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New First Wave Deployment Sees NHB Staff Heading to Kuwait

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS060731-17
Release Date: 7/31/2006 11:12:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Fletcher Gibson, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- Twenty-three staff members left Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) July 27 on a six-month deployment to help staff the Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) in Kuwait.

This group is just the first wave of the 45 doctors, nurses, corpsmen and support staff members who will be making up the single largest deployment of NHB personnel since September, when 72 staff members deployed to the same military hospital.

The staff deploying from NHB will be joining compatriots from naval hospitals around the world at the U.S. Military Hospital and will even be working with medical personnel from the Army, a situation which has at least one deployer intrigued.

“I’ve worked with the Army doctors at Madigan [Army Medical Center], but I’m curious about working with them in a field environment,” said Cmdr. Robert Martin, a cardiologist at NHB and member of the departed first wave. “I really don’t know what to expect.”

The main hospital in Arifjan and its half-dozen outlying clinics are positioned to offer the most support for troops moving to and from Iraq. They’re close enough to the border to offer easy access to operating units, but far enough away to remain out of danger from combat.

At the time of deployment, most of the men and women going didn’t yet know what roles they would be filling when they arrive in Kuwait. Martin, for example, said he will be reporting as a general internal medicine doctor, but hopes to be using his cardiology specialty when he arrives. The general corpsmen traveling there have even more possibilities.

“I could be doing anything from suturing people and IVs to being a supply corpsman,” said Hospitalman Daniel Greer, a health education corpsman at NHB.

Their first stop on the way to Kuwait, though, was at Camp Pendleton in California. There they’ll train for at least a week with other members of the EMF before flying out to Kuwait.

The second wave of 22 NHB personnel deploying to complete this group will be leaving next month for its own six-month deployment.

For related news, visit the Naval Hospital Bremerton Navy NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/nhb/.