NORTHGATE HIGH GRAD DEPLOYED TO PUERTO RICO

Photo By Staff Sgt. Avery Cunningham | SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A soldier from Walnut Creek, California is deployed to Puerto Rico supporting the Puerto Rican government’s recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria. Spc. Derek Born, a 2013 graduate of Northgate High School, is a combat medic assigned to the 62nd Medical Brigade of the US Army based in Fort Lewis, Washington.  

PUERTO RICO

11.04.2017

Story by Staff Sgt. Steven Eaton 

65th Theater Public Affairs Support Element

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A soldier from Walnut Creek, California is deployed to Puerto Rico supporting the Puerto Rican government’s recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria. Spc. Derek Born, a 2013 graduate of Northgate High School, is a combat medic assigned to the 62nd Medical Brigade of the US Army based in Fort Lewis, Washington.
Hurricane Maria was a category 5 hurricane. It struck the island of Puerto Rico, an American territory, on September 20, 2017 causing at least 50 deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

This is Born’s first deployment with the Army. Born describes his deployment to Puerto Rico as his best Army experience yet. “You don’t really know friendship until you’ve worked 18 hour days with people in the heat a long way from home,” he said.
He is stationed in San Juan, but performs missions across the island. His most recent mission brought him to the Puerto Rican municipality of Utuado, where he used his medical training to assist the locals in attaining safe drinking water.
He inspected the available drinking water systems, distributed water purification tablets, and encouraged the people to draw water from the U.S. Army’s water purification truck on site. His next scheduled mission will take him to the far southern municipality of Ponce to establish a communications relay site for the medical unit.
“Born is one of the hardest working specialists not only in this task force, but in the Army,” said Maj. Christopher Splichal, Born’s supervisor in Puerto Rico. “He is the first to jump up and help no matter what is needed.”
Born joined the Army in 2015. He was initially trained as a licensed nurse practitioner.
“The LPN training was about 55 weeks,” said Born. “I think there was a 40% or 50% fail rate. There were some long hours of studying.”
After graduating from that training, he transitioned to become a combat medic.
“I wanted to do the combat side of medicine. Medic is the simpler side of medicine. It is how to stop bleeding and how to make someone breathe again.”
The difficulties imposed by the work in Puerto Rico create strong bonds, but they also create longing for the comforts of home. He comes from a family of Italian heritage with most of his family members living nearby.
A large Sunday dinner with all of the family around the table is the thing he misses most. For the coming Sunday dinner his unit sergeant major is preparing a special meal for the unit by mixing and cooking the contents of their Army-issued, boxed rations.
US military forces, including the active component, National Guard and reserve, are deployed across Puerto Rico to support the Puerto Rican government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in recovering from the effects of multiple powerful storms that struck the island in the summer of 2017. More information on the US military response in Puerto Rico is available at www.PuertoRicoResponse.com.

• Date Taken: 11.04.2017
• Date Posted: 11.04.2017 13:59
• Story ID: 254114
• Location: PR