FORWARD OPERATING BASE RAMROD, Afghanistan — Ever since his first CPR class while learning to become a lifeguard, Pfc. Logan Kienke knew he wanted to be in the medical field.
Kienke, a medic assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, is relatively new to the Army, but he has ambitious goals.
"I'd like to go to Airborne to try and become a Flight Medic," said Kienke, a native of Post Falls Idaho. "Maybe I'd like to go officer and be an Army doctor. I'd like to stay on the trauma side though, so I'd really like to go Flight Nurse, but that's very competitive."
He decided the best way to accomplish these goals would be in the military.
"I was going nowhere and I wanted to kind of get a head start," The 22 year-old said. "This seemed like the best way to get my college paid for and have a job at the same time — get some practical experience."
He completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and his Advanced Individual Training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
"The classes themselves weren't necessarily hard," Kienke said. "We started with about 520 in my class, and graduated about 380. There was a pretty big drop-out rate. It was challenging but I didn't have a lot of problems.
He arrived at Fort Lewis in April, where he was for a little over a month before deploying.
"I was really only with my platoon for about a week and a half before we left," he said. "They originally had a medic who had been with them for like two years and then I showed up and they were kind of mad," he said.
Kienke quickly showed his worth by earning a Combat Field Medic Badge within the first month of his deployment.
"We had two ANA guys who we found out later were actually Taliban," Kienke said. "They were trying to go to Kandahar to get fixed. We stopped them and pulled them out of the back and they were obviously high because they couldn't feel anything. One guy was shot in the elbow and he probably wouuldn't have made it to Kandahar and the other guy was shot in the shoulder. I'm glad I got it that way rather than working on my guys, but it doesn't really feel like I should have gotten anything."
According to Pfc. Anthony Phillips, also assigned to A Co., 2nd Bat., 1st Inf. Reg., 5th SBCT, 2nd Inf. Div., A Company is lucky to have Kienke.
"He knows his stuff," Phillips said. "He's one of the better medics that we got just before we deployed. I know that he wouldn't freeze up under pressure. He humps as much as I do and volunteers for more missions than necessary. He tries really hard to be a rifleman — even though he's just a medic."
Although he has been in A Co. for less than a year, 'Doc Kienke' has made a lasting impression on his unit.
"Doc is a very integral part of our platoon," said Capt. Jacob Saunders, an Infantry Rifle Platoon leader assigned to A Company, 2nd Bat., 1st Inf. Reg., 5th SBCT, 2nd Inf. Div. "Being a medic in a rifle platoon can be a lonely job sometimes. Just the way Logan is, he melds with us perfectly. We're the luckiest platoon in the battalion to have a guy so good at his job and who is just a cool guy."
Kienke has a different theory as to why he fits in.
"We had two brand new medics going in to A Co.," Kienke said. "It was a very good thing that I got here instead. We all seem to get along pretty well, but I think the sir [Saunders] just likes me because I play World of Warcraft."
| Date Taken: | 12.21.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 12.21.2009 02:05 |
| Story ID: | 42980 |
| Location: | FORWARD OPERATING BASE RAMROD, AF |
| Web Views: | 702 |
| Downloads: | 609 |
This work, Pfc. Logan Kienke, by SGT Nathan Booth, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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