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Ah yes... the CAPSAR fire explorer kid. full of vim and vigor.... The problem with CAP and explorer programs is that they fill you with a false sense of assurance and "experience." I know- I speak from experience. I got my start as a First Responder with a Venturing Crew (Boy Scouts of America). Yes, you have gotten some exposure to a variety of things which is very cool, and yes, you probably have a little bit more life experience compared to your donut-eating peers, but you are nowhere NEAR the level that many here on the forum are. You haven't worked WITH these military divisions you reference; you've been given an opportunity to have brief exposure and side-along training. That is a far cry from actually working with them and understanding what is actually going on. And being an officer in CAP is excellent; kudos to you. I was secretary, scribe, and lead FTO for my Venture Crew before I was 18. Guess what that meant in real life? Jack diddly nil-point-zippity shit. It was cool to put on college apps, and useless where employment was concerned. I have some targeted questions for you. I think you came across as exactly what you are- someone who is very excited, passionate, and who has done some research and is filled with all the possibilities that lie before you. 1. What is it about the military that appeals to you? What aspects of your personality make you a good military medic candidate? This isn't an interview question where I want to hear the "right" answer- I want you to soul search and really think about this. If you already know, I want you to convey it to us here in the written word so that we understand without a doubt where you are coming from. Prepare to be grilled, and don't take it as negative, but rather a chance to save you from your own impetuousness in case you haven't thought this through at the level that we, as outsiders, are capable of doing. 2. What aspects of your personality make you a poor military candidate? I want you to give as much thought as you did to the above question, and be ruthless on your self critique. Show us that you can evaluate both your positive and negative qualities. 3. What about medicine appeals to you? You mentioned detail oriented work- why medicine and not tech or intel? 4. Do you understand what the differences in practice (in civilian life) between RN and EMT-P really are? Do you understand the different approaches, ethical perspectives, limitations and what relationship to the overall picture of care for each is? Explain it to us, in your words. Answer these questions, and we can tailor our guidance to you. If you know it all and know all the differences between military medical specialties and are convinced that's what you're going to do, posting here was kinda pointless. If you truly want some guidance from those who have been there and want to achieve "peer" status with those of us in the working world, then answer these questions and we'll go forth. Wendy CO EMT-B

I'm not going to go over all of your posts thus far, but I will say that I agree with the others that you did not present yourself in the best of light, and you're going to want to change that. I get that you're a young man, but if you want to be taken professionally, and treated with the same respect as an adult, you're going to have to work a little bit harder to act like an adult. That aside, welcome to the forum! I'm glad you're interested in the medical field, we need as many people as we can get. That said, I think you very strongly need to step back and take a hard look at yourself and think about what you want to do, and the reasons why you want to do it. There's a lot of things you've said that make me wonder about your motives, and make me concerned that you perhaps haven't fully worked out your reasons for wanting to get into medicine and the military. Medicine, and the military, have very unique cultures as I'm sure you know, and neither of them are really for everyone. Despite what you've said, it DOES still sound like you've got a romanticized notion of what medicine and the military is. And that's concerning, because neither job is really like what we think it is in our minds. Little did any of us know before we hit the streets that we wouldn't be running critical traumas and cardiac arrests every day, but runny noses and bumps on the head. Likewise, little did many soldiers realize before they signed up that they would be spending most of their time waiting for a battle, and then when it actually came that it was nothing like they expected. And consciously, you may be able to see that and say, "Yeah, I get it. It's not like that." but there's still some things you've said that make me think that, at least subconsciously, you've still got a much more "TV friendly" view of what both are like. One thing you said in particular that has me worried: Let me tell you something up front: don't get into medicine because you like the idea of helping someone. First of all, what we do rarely makes the difference between life and death and on the rare times when we CAN make a difference between life and death, all too often death wins that battle. Secondly, I don't like you saying you "love the idea of truly helping someone". You've got to want to be in medicine for more than just that, because garbage collectors truly help people as well. So does the cleaning lady. And the CNA. You need to ask yourself, "WHY do I want to be in medicine?" I also don't like the way you phrased your comment about sending fathers and brothers and husbands home alive. You said, specifically, "if that's the case, how many fathers and brothers and husbands could I send home alive?" Two things about that, first of all, the military has already implemented tourniquets, so realistically the number of people you can "send home alive" is probably around the same as any other soldier--seeing as they all know how to use tourniquets and have them available, not just the medics. You also have a bit of an ego in there, it seems, and I've got to tell you, man, it's not about us. It's not about you or me or any other paramedic or combat medic or RN or doctor or RT or anyone else. It's about the patient. You and I don't matter. If not us, then someone else. Yes, the whole is only as much as the sum of its parts, but I promise you that every patient you may save and every patient I may have saved would have been taken cared of by someone else had it not been me and if it isn't you. You can debate the philosophy of it, but in the end we're not special for being there and saving them, we're just the ones who happened to be on shift at that time and happened to be the closest available unit. And I use civilian paramedicine as a reference, but the same principle applies anywhere. The point is, it's not about us, and I really hope you see that. Anyway, I hope none of that discourages you but I really think you need to take a good hard look at yourself and reevaluate your position. You're young, you're very young. And I'm very young myself, and I'm still older than you, and I'll tell you that I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I want to do with my life so believe me when I say your views are going to change as you get older and you may even change your mind about what you want to do with your life. Take your time, you have plenty of it, and make sure that this is what you truly want. When you come to these forums, and you speak with professionals, and that's what we are, professionals, you need to take a step back and look at where you are and where everyone else is. I know you're at that age where you want to be treated like an adult, but you've got a long ways to go before you hit that milestone. Everyone here has proven themselves amongst their peers and their instructors, and some of us--myself included--are still a long ways away from obtaining the kind of recognition that some of the more experienced ones have. And that's what it comes down to, experience. I'm a paramedic and I'm twenty-four, and I'm a long ways from being considered experienced or carrying any kind of weight to my opinion. And that's okay. I'm not here to prove myself to anyone, I'm here to learn from people who DO have that kind of experience and who DO carry a lot of weight with their views. You need to present yourself for what you are, a young man with very little life experience and very little experience in the field of medicine and in the military, and take advantage of this opportunity to learn from people who know a hell of a lot more than you or I about life and the medical field. If you can do that, if you can stop trying to prove how adult and experienced you are and just come here with the attitude of "if I knew everything I needed to, I wouldn't be looking for the advice of people more experienced than I", you'll be proving that you ARE an adult without even trying. Good luck and take care.