chest wounds, amputations (that’s the really “big one for this war”), how to recognize, how to treat others and ourselves, all the things we need to have in our first aid packs, the importance of keeping these things on us at all times… the list goes on and on. Truly great information and things that I hope are stored in my mind permanently. Only the weird thing to me was how many of the repeat travelers were agreeing so wholeheartedly with all of this information like they’ve seen it first-hand. You know why that is? They have. The food service workers, the HVAC workers, the construction teams, the electricians, the firefighters, the logistics personnel… they’ve seen it. That means that the chance that I’ll see it is beyond great. Am I ready for that? Am I really going to head into a territory where this is common?
A few times today I wanted to just zone out and think but I was too focused on the information being taught to us. Not enough time to really think. Thankfully. Then we went into the other room to wait. The instructors needed to set up the room for the drill. None of us knew what to expect. When we got into the room in our little group of 6, we entered to darkness, the sounds of gunfire, strobe lights, and people screaming and crying. We did what we needed to do for two minutes then the lights came back on and we were evaluated. When they asked what we were feeling through the drill, I only heard one person admit to the adrenaline spiking but I know… I definitely know… that he wasn’t the only one.
As they were teaching us how to apply tourniquets to ourselves, I actually had a brief moment where I just stepped outside of my mind really quickly and had to laugh. Never did I think I’d be getting a class on that. Others, sure. Me, not so much. Then I looked around the room at the majority of the class who is going on their second, fifth, tenth tour, and was comforted to see that they all have all of their original limbs. Good news, right?
I’m excited about this. I’m sure there will be much good about it and plenty of bad, but I’m definitely excited. So… what happens next?
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