FMF

Last night I was in a tent with 2 other Navy officers sitting across the table from 3 FMF board members getting drilled for nearly 2 hours on all aspects of the Marine Corps. Why you ask? It was the final step for me to get my Fleet Marine Force (FMF) designator pin. You want to know who the first Marine Corps pilot was, I got your answer. You need to know the date and birthplace of the Marine Corps, no problem. Who is the 13th commandant of the Marine Corps, lets just say there is a camp on the East Coast named after him. You having trouble with your SALUTE reports or or SMEAC orders, I got your back. Maybe you need to know the distance the M16 is accurate to for a point target, 550 meters, that was easy!

Anyhow, I had already done the physical fitness test and the hump with a loaded ruck sack so this was the acme of the program and.............I passed. Yeah me! Three of us entered, but only two survived. Now the commanding general signs the order and I get to wear a shinny pin on my chest and have yet one more thing on my uniform that can catch on the seat belt.

The real reward is that I get to throw away all the notes and now concentrate on pleasure reading and videos. Maybe a little patient care.

I included a picture of the main hallway of a tent hospital behind the British hospital. This tent hospital seems to go on forever. At each junction between the subsequent tents in series (in line) there are 2 tents that jut out to each side to form different wards (lab, radiology, surgical, ICU....). It occupies a good piece of realestate. It serves two purposes. If something happened to the current hospital the they could theoretically move resorces into the tent hospital. It also serves as an overflow in case business picks up with operational tempo.

Tired of pictures of me yet? Or maybe you do not see me, I am camouflaged.

one of those days

Last night I decided to put away my all too efficient sleeping bag. It has been very warm in our tent with the heater on all night and I was getting a little baked in the sleeping bag. So I got under my sheets and blanket and went to sleep. Only to awaken in the wee hours freezing. I tried to get comfortable, but kept waking up due to the chill on my head and feet. I then realized that I did not hear any sounds from the heater. It broke. The one night I decide to go without the sleeping and that is the night the heater breaks. So here is the dilemma; I had another hour before I had to awaken. Do I get in a fetal position and pull blanket over my head or do I get out of what little warmth I have, get sleeping bag, and get back into the rack in the dark without waking anyone? I pulled the wool over my eyes.

So then I am getting ready to go to mass and I am asked if I wanted to go across base to breakfast. The breakfast is a lot better where they were going and so I was tempted to put my oatmeal aside, ditch mass and go for the good chow. Alas, I decided to stay and go to mass....only to find out it was canceled 5 minutes prior. Arrgghhhh!

So I go back to the BAS and get on my e-mail. Well, I need to open up a file, but for some unknown reason my Adobe does not work anymore. So I have to forward the e-mail to another account so I can look up that separate e-mail on a completely different computer. I was able to thus open up the document, but for some other unknown reason the printer is no longer recognized on that computer. I just cannot win. I seem to recall a book I use to read to the kids about a kid that had a very weird day on a Wednesday. Well it is Wednesday today and that is the only explanation I have.

I guess I should stop blogging and get back to studying. I have my oral board for my FMF (fleet Marine force) pin tomorrow. I therefore have been doing eveything I can to procrastinate and avoid studying.

Hey thanks to the Custodio family for the 2 board games they sent to the BAS for us to play.

Despite my bad day, the sun still came up.

another day in another week

I am starting to run out of topics to write about. I mean there is only so much life in the middle of an Afghanistan desert to talk about. I don't (and you wouldn't want) me to get too philisophical and I know there is only so much medicine I can write about without boring you to death.

We do get brillant stars at night out here since there is not much big city (actually no city) lights to obscure one's view. I have a star chart that I reference. You know you have been here too long when you can start to name the stars (Rigel, Betelgeuse, Sirius....). We also get some good sunsets and sunrises. Nature has a way of coming out beautiful no matter where you are.

We had 5 corpsmen with birthdays this month and 3 of them are here at the main BAS. We had a little birthday celebration for them. MWSS supports the MAG (Marine Air Group) with messing (cooking). We have befriended the cooks and they hooked us up with a cake made from scratch as well as some quesadillas. They will spot us in the chow line and give us some extra food (sometimes good food not necessarily on the menu that night). I am finding out more and more that it is who you know and what you have to trade that gets you places while deployed.

I do not know what it is with Filipinos and duct tape. I have a few Filipino corpsmen in out BAS and one of them did a fine fix it with duct tape. The picture is below and it is in honor of my father-in-law.

My mom wanted to know what they did with recycling and my daughter is a huge environmental citizen so I thought I would submit a picture of the local nationals picking up cardboard. The downside is to the best of my knowledge they are picking out all the cardboard because they burn that in a separate burn pit form the rest of the trash.





Me up close.












That is a rice cooker with the electrical duct taped to the side.
Notice the New Orleans spice next to it.















Recycling?

Tasty cake.

more interesting cases

So we have had a couple of interesting cases this week. We had a military fire truck crash into a drainage ditch (I am working on getting pictures) when trying to avoid a local cutting them off. This resulted in one of the Marines smashing his left orbit into the dashboard. He was seen at the hospital and sutured up, but followed up to me the next day. His left eye was swollen shut except for a slit and was a deep purple. That was not the interesting part. He had hypesthesia (decreased or lack of sensation) of his left cheek, left upper lip and left gum. He also had a ptosis (drooping) of left upper lip. This was worrisome for a possible orbital fracture with infrorbital nerve entrapment. So I sent him to the hospital for an orbital CT and sure enough he has 3 orbital fractures.

The second case was a female Marine complaining of constipation and feeling of gurgling in stomach. She had also had some nausea some weeks prior. She has been working out like crazy out here and had been on a supplement allowing her to lose 35 pounds. She was convinced that she had worms. She does have a parasite of sorts…..a baby! When I palpated her belly the belly started to palpate me back. She has a fundal height (way of measuring the pregnant uterus) of 20cm. I figure her to be about 20+ weeks pregnant. Oh, she had a positive pregnancy test too. In case you are wondering, we have been gone about 18 weeks, so her pregnancy is legit.

I also had a pediatric consult today. I got a call from a satellite base about a local national 3 day infant boy who has not yet urinated. Feeding fine, no jaundice, consolable, but no pee-pee. I am worried about kidney problems (not making pee-pee) or posterior urethral valves (blocking pee-pee). Anyhow, we arranged for a helicopter to transport the kiddo to an Afghanistan referral hospital. I was about to instruct the GMO over the phone on how to do a suprapubic tap (sticking a needle through the lower belly into the bladder) had we not been able to get the transport.


Transport vehicle for the squadron. Yes, it is an old school bus.

My swing is looking good. I found 3 golf clubs. My mom and Liz sent out a peice of carpet and practice balls.

I was happy to see this small patch of greenery. This is the first green I have seen out here besides the color of uniforms.

helicopter support team

So yesterday I got to participate on an HST (helicopter support team). Basically, we netted up some water bladders filled with drinking water (1000’s of pounds each) to be flown to another forward operating base. After you net them up and put on a huge D ring, a helicopter comes down to have it latched to its underside and then fly away with the goods.

In this case, it was 2 53s that flew in. So when they approach you have to brace yourself due to the immense winds they generate. I literally had to be in a crouch position leaning into the wind with my hands over my face. Even in that position, I was being pushed back along the rocks. You then rush under the helicopter and one individual holds a grounding rod to the hook from the underbelly of the helicopter while another individual (me in this case) hooks the D ring on the hook. Then we all skeedattle to the periphery, brace ourselves once again as the helicopter increases its collective (power) to lift off. When it flies away you see a brilliant electrical current on the edges of the rotor blades (only 175,000 volts or so…). Very motivating experience, great leg work out! Pictures limited due to being night time.

I am shocked that Scott Brown won the election for senate seat for Mass. It is an amazing story. He is a republican running for a seat that was held by the most democratic family (Kennedy's) in probably the most democratic state after being behind 35 points in the polls weeks ago....and he wins! This is a warning sign to those in Congress that people are fed up. Maybe this will turn the tide. I think it is a foreshadowing of waht is to come in Nov elections.



Forklift lifts the heavy water bladders onto the net.














Marines secure the net around bladders.

Guy with grounding rod is on left and just released. I am far right backing up after I hook the load to the helicopter.

Go Chargers!

I requested at the last minute that Liz send me some Charger gear to wear for the playoffs. Amazingly she sent this jersey of mine just 7 days ago and it is here. I have to wake up at 2AM Monday morning to watch the game, but that is what being a fan is all about. If the Chargers lose you may next see a picture of this jersey being burned.

I took some motivating pictures of a couple of British troops about to go on patrol. They follow below.

Here is the brillant quote of the day by a wonderful liberal voice from Hollywood. Actor Danny Glover says the following about Haiti earthquake...“When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?” Absolute idiot! I think he is officially worse than Sean Penn on my list of ignorant Hollywood types.

bucket list

So I got a copy of the movie The Bucket List. I have not yet watched it, but understand it to be a list of things one wants to do during their lifetime. I was in a particularly mundane meeting the other day and decided to make my own bucket list. Here are some things I would like to accomplish before I am too grey and arthritic. Top ten are:

1) Run a marathon – Planning on trying to do the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon in 2010. Anyone want to join me?
2) Jump out of a perfectly good plane – I was going to do this on my 40th, but since I will be in Afghanistan I will push back a little bit. Again, if you want someone to jump out of a plane with, I am your man. As a side note, I actually had orders to jump school during medical school but they got pulled at the last minute for another group that was more in need. Bummer.
3) Bungee jump off bridge – Preferable in Australia.
4) Go to Australia – a) to accomplish #3 b) my dad always wanted to go to Australia and never had the chance c) it would be great trip for family
5) Go to Manchu Picchu – This is probably what I want to do most and would want to go within next 2-3 years. Anyone game?
6) Visit the Vatican – Of course would have to explore Italy at same time.
7) Go to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro – I just don’t know if Madis Gras in New Orleans would be enough.
8) See Christ the Redeemer statue – Hoping to parlay this with Carnival.
9) See the Pyramids of Egypt – Who wouldn’t?
10)I am leaving this slot open for now. There are some other places I would like to go (like Alaska and many places in Europe), there are other sites to see (like Mt Rushmore, Niagra Falls) or possibly trekking down to the bottom of Grand Canyon. Maybe I go wild and get a tattoo, I just don’t know yet. Any ideas?

My favorite quote of the week is from Vladamir Putin when he said ... “In addition to the global warming challenges, we need to address'global cooling' effects and to do so promptly,”. You got to wonder about some of the world's leaders.

Dug this picture up from my Okinawa days. I made this halloween costume from scratch. I spent entirely too much time and money in this project and this is the only picture I took of it.