Now, for just the next 45 days, I'm back on active duty. In a way I do feel a little bit of relief. The Army has been my extended family and home for so long, even the couple of years that I have been away for the first 2 years of medical school have been a little disorienting to me. But now I'm back, if only for a short while. Over the next few weeks I will be working at Madigan Army Medical Center, taking care of the Army family in many ways, learning more as a student, further...read more

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For me 9-11 was about more than a single day…that whole week was a blur. I remember being in the ICU of the hospital where I worked, rounding on the postsurgical patients, weary after a long 12+ hour day in surgery, and being up the night with my 2 month old son. So I was in the ICU, a big circular room in the middle of a dozen patient rooms, some of the patients were sedated and on ventilators, most were just being monitored very closely after heart surgery. I was a Surgical PA for a...read more

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As I was thinking of the courageous warriors that we lost this past weekend in Afghanistan, I was reminded of my first weekend in uniform 28 years ago. Long before all of my Army experiences, There was a first weekend in the Army for me, a young Private starting Infantry One Station Unit Training at Fort Benning, Georgia. That weekend was the first weekend in August, 1982...and my first real military duty was guard duty. Up to that point I was a glorified civilian stumbling through standing...read more

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In the Summer of 2005, I took off my helmet and body armor in the middle of a small Iraqi village and surveyed my patients lining up to be cared for by my medical team. Right then I realized that I am the luckiest person alive. I was part of a profession that reaches out to anyone, across politics, culture, history and time; which gets down on their knees to help the humble and the proud alike. Removing the armor and weapons that separated me from my patients was a natural gesture. With hand...read more

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