July 27, 2017

GRP 85-A Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman through combat| Traumatic Brain Injury

1 hour 38 minutes

GRP 85- On for this week's podcast is retired Navy Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman (SARC), and the host of "The Dangerzone" podcast Dan Brown. SARC's are highly trained Special Operations Medical personnel who deploy mainly with the Force Reconnaissance companies and the Marine Raiders. There have been instances where SARC's have deployed with Naval Special Warfare Teams and Army Special Operations Teams. SARC's are trained as amphibious special operations personnel going through various schooling alongside Recon Marines to include: Army Basic Airborne School, Marine Combatant Diver school, Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman Course, and the Special Operations Combat Medicine Course.

Dan continued on to complete the second half of the Special Operations Medical Course that typically only the Green Beret Medics complete. SEALs and SARC's will also complete the full course to become Independent Duty Corpsman, but only the senior Corpsman go through the rest of the course. We talked about Dan running Village Stability Operations (VSO) in Afghanistan during his deployment with the Raider Battalion, and how that type of mission is incredibly complex as it requires the war fighter to play the role of a diplomat and warrior. Dan was wounded during an attack in Afghanistan resulting in a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). We discussed TBI in some detail which is a topic I plan to cover extensively in future episodes.

0:00-Intro

11:00-SARC Pipeline

13:30-Special Operations Combat Medicine Course

16:28-SARC employment

17:34-Force Recon Battalion, Marine Raider Battalion

19:16-Independent Duty Corpsman

21:14-Prolonged Field Care

26:49-The positive effects of 15 years of war for trauma medicine in the United States

39:03-Village Stability Operations (VSO)

58:13-Running operations in Afghanistan, wounded in Afghanistan, Traumatic Brain Injury.

1:31:00-Outro

Dan Brown: