General Discussion

...and be eligible to get some military retirement at age 65 or so. Desert Shield and Desert Storm wrecked that plan. I had always done my 2 weeks of reservist active duty as a nurse practitioner in assorted Air Force pediatric clinics, which are always very busy, and where they were always happy to have an extra provider.

Active duty nurse practitioners have a suffix attached to their AFSC - Air Force Specialty Code identifying us as pediatric, family practice, or OB-GYN nurse practitioners. In the reserves, a nurse is a nurse is a nurse, even tho nothing could be further from the truth. The year I was pregnant with our older son, TPTB suddenly announced that all nurses had to have "war readiness skills."

The first week of my 2 week tour, I was put in the ER of the big hospital at Andrews AFB, and the evening shift charge nurse said, "I'll show you around tonight and you can be in charge the rest of the week." Oh, hell no. Ask me anything about ear infections, diaper rashes, infant behavior, breast feeding, sleep problems, temper tantrums. Draw blood, hook up an EKG, find stuff in a crash cart during an arrest - double hell no. I told her I was in no way qualified to do that and that it was her job to teach me things, not just throw me in.

I spent the second week in the Aeromedical Staging Flight, where patients from overseas are brought back to the States if they need care they cannot get at the bases where they are stationed. It would either be quiet and boring because no planes had come in, or chaos because 3 planes would be due in at the same time. Not much patient care, just a lot of organizing and running around.

Once our son was born I decided I needed to get out because I was not willing to be be parted from my beloved baby. I was almost 39 when he was born, and I was not willing to let anyone else raise him because of an illegal war.