You'll know you're a military nurse when you are in the operating room caring for Coalition injured non-stop, they've been coming in with triple amputations, double amputations, craniotomies. Next up is a Detainee (the enemy) with a probable fatal gun shot wound to the chest. You watch the team of physicians care for him as if he were their brother or best friend, giving him units of blood and plasma, performing an emergency thoracotomy to keep his heart beating, clamping off his bleeding aorta ... Read More ››

... you are flying in the back of a Marine helicopter at 500 feet with two ventilated patients and you somehow find time in between worrying about your patients and your life what the Joint Commission would think of this activity and if the Environment of Care committee would approve of it...? Read More ››

When part of your training requires that you learn how to repel off of a perfectly good platform down a 30 foot wall. That was one of many experiences that I had as a Navy nurse. I had the privilege of learning how to land navigate by map and compass, survive a tear gas attack, combat crawl with a stretcher in tow, and operate under extreme duress with the sound of gunfire and bomb blasts blaring in my ears. Along the way somewhere I discovered that I was capable of doing and enduring more th... Read More ››

You'll know you are a military Nurse when you find out that your next add-on patient for surgery is OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) and you are thrilled when you see him that he has limbs. The scariest part of the continued war operations are the IED blast injuries that is changing the way young men and women will forever live their lives. Bearing witness to the strength and faith from these patients and their families has given me a window into divine intervention. Having seen the patients fre... Read More ››

.....when promoted, you wear the LT bars given to you after the death of a beloved patient, a senior chief, who always hoped to one day be an officer, and wear the bars given to him by a favorite teacher. He was a proud, yet humble man, had served his adult career in the United States Navy for a country he loved. He had 25 children, and had reared them with his devoted wife on an enlisted man's hard earned salary. He was struck down with pancreatic cancer, at an all to young age. Weakened by... Read More ››

You'll know you're a military nurse when ... instead of packing a lunch everyday, you're packing a 9mm to take with you to work. Read More ››

the sound of a someone's cell phone ring sounds like incoming rocket alarm and you have to stop yourself from diving onto the floor to take cover. Every young man amputee you see once home from deployment you look at really hard trying to remember if they were one of the ones you saw while you were "in country." You compare war stories with your coworkers and everyone has the same ones. You can make a tourniquet with a scrap of ripped material and a sharpie marker. You've had to reassure a confu... Read More ››

To The Censors/editors Im not to concerned if you put it online or not. Yer reading it anyway Now Girls You'll know your a united states miliyary nurse,A. when your walking the walk ,and another girl says what are those Wins of Gold Alloy (loyal) about? If hers don't look like yours Say those Of Air Crash Crew Post H SEE the edgemond cayion here The HM's Never considered yhemselves as any thing other than , well Hospitality men!!! Thousands of boys and girls sign in the mil for what to ... Read More ››