Any advice for a female joining as a 68w? Also can you get flight medic included in your contract? Or should I get airborn in my contract?

2018-09-10T01:26:44-04:00

I am hoping to get my last bit of weight off and join the Army as a 68w. My goal is to be a flight medic, I had heard you couldn’t get this included in your contract but read where 3 other people had. Any advice is highly appreciated.

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 1:29 AM

2018-09-10T01:29:57-04:00

Get through the 10 level course.
You cannot get DUSTOFF in your contract.
You have to be recommended for a DUSTOFF unit...

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 1:34 AM

2018-09-10T01:34:52-04:00

Best advice I can give is to be ready to absorb as much knowledge as possible. The few people I know who enlisted with it in their contract were paramedics with years of experience before coming in. If you are joining active duty you will just need to do time as a medic and apply to go to the flight medic school. If you reenlist for it, it's almost guaranteed. It is a tough course and the mission is one of the most important in the Army. It is a very serious job and not one to be entered into lightly, having said that, it's a small community and it really is a family.

Like SPC Private RallyPoint Member Said though, focus on being successful at BCT/AIT and then becoming an excellent medic.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 1:39 AM

2018-09-10T01:39:12-04:00

Being a female has nothing to do with being a good medic. Learn your job, carry your weight.
Medicine is a field where you will never know everything. The more you learn, the more there is to learn. You can spend the next 20 years of your career studying and still have so much to learn.
After you've been a medic for a while you can request flight medic training. Go to your Career Counselor (that's me) and ask how to get it. As for Airborne, if there's a need, you can ask for it in your contract. But, if you're not fit going into Basic, there's a good chance you won't pass the school. There's a lot of running. Lots. Every day. Everywhere. All day.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 7:15 AM

2018-09-10T07:15:36-04:00

I feel like my Brothers have already answered your question, however I just wanted to add a little extra. This is something that I always told my students when I was an instructor at Camp Bullis: I do not care what you identify as. I do not care what gender you call yourself. You already made it through Basic Training, you are two weeks away from earning your title as a Combat Medic. Notice I said "earned." You are a Soldier. Not a male Soldier, not a female Soldier. All Soldiers need to pull their weight, but medics have to pull a little more than that. Every day you are here at training, I want you to conduct yourself as if there is a drone filming everything you are doing. EVERYTHING. That film will be played at your graduation in front of your peers and your loved ones. Are you going to be proud of what's on that screen? "Leadership is the art of influence, not the act of influence. Are you an artist or an actor? Your Soldiers will know the difference." -CSM(R) Keith Siedler

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 7:20 AM

2018-09-10T07:20:26-04:00

So as a 68W myself and having spent 4 years as a 68W instructor heres my advice.
1. AIT is a firehose of information so study, study, study.
2. Stay physically fit. Theres plenty of time on the weekends to do any additional PT if you know you need it.
3. Its male and female trained together which means there is some drama. If your single, STAY SINGLE; your there to learn a skill, not hook up.
If your married, likewise, stay married. Believe me when I say it becomes an issue.
4. At the end of the day and after dinner chow, study the GO TO SLEEP. I dont know how many times I saw people up late when on duty doing checks. Those same Soldier medics are then sleeping in class the next day. NOGO. Go to bed at the correct hour and it will help you tremendously.
5. Save your money while you're there. Dont gi out and buy food all the time. Save your money and use it as a down payment for a car when you get to your unit if you dont have one.
6. Keep track of your stuff. Soldier medics constantly lose gloves, eye pro, PT belt, etc. I will always maintain my arms, MY EQUIPMENT and myself.
7. Dont let any negativity drag you down. Have fun and learn a valuable skill.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 11:52 AM

2018-09-10T11:52:00-04:00

Welcome! As far as I am aware it is not something that is given in a contract because of how the flight medic program works now, and they will want to see to have experience working as a medic first before picking you up. You’ll have to go to paramedic school, followed by critical care and air crewmember schools to work dust off but once you get picked up by a dust off unit they will send you to those schools. If you want to you can always get your paramedic on your own - lots or medics do that to plus up their skills and knowledge, and if does make going dust off easier.

As others have said, first focus on BCT and AIT. You need to get th basics down first, and as noted there is a lot to learn.

Response by CPL Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 10 at 2018 3:49 PM

2018-09-10T15:49:01-04:00

Flight medic is a multi fazed school. I beleave 1 year long, medic is 16 weeks of intense training! Then up certification physical! I went to Ft Carson! One test at a time! Good luck

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Sep 10 at 2018 5:09 PM

2018-09-10T17:09:22-04:00

Did you score high enough to attain 68W?

Response by Matt Moon made Sep 11 at 2018 9:11 PM

2018-09-11T21:11:00-04:00

Ashley Galvez i submitted my application to the ARMY Component of the State Guard last Tuesday and was offered 68W . I have haven't even been sworn in. I'm waiting for my recuiter to contact me and tell me my paperwork has been processed. As far as advice there isn't much i can give you about becoming a Medic other than you will be going to Ft.Sam Huston in Austin TX . As far as Basic Combat Traning. I suggest brushing up on you're rank , the Army Values, History & General Order's and reading up on any medical information you can find . Im basically starting from the bottom like you are . However i have the Civil Air Patrol & Young Marines under my belt. I have gone through a little bit of medical traning for Search & Rescue. Most you're time will be spent with you're nose in the book it can take years of knowledge and you never stop learning there's allot to know when it comes to medical.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 12 at 2018 10:22 PM

2018-09-12T22:22:09-04:00

Yeah pretty clear gender doesnt matter as others have stated. Do your best like you would anywhere else.
Flight medic wise, heres the link to the Fort Sam Houston School House for Aviation Medicine: http://www.cs.amedd.army.mil/Portlet.aspx?ID=73b51009-38ce-4f01-9700-3a8d7d1589fe. Plenty of information there. In short, you need to have done some time as a 68, 3 years i believe, and then you can apply if you also have 3 years left, because the army isnt going to pay for your schooling and get nothing out of it.

U.S. Army Medical Department Center & School Portal

MISSION - "" To provide qualified Critical Care Flight Paramedics standardized aviation training and to treat, stabilize, and provide in-flight medical care to the critically injured or ill while being transported aboard air ambulances during peacetime and combat operations "

Response by SPC John Tesh II made Sep 16 at 2018 5:12 PM

2018-09-16T17:12:03-04:00

Study hard, stay fit, sleep well, eat healthy and most of all keep track of your gear and maintain it. As someone who was known infamously as 357, because I failed so many times during AIT, I can't recommend this enough.
Airborne is a great choice for those who are in peek physical condition and who aren't afraid of heights. However, there is so much running involved you'll be sore for weeks after it ends.
Flight medic has a lot of perks once your a civilian again and you can get many jobs as search and rescue, flight medicine and even as an instructor for those also going through the training.
Good luck to you in your future choices.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 3 at 2018 3:44 PM

2018-12-03T15:44:20-05:00

If you want to become a medic, make sure you are dedicated to the task. If you are not there to take care of people, don't do it. People's lives may be in your hands. If you can't handle the aspect of that thought, pic another MOS.

Response by SGT Tom Middleton made Jan 17 at 2019 6:57 PM

2019-01-17T18:57:38-05:00

There is excellent advice already posted regarding the training which awaits you, and the life of a soldier in general. So I’ll skip that, and speak to the clinical aspect of our jobs as medics.

I was a civilian EMT first (the year was 1985) and then an Army Medic. As a civilian, I spent about thirty years in the EMS business, first as a volunteer, and then a full career as a firefighter / EMT.

All the while, I served in the reserve components, Army Reserve for the first seven years, then seventeen years in the Army National Guard.

My only active duty was for training, until war broke out and I spent a year in the fight (Ramadi, Iraq, ‘05-06).

Here’s the thing.

Flight medics tend to work alone on their casualties. In fact, they often work alone on multiple casualties.

When it comes to knowing intuitively exactly what your patient needs, and being competent to deliver that care effectively in the middle of utter chaos, training can only prepare you just so much.

Try to work with the early years of your military medical career gaining as much exposure to actual sick and injured people any way you can.

Yes, you’ve got to keep yourself together, as the other soldiers have posted.

To that, I would simply suggest that you keep your eyes peeled and ears open. Try to develop keen instincts for recognizing what truly sick and injured patients look like, so you know when to intervene immediately verses focus on more urgent matters.

One thing I did for the soldiers in my platoon years ago was to work out arrangements for our medics to do clinical observation time both on a busy civilian ambulance, and also in the ER at a local Level-1 Trauma Center. One of my medics got to see a gunshot would to the abdomen victim brought in, stabilized in the ER, and the civilian hospital folks even let him go with his patient into the OR. That’s the kind of insight into the pathophysiology of the dying which you can’t get just anywhere.

Remember your moral compass, too. The single most common injury that I observed in my fellow soldiers at war was moral injury.

I’ll share with you an analogy from my civilian firefighting days when I’d see a young firefighter get anxious about a terrible fire or a critical patient.

“Hey kid, relax. You didn’t start the fire (or cause this heart attack), did you? We are just here to do the best we can for the people we serve.

No matter how badly we screw things up, most things get better anyway.

For some, no matter how hard we try, it’s just their day to die.

For a precious few somewhere in the middle, our actions can be the difference between life and death.

Those are the folks we live for.” -me

Response by MAJ Matthew Arnold made Jan 18 at 2019 2:47 AM

2019-01-18T02:47:52-05:00

Forget airborne school! The slot to any flight crew member AIT is way too valuable to lose it because of an injury received at airborne school.