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Dan Rachal
NTAG Portland Public Affairs
On the fifteen minute car ride from the Marine Corps Reserve Center at Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), in Tacoma, WA, to the field exercise area, Hospital Corpsman Second Class Jen Mortimer was on the phone, agitated.
“They should be studying their skill sheets,” she says to a Sergeant from Combat Logistics Battalion - 23, Engineer Services Company, Springfield, Oregon.
Mortimer was referring to her students attending Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC). The goal of the course is to teach Marines how to minimize preventable battlefield deaths. Normally it is a five-day course, compressed down to three days during this field exercise, that culminates with a final event that she will grade that determines who receives certification. The Inspector General, Marine Corps Health Services, has said that TCCC-Tier I training will be required by all Service-members as a triennial requirement for pre-deployment, and by the end of FY23, 85% of the force must be certified. The certification will last for three years, according to new guidance put out through Deployed Medicine, OPNAVINST 1500.86.
It is 43 degrees on a bright, sunny morning at JBLM. Thirteen Marines are sitting on bleachers, or on fold out chairs, listening to HM2 go over material while testing them on potential life-saving techniques.
“When you pack a wound, how long do you hold it,” she asks the group. Almost all, in unison, answer with ‘three minutes.’
Lance Corporal Camilo MartinezCardenas lies on a tarp on the ground, simulating a Marine injured in combat. Mortimer goes over the head tilt-chin lift and jaw-thrust techniques that help with breathing when someone has an obstructed airway. She looks at the group of young, male Marines and admits the names of both sound like wrestling moves from the WWE. MartinezCardenas lies still while a tourniquet is applied to his right leg and Mortimer walks through what to look for when diagnosing head and brain injuries.
The Marines joke around during parts of the tutorial, but take the course seriously because she has a rapport with them. Before becoming a recruiter, she was stationed with some of the Marines as part of Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Southern Command 2020 (SPMAGTF-SC20). Mortimer was deployed with her Navy Reserve unit to South America for five months as an independent Corpsman.
Her primary assignment lies 170 miles to the south, as a talent scout at Naval Recruiting Station, Salem, Oregon. Mortimer is here, though, because she is the only Hospital Corpsmen qualified to teach the course not located in California, North Carolina or outside of the United States. Aside from being qualified to teach, she loves working with Marines and wants them to learn the skills necessary to operate independently in the field of battle.
“They are my brothers and sisters,” she said.” It’s what I have done my whole career. It’s important they learn to be first responders on the battlefield because the corpsman might not always be there.”
Navy Talent Acquisition Group Portland, her current command, is supportive of lending her to the Marines for the weekend because they see the importance of the ‘one team, one fight’ idea. While in the field, sleeping in a tent and eating the brown-packaged Meal, Ready-to-eat (MRE) with the rest of the unit, she has not completely left recruiting behind. The Marines know she is a Navy recruiter and she answers questions about joining when the topic is raised.
“I have talked with a few Marines who are close to their EAOS about switching branches,” she said. “ A few are interested but there is not enough time to talk about it now.”
| Date Taken: | 02.25.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.03.2022 01:06 |
| Story ID: | 415660 |
| Location: | PORTLAND, OREGON, US |
| Web Views: | 101 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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