There are a few sayings in the military that spill over pretty well into 'regular civilian' life. One of them is working to improve your position everyday. In tactical terms this usually is applied to a fighting position, meaning improving the defenses against attack, or making your fighting point more advantageous. In the medical part of a battlefield, that doesn't directly apply. We have spent our time making our 'fighting' position more comfortable, safer, better organized, easier to work in, and/or just plain better.
All of these improvements are done with the help of redneck ingenuity, thanks in a large part to the non-commissioned officers in my platoon. They hail from all over the country, but they have all spent time in one way or another earning an hourly wage doing some form of manual labor - making them a much more valuable medical asset than any trauma training the U.S. military has funded.
We build or plan to build some redneck project daily. We have accomplished some pretty amazing stuff considering there is no Home Depot down the road. Most of our materials are scavenged or 'procured' from other parts of the FOB. We 'borrowed' heavily from the Canadians when they were still around, and haven't had to take anything at gunpoint, yet.
We built our aid station using this redneck know-how, and my boss told me that 'red neck' and 'aid station' should never be used in the same sentence. Having lived inside this redneck trauma bay for the past two and half months, I have to politely disagree with him. Below are some pics of the work done constructing our field hospital.
 |
| Typical of the medical platoon: One person working with three supervising |
 |
| Building some living quarters: 'Jack Shacks' in infantry terms. NOTE: one person working, two watching - three if you count the guy behind the camera |
