50cal

All corpsman training moving to Texas



By Bruce Rolfsen - brolfsen@militarytimes.com
Posted : August 18, 2008

Hospital corpsmen, soldiers and airmen in medical career fields soon will be training together at a joint facility in San Antonio, in what will be the largest training consolidation in Defense Department history.
Corpsmen will receive all of their training there, starting with “A” school.
Construction of the joint Medical Education Training Campus is underway at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, with classes predicted to start there for sailors and airmen in June 2010. The base already serves as a training center for Army medics and will continue to do so during construction.
Eleven facilities under construction include three 1,200-student dormitories, a consolidated dining facility, five classroom buildings, a field training site, and a Navy and Air Force administrative building.
The move to the campus, called METC for short, brings together enlisted medical education programs for the Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Army, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Melissa Rank, a career nurse who chairs METC’s flag officer steering committee and is the Air Force’s assistant surgeon general for medical force development.
Training for Navy medical officers will not be affected by the consolidation, which was mandated by the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. BRAC recommended closing medical training programs for corpsmen at Naval Air Station Great Lakes, Ill.; Naval Hospital San Diego; Naval Hospital Portsmouth, Va.; and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; and shuttering a medical training program for airmen at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.
A BRAC study found that the consolidation would bring 9,200 civilians, military staff members, and military students to the base. The move would cost about $800 million, the study found.
At METC, the services will keep their own identities and commands while teaching and working together at the campus — sailors will have their own barracks, will have a Navy chain of command, and will train alone for service specific tasks, but there will be many opportunities to mix, officials said.
“We expect to have Navy, Army and Air Force students in class together in a variety of courses,” said Cmdr. Chris Garcia, METC Transformation and Integration Office spokeswoman. “There will still be service-specific courses, but we are definitely trying to come together when we can.”
Garcia said officials predict that on a typical day in 2011, more than 4,900 soldiers, 2,900 sailors and 1,200 airmen will train there.
One issue being worked out is parking, and students may not be allowed to have cars on campus.
“If you’ve seen Fort Sam Houston, you would ask where are you going to park 9,000 cars,” said Chief Master Sgt. Manuel Sarmina, chairman of METC’s senior enlisted advisory committee.
Staff writer Chris Amos contributed to this report.

__________________


"Sweat dries, blood clots, bones heal. Suck it up. Be a Marine"

Mud_Woman

i heard somewhere the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marines dont like each other.
what will happen then . .

__________________

Kaina1128

lol thats mostly playful banter. we fight for the same country and under the same president. everything should work out fine

__________________
www.paysbig.com/powwow

Urban Indian Wellness Consortium

Nooktoo tsitaapi kainaiwa


USAF

Mud_Woman

kinda like sibling rivalry . .

__________________