January of my intern year they made me get on a plane and head out To the woods outside of San Antonio on this Army base so I land at the Airport and there's a white van waiting for me I get in Its an Army Staff Seargent And he was all "Welcome Sir" We hit the gas And head out into Hill country They had a COC and a bunch of little wooden camp buildings Not really tents, but not good enough to be cabins Something in between I go to the front counter There is a sign-in sheet Wrote down where I was coming from and which branch of service Then I walked down the path with a couple of the other interns Two dentists, three nurses and a doctor from Bethesda We get down to the wooden structure, the hooch The other guy got into the thing first and threw his Duffel bag on the rack and then I took the one above it There was another lady who popped in the building a couple minutes Later, one of the Orthopedic interns, a surgeon from Balboa I'd seen her before. Sweet gal. Tom boy. Big boned and small-brained We went to chow, had dinner and some small talk Then hit the rack Next morning the fucking bugle goes off at 0500 and Again I'm questioning my decision making a couple years ago When I signed up for this shit I threw on my jacket, got out of there and over to the outdoor sinks The air was cold and intrusive Brushed my teeth and the paste was going dry Opened the faucet. Damn. No water. So I tried the one next to it. Fuck. So I swished around what little saliva I could generate and Hawked the remaining toothpaste into the sink and then I walked up the little trail To the convenience store across the street from the auditorium The school house where we would go through Trauma classes The cold air made my teeth tingle So we get to the place and right off the bat this Airborne Infantry guy Is giving us these over view courses It was mostly boring logistics and lay-out of the exercises for the Rest of the month Then they bring up this wounded veteran from Iraq He's got one leg I'm sipping my coffee and listening to every word of this guy's story Dealing with insurgents and killing babies And then saving the good babies and such He wrpas up his talk with a few slides about medical readiness At the end of it the first guy, the Airborne infantry guy gets up there And his face is all red and steaming and stuff He's livid about something He looks out into the crowd "YOU WERE ALL ON YOUR PHONES YOU GUYS ARE OFFICERS YOU BRING SHAME TO THIS AUDITORIUM NOW GO FUCK YOURSELVES I'M OUTTA HERE." And he dropped the mic and busted out of the back door Of that cold musty auditorium Most of the time being in the Navy I was proud to be An officer and a doctor Did my best to uphold a level of professionalism To give honor and respect This day I wasn't proud though I looked around at all the brainiacs with uniforms Gold leaves and officer rank insignia Everyone in this room nailed their standardized tests They had peer-reviewed publications But they couldn't hold it together Couldn't give a little common decency To put their phones on Airplane mode During this event L
3DEEPERCUTS PUBLISHING 2024
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