Right in the middle of preparations for the upcoming Christmas celebration I thought I could give you readers a closer look at my time in the military.
As you already know by reading my "who am I?"-column to the right I was stationed as a Paramedic Corporal in the Swedish Army.
Our platoon had both a mobile field hospital and paramedics going into the battlefield with our "ambulances".
Due to a bad financial budget that year we didn't get all the material and gear we originally should have, e.g. the SISU Terrain Vehicle.
Instead we drove around in the Swedish terrain picking up badly injured soldiers in the most simple terrain vehicles without bullet rejecting armour protection. They were ugly, narrow and non tech but still very reliable and traffic-able in the tough terrain.
During the time in the Paramedic Platoon we learned how to give Tactical First Aid, treat severe injuries like shot wounds, grenade blast injuries and amputated limbs etc. We did actually not see any real injuries until our practice in the ER's but before then we trained on marked injuries in scenarios made up by our legendary Paramedic Lieutenant.
After three to four months of Basic Soldier Training the platoon was introduced to the Paramedic training. We moved from our location in Skövde to the Military Medical Centre of Gothenburg where we began the three month long education. The atmosphere at the Medical Centre was totally different and it was like going to the university.
When our platoon was re-gathered in Skövde for our grand finale - the battalion training mission - we felt confident in our role as a paramedic platoon.
We had a lot of training in executing the building of our mobile hospital as well as packing it down and move it to another location.
We were demobbed and examined in the 12th of November 2008.
I can honestly say that I really miss it...
