Photo By André B. Sobocinski, Historian | Since 1971, Force Master Chiefs of BUMED have served as senior enlisted advisors for...... read more read more
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“I knew how important it was, I just didn’t know how truly important it is,” said FORCM Michael Roberts on being the Force Master Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED).
Roberts assumed this title—and with it—the helm of the Hospital Corps in October 2020 after a career that included tours as Command Master Chief of 1st Marine Division, 2D Marine Logistics Group, 2D Medical Battalion and deployments aboard USS Nitze (DDG-94), USS Kearsarge (LHD-3). To date, he is only the sixteenth individual to serve as Force Master Chief of BUMED, a position that marks its fiftieth anniversary in 2021.
Since 1971, Force Master Chiefs of BUMED have served as senior enlisted advisors for Navy Surgeons General, and the voice for some 26,000 active and reserve Hospital Corpsmen in the Navy on matters relating to the welfare, health, job satisfaction, retention, morale, utilization, and training.
Although it is easy to acknowledge the necessity of the role, the Hospital Corps was already 72 years old when the position of the “Force” was established. On July 20, 1971, the Force Master Chief of BUMED (originally “Master Chief Petty Officer of BUMED”) was one of 23 senior enlisted positions created by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, the Chief of Naval Operations. The purpose was to ensure that the Navy’s enlisted communities had representation on the vital issues affecting the entire service.
The First Forces, 1971-1991.
In July 1971, Master Chief Robert Swartout, then serving as head of the enlisted training program at BUMED, was selected by Surgeon General Vice Adm. George Davis as the first Force. The tradition of Surgeons General selecting the Force has continued to this day.
The First Forces came up through the ranks in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. These were individuals whose careers and outlooks were shaped by World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the uncertainties stoked by the Cold War and the ongoing morale issues of the 1970s. In the first 20 years of the Force, six individuals served at the helm of the Hospital Corps.
• Master Chief Robert Swartout was a veteran of the hard fought Guadalcanal campaign and later served at first forward deployed hospitals in the Pacific War. In the 1950s, Swartout was assigned to Joint Task Force 132 which oversaw Operation Ivy, the first successful full-scale test of a hydrogen bomb. He reported to BUMED in 1963 after a tour as Command Master Chief of Naval Hospital Yokosuka. After two years as Master Chief Petty Officer of BUMED he retired in 1973.
• Master Chief Horace Anderson’s service included tours in Korea and Vietnam. Anderson was selected as Master Chief Petty Officer of BUMED after serving as the Senior Enlisted Advisor at the Naval Medical Regional Clinic in Washington, D.C. He served at the head of the Hospital Corps from 1973 to 1977.
• Master Chief Harry Olszak was a former blood and laboratory technician who had served aboard the hospital ship USS Haven (AH-12) after the Korean War, at the Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) No. 4 in Great Lakes, and Preventive Medicine Unit (NEPMU)-6 in Pearl Harbor, H.I.. He became head of the Hospital Corps in 1977 after a tour as Command Master Chief of Naval Regional Medical Center Portsmouth, VA. He retired in 1979.
• Master Chief Stephen Brown was the first senior enlisted leader at BUMED to use the “Force Master Chief” title. Brown began his career assigned to the 1st Marine Division in the Korean War. He reported to BUMED in 1979 after serving as the Command Master Chief for Naval Regional Medical Center San Diego, Calif. As the top “doc” in the Hospital Corps, Brown was known as an innovative and resourceful manager, advocated for improvements in military enlisted family housing and unaccompanied enlisted personnel housing and helped initiate a proposal for a Navy Enlisted Nursing Education Program later to develop into a Medical Enlisted Commissioning Program. In 1983, Brown helped introduce the concept of the “Medal of Honor” wall for Navy medical facilities to honor the service of the Corpsmen who earned this distinction. He served as Force Master Chief from 1979 to 1983.
• Master Chief Louis Green’s career included tours with the 3rd Marine Division in Chu Lai, Vietnam, aboard the USS DeLong (DE-684), Command Master Chief of the Naval Submarine Medical Center, Groton, Conn., and the Naval Health Sciences Education and Training Command, Bethesda, MD when he was selected to be the Force Master Chief. He served in this role from 1983 to 1987.
• Master Chief William (Bill) Griffith’s career include tours in Vietnam, and service aboard USS California (CGN-36), and USS Nimitz (CVN-68). He served as Command Master Chief of Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, Va., Naval School of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md., and the National Capital Region, Bethesda, Md. prior to his selection as the Force Master Chief. He retired in 1991 after overseeing the Hospital Corps during the Persian Gulf War.
The Submariners – The First Warfare-Designated FORCEs.
HMCM Charley Williams was selected as the new Force Master Chief of BUMED in 1991 succeeding Master Chief Bill Griffith. Williams had entered the service during the Vietnam War and spent 15 years aboard submarines. Prior to coming to BUMED, Williams was the Command Master Chief for the Submarine Forces Atlantic (SUBLANT) and had worked closely with the SUBLANT Force Master Chief. When he took the helm, Williams—a submarine warfare specialist—became the first Force with a warfare designation. Spending most of his career on the operational side, he admits that he did not know Navy Medicine had its own Force. “It was kind of a shock to me to find out you were in charge of all of the Corpsmen and Dental Techs,” said Williams.
In the early 1990s, the military was facing significant cutbacks and entering a period of downsizing. His first job as Force Master Chief was sitting on the first ever Selective Early Retirement Board from a closed locker room at the old Arlington Annex. “We went through all the records and we chose some very good people to go home because we had to get the military downsized to meet the President’s goal,” recalled Williams.
Williams was succeeded by another submariner and Vietnam veteran in 1994, Master Chief Mike Stewart. Prior to his tenure as Force, Stewart spent years as an Independent Duty Corpsman aboard submarines USS Nathan Hale (SSBN-623), USS Nautilus (SSN-571) and USS Casimir Pulaski (SSBN 633). He later served as Command Master Chief of the Naval Medical Command, Northwest Region, Naval Hospital Oakland, Calif.; and the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md. As Force, his chief goal was to bring the Navy’s deck-plate values back to the Hospital Corps and help ensure operational readiness. “Bringing back our deck-plate values allowed our Corpsmen to get out of the administrative realm and back into patient care in preparation for deployments for any crisis that would come up around the world,” said Stewart.
The Director of the Hospital Corps.
“Whenever I go on my travels I have two jobs,” said FORCM Roberts. “I am the BUMED Force Master Chief and I am the Director of the Hospital Corps.”
The head of the Hospital Corps did not always serve in this double-hatted role though. For the first eight years of the Force Master Chief, the Director of the Hospital Corps was a position held solely by commissioned officers, typically 0-6 Navy nurses and Medical Service Corps officers. In June 1979, Vice Adm. Willard Arentzen granted Master Chief Stephen Brown the role of Director during his tenure, but this position was short-lived for the Navy’s top enlisted “doc.” Despite the fact that the Force served as the most senior enlisted leader in Navy Medicine and was advisor to the Surgeon General on issues related to Hospital Corpsmen, their decision making before and after Brown was limited.
“I had a very close relationship with the nurse who was serving as the Director of the Hospital Corps, but I didn’t have a lot of input when they made decisions and did what they thought best for the Corps,” remembered Master Chief Williams. During his tenure as Force, Williams and his team worked to show the Surgeon General that the Hospital Corps was “capable of taking care of their own” and Vice Adm. Donald Hagen agreed. When Master Chief Stewart succeeded Williams in 1994 he assumed the title as the Director of the Hospital Corps. And since 1994 every Force has also served as the Hospital Corps Director.
The duties as Force and Director of the Hospital Corps are in some respects intertwined. “The roles we play depends on what audience we are talking to at the time,” related FORCM Hosea Smith, who served as Force Master Chief and Director from the Hospital Corps from 2017 to 2020. “You can look at these titles on the same playing field because when I spoke with someone outside of Navy Medicine they knew me as the Force Master Chief, but being Director was job number one.”
For Stewart—as the first enlisted leader to hold both titles after 1983 there was some overlap, but the roles had important distinctions. “As Force Master Chief you are dealing with issues about morale and welfare of all the sailors in Navy Medicine,” said Stewart. “But as Director of the Hospital Corps you are dealing with education and training, the schools, the enlisted community manager, the detailers, and the manpower folks.”
The Traveling FORCE.
Any Force can tell you that one constant for the job is travel. The Force is there for each Hospital Corps graduation, and is always by the Surgeon General of the Navy’s side as they travel around the world visiting Navy, Navy medical and Marine Corps activities and commands. And for many Forces, the ability to get out and be connected to their sailors in the field is often the highlight of their tenures.
“I did an awful lot of travel,” recalled Master Chief Stewart. “I was gone probably 65% of the time, but I got to meet all these sailors everywhere we went and to see the incredible things they were doing. I visited so many ships, submarines, Marine Corps units all around the world, and it made you realize what an incredible team the Navy and Marine Corps is and how we work so close together. It’s unbelievable.”
Sometimes these trips can be more harrowing than one would like. In the early 1990s, Master Chief Charley Williams joined Surgeon General Vice Adm. Donald Hagen and his aide Lt. Cmdr. (later Capt.) Kelly McConville on a trip across the Pacific. While traveling on an S-3 from Okinawa to mainland Japan their plane encountered a serious technical malfunction. “As we were climbing out we heard a loud boom,” remembered Williams. “I’m looking up at the cockpit and the co-pilot is going through the emergency procedure book, and then they announced, ‘We just had a flame-out on the starboard engine, so we’re dumping fuel and we’re going to swing around and make an arrest wire landing back at Kadena Air Force Base.’ I guess the most frightening thing in the world was when we stopped. I’d never stopped like that on an airplane. But when we did stop, I looked out the window and there must have been 40 little silver suits running around with fire trucks. They knew where you were going to stop and they were waiting for us. And you’re thinking, ‘Oh gosh, are we going to burn up here?’ And all they did was tow us back over to the hangar, pulled out another one, put us on that and then we took off again. But that was an interesting trip. You could see the co-pilot. He was tapping on the dash. And my thought process at the time was, he’s thinking, ‘For Heaven’s sake, let’s get this thing on the ground. I don’t want to be responsible for losing the Surgeon General of the Navy.’”
Of course, a key for any trip is having the right team back at headquarters. Forces interviewed for this retrospective each mentioned the importance of having a good team and deputy to run the office when they are traveling. “As the Force Master Chief you’re a traveler— everybody wants the opportunity to meet you whether it’s at a hospital, clinic, a ship visit or on a Marine Corps installation,” said Master Chief Laura Martinez who served as Force and Director of the Hospital Corps from 2007 to 2011. “As you are traveling your deputy plays an essential role in the day-to-day operations while the Force is out meeting sailors.”
The Surface Sailor, FMF Designators and the Marine Pin.
The Force Master Chief serves as the head of the entire Hospital Corps—and 40 Navy Enlisted Codes (NECs) in total—from the quad-zero (general duty) Corpsmen to Fleet Marine Force (FMF) Corpsmen (“8404s”). This was something HMCM Mark Weldon was aware of when he became Force Master Chief and Hospital Corps Director in 1998. Like all Forces since Master Chief Charley Williams, Weldon had been operationally-focused and had come from the line side. He had served as Command Master Chief aboard USS Whidbey Island (LDS-41), at Naval Station Mayport, Florida and was the first surface warfare-designated Force. Recognizing that a “shore-duty mentality” still pervaded the Hospital Corps, he espoused three priorities when meeting his Corpsmen. “I sought to enhance operational capabilities,” said Weldon. “My other priorities were to train to those requirements and develop tomorrow’s leaders today.” And for those doing the job as warfighter he wanted them to get the recognition. As he looks back, Weldon notes one of his proudest accomplishments was getting the FMF badge or pin approved for his “greenside” Corpsmen.
“The Hospital Corps is the most diverse rating in the Navy, and we’re in every community from Special Forces down to Air Surface, subs, divers—we’re everywhere,” said Weldon. “A lot of them had done or would do an FMF tour no matter what community they ended up in. The FMF pin had been talked about for years and it seemed like an issue that people could rally behind and that’s why I pushed that. And I did that working with the other Fleet Force Master Chiefs, all of whom were supportive of it.”
All Forces interviewed have acknowledged the importance of having that connection with the greenside. To date, a total of six Forces—from Master Chiefs Robert Elliott in 2006 to Michael Roberts today—have worn the Fleet Marine Force warfare designator. Years before becoming a Force, Master Chief Sherman Boss was finishing up a tour at Naval Hospital Keflavik and in the Command Master Chief program when he received orders for Okinawa. The submarine and surface designated Independent Duty Corpsman (IDC) knew he needed field medical training in order to have a better understanding of what FMF Corpsmen go through. As a senior “9580,” he got permission from Force Master Chief Jacqueline DiRosa to go through Field Medical Service School. “Here I was a 9580 Command Master Chief, 43-44 years old and all my classmates were 18-19-year old kids,” said Boss. “I did every push-up, every pull-up, every calisthenic, every hump; I did everything because I knew that I represented the senior enlisted of the Navy.” Years later while serving as the Force Boss remembers young sailors coming up to him remarking that they went through Field Med with him and seeing him go through that training had inspired them.
FORCE Firsts.
In 2002, Master Chief Jacqueline DiRosa was selected by Vice Adm. Michael Cowan as the tenth Force Master Chief of BUMED. Like Master Chief Weldon, DiRosa had spent the greater part of her career in the surface Navy. And she had served as the Command Master Chief of USS Blue Ridge prior to her selection. When she took the helm in April 2002, DiRosa earned the distinction as not only the first woman Force of BUMED, but also the first woman Force Master Chief in the entire U.S. Navy. “I remember getting the call from Admiral Cowan and sitting the phone down. I was overcome with emotion because as a Hospital Corpsman I saw being Force as the pinnacle of my career, my opportunity to truly make a difference and to have a voice for change,” said DiRosa.
Looking back on her first years in the Navy, FORCM DiRosa recalled an encounter with her Lead Petty Officer (LPO) at Naval Hospital San Diego. “I was one of these people who always saw things like ‘why aren’t we doing it this way?’ And I always had questions, and was always exploring ways for making things better; that’s just the way I was wired,” said DiRosa. “One day as a very junior sailor my LPO said to me, ‘If you want to make a difference you can make a change, but you need to be in a position where you can.’”
As she came up through the ranks there were not many examples of women serving in senior enlisted positions. “I can remember back in ‘81-’82 I saw my first female master chief and I stood in awe,” stated DiRosa. “And it’s interesting, throughout my career, particularly as Force, I was still hearing, ‘You’re the first female master chief I’ve ever seen.’” At that point the Navy was still undergoing cultural changes and as DiRosa admits culture can sometimes change very slowly.
With any distinction comes greater visibility. And for FORCM DiRosa, she knew that she had to be an active voice and advocate for her sailors and needed to be highly involved because as she put it: “You’ve got to be the champion and fight to help continue to keep the changes progressing.”
In November 2007, Navy history was again made when Vice Admiral Adam Robinson selected Master Chief Laura Martinez as the new Force Master Chief of BUMED. She was only the second woman to serve as the Force and was the first African-American selected for this role. An FMF-designated specialist, FORCM Martinez had served as Command Master Chief at Naval Hospital Okinawa, with 2d Marine Logistics Group, Camp Lejeune, N.C., the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., and Field Medical Training Battalion-East. (FMTB-East) prior to her selection. “I was truly honored by the selection to serve as the twelfth Force Master Chief,” said Martinez. “Being the first women of color and the second woman to hold this position, I hope I set the path for those who will come behind me.”
New Opportunities for Dental Technicians.
Throughout much of their history Dental Technicians (now Dental Assistants) were a part of, but still separate, from the Hospital Corps. In the 1920s, the first Hospital Corpsmen graduated Navy dental courses for enlisted personnel becoming, in essence, proto-Dental Technicians. And in 1948 the Navy authorized the Dental Technician (DT) rating. The DT rating insignia even appeared on the Navy Medical Department flag from the late 1940s through the 2000s alongside symbols of the four staff officer corps and Hospital Corps. Despite their separate status from the Hospital Corps, all DTs historically came under the realm of the BUMED Force Master Chief.
Over the years, many Navy medical leaders recognized that DTs did not have the same opportunities as Corpsmen for promotion and their assignments were usually limited to dental activities. During Master Chief Stewart’s tenure efforts were made to open up the Command Master Chief billets across Navy Medicine so that Dental Techs could serve in roles typically occupied by Hospital Corpsmen and vice-versa. And by Master Chief Weldon’s time as Force Navy Medicine began exploring merging DTs into the Hospital Corps rating.
“As the Force I started visiting dental clinics and those Dental Techs were always sharp and had attention to detail,” remembered Weldon. “At the same time, all the DTs that I spoke with said, ‘We just can’t make rank.’” Recognizing that DTs should have the same opportunities for advancement and seeing an underutilization of available assets Master Chief Weldon and his team started pressing for reorganization. When FORCM DiRosa succeeded Weldon, the DT-HM merger became a chief issue and one of great heartache for some.
“I had a few Dental Tech master chiefs that were not in favor of it,” said DiRosa. “And I had a few of them on my working groups to get them involved, to hear their voices and their arguments on why they were concerned. Also, I wanted them to hear the other side of the argument and be able to critically analyze the big picture and eventually become supportive.”
On October 1, 2005, some 3,000 DTs serving “chairside” and administratively at dental and medical activities worldwide became part of the Hospital Corps. Among those “new” Corpsmen was Master Chief Terry Prince who in 2017 was selected as Force Master Chief, the first ever DT to serve in this role. “That was an incredible opportunity,” said Prince about the DT-HM merger. “I know there was a lot of heartache amongst the Dental Techs at the time, but those of us who were a little bit smarter about life understood that this was going to open up entirely new opportunities for us.”
Prior to becoming Force, Prince had served five operational tours of duty with the First, Second and Third Dental Battalions and the Third Force Service Support Group in Okinawa, Japan. He later also served in senior enlisted positions at Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune, N.C., Navy Medicine National Capital Area/Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., and the Defense Health Agency. Coming up through the ranks FORCM Prince recognized that DTs were no different than HMs and both were healthcare professionals. “The reality is that dental techs weren’t able to go to their CO; they weren’t able to go to a lot of ship billets, and this opened up all kinds of opportunities,” said Prince. “And on a personal level, it ultimately helped me become Master Chief and do the things that I was able to do.”
Hospital Corps School Closure and Relocation.
Improving how Corpsmen are trained and ensuring that they are imbued with the skills and knowledge for current and future challenges has been a constant over the history of the Hospital Corps. It has also been among the greatest challenges for Force Master Chiefs. Factors of BRAC, financial cutbacks, divestitures and remaining operationally ready while preserving the Hospital Corps’ cultural identity have only made the decision-making process more complicated over the years. And these decisions are never without some controversy, especially when culture and heritage are at risk. An example of these difficult decisions can be seen with the disestablishment of Hospital Corps School San Diego in 1997.
As far back as 1928, a Basic Hospital Corps School had existed at Balboa Park in San Diego. And from the late 1940s until 1997, Corpsmen attended either the “basic school” in San Diego or Great Lakes. During Master Chief Stewart’s tenure as Force the decision was made to close the San Diego site. “Closing the school offered better opportunities for patient care, and better opportunities for Corpsmen to grow,” related Stewart who made this difficult decision. “I remember at that time we implemented guidelines so that if a Corpsman didn’t pass a physical fitness test, they couldn’t graduate from ‘A’ School. And it was very difficult to do physical fitness out in Balboa Park where the school was located. Merging those two schools together, brought all of our talent and energy into one spot and everybody was trained exactly the same way.”
Fourteen years later a decision was made to relocate the Navy’s remaining school in Great Lakes to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. FORCM Laura Martinez was at the helm as preparations were made for this historic relocation that was driven both by cost savings and they need to meet goals of “jointness” between the services. “We were closing three major school houses at the time,” recalled Martinez. “We were closing the Naval School of Health Sciences detachments at San Diego and Portsmouth and we were closing Great Lakes, which was a huge concern because we didn’t want to lose our service identity. That was very, very heavy on my plate during that time.”
Being the Force often requires walking a tight rope. The relocation of Corps School and finding common ground with the other services was to remain an issue for years after the move and involve many growing pains. Master Chief Sherman Boss who succeeded Martinez in October 2011 related that these experiences made the services gradually realize that Hospital Corpsmen and Air Force and Army Medics were very different. “We have such a different mission that there were areas that we could be very successful in a collaboration and joint, if you will, in the training environment, but you can’t put a round peg in a square hole,” related Boss. “Just as San Antonio was opening its doors the Army pulled out and said, ‘Don’t need to do it’ And then it was an Air Force/Navy school, and initially it worked okay, but not great. The way the training requirements for the other services were much different than the training requirements for the Navy. Instructors had to have certain credentials that the other services required but the Navy didn’t. Army wanted all of their medics to be EMTs, but we recognized that every Hospital Corpsman doesn’t need to be an EMT. Some do, but not all of them do. Getting the Army to understand the reasoning behind that, and that you can’t create one healthcare provider across the three services that could operate in whatever environment they want was really hard.”
The year 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the historic move to San Antonio. Master Chief Martinez, now the Quota and Corporate Enterprise Training Activity Resource System Manager at the Naval Medical Forces Support Command in San Antonio has a unique view of the relocation. “We were able to make that course correction for our Basic Hospital Corpsman, and so now Air Force trains Air Force; Army trains Army; Navy trains Navy,” said Martinez. “And to see that evolution from the very beginning, and ten years later to see us still producing those people who everyday are contributing survivability to lethality, is pretty cool.”
Shared Services, New Initiatives and Innovations.
Prior to being selected as Force Master Chief by Vice Adm. Matthew Nathan in 2011, Master Chief Boss had served with the future Surgeon General at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and later at the National Naval Medical Center. Along with Admiral Nathan, Boss was front and center for the historic merger of the National Naval Medical Center and the Walter Reed Military Medical Center. “It was, as Admiral Nathan used to say, ‘Like rebuilding an airplane while in flight,’” said Boss. “And that’s essentially what we were doing. Not only do we have the amalgamation of Army and Navy and Air Force, but we were still receiving casualties on Wednesdays and Fridays and the medical center was under constant construction—it was chaos.”
As Force Master Chief, Boss still periodically made trips to Bethesda where on one occasion he met an EOD sailor and double amputee who was receiving treatment there. “I got to know the family well while he was at Bethesda,” recalled FORCM Boss. “And on one occasion I joined he and his family as we left the building. His wife was pushing him in a wheelchair, with two kids on each end, and he looked at me as he was getting ready to get into the car and said, ‘Doc, I’m going to be okay.’
“And I thought then and there, ‘That’s why we do what we do.’ And that’s what every Corpsman should remember throughout their careers—their job is going to be 95% boredom interrupted by 5% chaos. And as long as they have the training and the equipment and the care to know what to do during that 5% of time then whoever they’re helping is going to be okay.”
During his tenure as Force, Boss helped navigate the uncharted waters of jointness and shared services. With this came a need to bridge the gap with the other services and educate them about the uniqueness of the Hospital Corps. “The Army couldn’t understand how a Hospital Corpsman who wasn’t a LPN [Licensed Practical Nurse] could serve on a ward or how Independent Duty Corpsmen (IDCs) operated independently,” said Boss. Working with his counterpart in the Army, Boss arranged to have two Army medics go through the Navy IDC School. And to introduce the Army mentality to the Navy, Boss selected 10 Corpsmen from Bethesda to go through Army LPN School in San Antonio. As Boss related, “This drove my agenda. I wanted to make clear that the services had the same roles, but there are different ways of getting there.”
Ensuring that Corpsmen have the advanced skills to meet operational readiness goals Force Master Chiefs have often looked for ways of making the training experience more relevant. This was a guiding light for Force Master Chief Hosea Smith during his tenure in office. Master Chief Smith took the helm of the Hospital Corps in March 2017 following Command Master Chief tours at Naval Hospital Okinawa, Navy Medicine West and Naval Medical Center San Diego, Calif. As the Force, Smith oversaw the implementation of a new PQS, the growth of the Connected Corpsman in the Community program, the introduction of IDC formulary guidance, and the exploration of a new partnership with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) for awarding undergraduate degrees to IDCs. But a chief goal was getting Corpsmen prepared for that next war. And a key part of this was the “trauma training” initiative.
“When I stepped into the role of Force, the Surgeon General [Vice. Adm. C. Forrest Faison] said ‘We want to do trauma training for our Hospital Corpsmen,’” recalled FORCM Smith. “That threw us all for a loop and we had to think outside the box because we’d never done that.” FORCM Smith and his team worked on developing the concept and set out to establish partnerships with trauma centers in order to give Corpsmen (E-5 and below) an opportunity for hands-on training. Leveraging an existing relationship with the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Chicago, Illinois, Navy Medicine formalized a pilot program in 2018 for what is now called the Hospital Corpsman Trauma Training (HMTT).
Today, the Navy HMTT course is available at four sites—Stroger, the University of Florida Health (Shands) in Jacksonville, Fla., University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio and Wake Medical Center in Raleigh, N.C. Presently about 350 sailors go through the rigorous 7-week program each year.
Servant Leadership and Legacy.
For Master Chief Mike Stewart, Force Master Chief is not a “position” but rather a “critical job” in Navy Medicine. “There’s a difference between a job and a position,” explained Stewart. “In a position you get the title and you get the picture on the wall, but the job is to get in there and work, wrestle and defend the rights of all those sailors that you represent. It’s not just going to fancy balls and giving speeches. You’ve got to be willing to take the hard cases for sailors that are being unjustly treated or denied opportunities and be willing to go to bat for them. That’s the whole reason why you’re there as the Force Master Chief. It’s not to get another stepping stone for you, it’s to help everybody else move up and enjoy the Navy as much as you have.”
In looking back at his time as head of the Hospital Corps, FORCM Terry Prince notes that it was important to him that the Corpsmen knew that their voices were being heard. “I wanted them to know how important it is to represent the Hospital Corps at the table with the Surgeon General,” said Prince. “The Hospital Corps has a voice at the top level of Navy Medicine, and their concerns and their ideas and their dreams are being looked at every single day. And I wanted them to know that the Force and the entire Force staff is there for every one of those sailors in order to give them opportunities to achieve whatever successes they want to achieve.”
The notion of service to the Hospital Corps resonates to this day with Force Master Chief Michael Roberts and drives his agenda in office. Whether in uniform or out of uniform, he states that being the Force Master Chief is a “24/7” job to ensure that his sailors’ voices are being heard. “As Force Master Chiefs we serve them, they don’t serve us,” explained Roberts. “Every day you’re going to say ‘I serve people. I work for them,’ but when you go home, can you say that you did a good job? Did you serve the people well? Did you give the appropriate answers or give them direction of where to go?”
In the end, the job of Force Master Chief has been personal for all 16 who have been selected for the role—all of whom came up the ranks as enlisted healthcare professionals and each ended their service careers in a role that allowed them to listen, connect and serve as their community’s voice. “When I get up to talk to a bunch of sailors in the field I leave so full of energy, I’m excited for them,” related Roberts. “I give them answers that they were not expecting or give them something that they knew was probably on the horizon and validate it. And for me that’s probably most rewarding aspect of being the Force.”
As we mark this fiftieth anniversary of the Force Master Chief—and looking ahead at the future of Navy Medicine—that special bond is perhaps the greatest legacy of the Force Master Chief of BUMED. And for as long as there is a Corpsman serving as Force Master Chief you can guarantee that bond will not be broken.
Sources.
Boss, Sherman (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 29 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
DiRosa, Jacqueline (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 2 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Martinez, Laura (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 3 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Prince, Terry (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 4 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Roberts, Michael (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 9 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Smith, Hosea (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 22 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Stewart, Michael (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 25 May 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Weldon, Mark (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 4 June 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
Williams, Charley (Oral History conducted by A.B. Sobocinski on 27 May 2021). BUMED Oral History Collection.
| Date Taken: | 07.19.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 07.19.2021 15:59 |
| Story ID: | 401222 |
| Location: | FALLS CHURCH, VA, US |
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