Korea and Key Resolve

I was tasked to go to Korea for a field training exercise called Key Resolve 2012. Every 6 months, the 121st Combat Support Hospital (CSH) brings in about 60 personnel (also known as profis) from all over the states to help with this exercise. I was the lucky one from Fort Hood, or so I thought. I had little knowledge of what I was actually going to do out there; I thought it was going to be a vacation from work.

Korean Air is very fancy. Look at the cute little stewardess's in their fun outfits. They change throughout the flight with each meal. During the flight, they make the passengers open the windows for meal time and close the windows/turn off the lights for sleep time. The food was amazing and we got fed about every 3 hours on a 14 hour flight. The seats had there very own TV set with all sorts of new releases. I watched 4 on the way there, and 5 on the way back. Don't judge!

Overlooking Asia on the flight to Korea.

After arriving, I found out we would be putting up a CSH and running it like a regular hospital. We would be able to treat 82 or 84 patients. I had little idea how hard and labor-some putting up a hospital would be. We had a 36 hour deadline.

This is one of the 5 tents our group put up.

Then we had to fill it up with all the beds, blankets, medical supplies, computers, tables, ect. This was probably the worst part because the individual in charge had no idea where stuff was. No, I just lied. Putting up the tents was the worse part.

These are some of the lovely ladies I worked with- 1LT Gibbons, 1LT Bried, and 1LT Canales. I was made the Head Nurse of the ICW4. Suany Canales was my day shift nurse and Vonya Gibbons was my night shift nurse.

We had mandatory training while continuing the hospital's mission as well. I got to go to the range and the gas chamber. Fun army stuff.
When we weren't doing mandatory training, we were doing medical training. We had an excellent educator that taught the nurses and medics how to intubate, insert an IV in the external jugular, put in nasal trumps, and "carry downs" (ie: taking down a combative patient). All of which were with live patients the volunteered to have these teachings completed on them.

We had a 3 hour break to go to the PX and do laundry.

While our laundry was drying, we went bowling. We weren't sure if this was allowed, so we kept it secret the rest of the exercise. I won though!
These are a bunch of nurses during a practice mascal (or mass casualty situation). Left to Right: 1LT Chapuzio, 1LT Bried, CPT Ahlborn, 1LT Axtel, 1LT Canales, CPT Garcia, CPT Fufa, 1LT James.

The end goal of the exercise for the hospital side and the hospital training side was to do a mascal. We had 2 practice situations and then 1 "real" mascal situation. We had about 16 patients come through- I was asked to come up to the EMT to help triage because of my ICU experience. It was actually felt pretty real. The patients were volunteers with makeup and good acting. We would actually put IVs, cut there clothes off and perform all other life-saving procedures in the time they would actually take. This was very good training. It also helped me to see what I'd be doing if I deployed with a CSH.

The last day we were able to wear civilian clothes and explore Seoul.

As a group, we visited the War Museum. I am standing in front of the museum and you can see Seoul Tower in the background. The museum was very interesting and modern. We watched a battleship video game, a 3D airforce mission, and simulated weapons range. Unfortunately, most of the explanations of the exhibits were in Korean.

Dancing underneath Seoul Tower.

The Love Chain Wall: "From times of old, there was a story that if 2 lovers make a wish at the shrine on Mt. South, it comes true. Since that, this place became a symbol of promising an everlasting love for couples with hanging a lock together." Millions of locks are chained around the bottom of Seoul Tower.

My iconic pose.

After visiting the tower and war museum, we were free to roam the city. We went out to eat at an authentic Korean restaraunt. We had to take our shoes off and sit on the warm floor (heat is produced from the water pipes that run along the floor). Our food was cooked on coals in the middle of the table. Very fun experience and very good food. Left to Right: Harland, Rachelle, Shannon, Hall, Farmer, Mark, Me, Joseph, Suany.

This experience has definitely enlightened my mind. I made a lot of really good friends and got to experience things in the military I am not very familiar with (mostly because I spend all my time in a fixed hospital). We shall see whats in store for me next.