Camp Bolus. A place known to all combat medics of the modern era. A place of tears, sweat, blood, some more blood and the occasional laughter or sleep. After two months of studying to be an EMT and two more months of learning combat medicine the culminating event is a two week tour to Camp Bolus. This is the final graded criteria of combat medic training and can send you back to the beginning of the combat medicine stage if you don't pass. More importantly it's more of the suck. And some fun. I'll tell you a little bit about my time there. I have some very distinct memories.
The exercise starts off with familiarization of the areas and brief after brief. The first few days are just training and getting told how we will be tested. The entire time we have a dummy rifle to hold on to and have to be accountable for it at all times. A favorite of the instructors is to find them in the porta-johns after you set it down to take a crap. There are challenges that get passed down from cycle to cycle. I participated in one such challenge: No showers the whole time. Not my best move but it was cold and showering in the field is a cumbersome task. The alternative is to baby wipe your self clean. Armpits, crotch, arms, legs, feet, face and even your hair. It takes about 10 wipes but that means a pack of 100 wipes lasts ten days. There is even a deeper level of the challenge where you only wear one uniform the entire time. I changed uniforms after the first week, so I almost got that one.
Part of Camp Bolus is that you rotate playing a casualty or the combat medic. It sucks being the casualty and I'll tell you why. Each casualty gets two things: a nasopharyngeal airway (NPA) and an I.V. in the arm. An NPA is basically a rubber hose that is inserted through your right nostril, shoved through the sinus passages and goes down the back of your throat. If you've never had an NPA before I want you to try sticking your pinky finger in your nose the next time you shower, and shove in until there is an immense amount of pressure. Now take your other index finger and stimulate your gag reflex. Now just stay like that for about an hour. On top of that, it's probably cold outside and you've got an IV in your arm that hurts because an 18 year old who just learned what a needle was rammed it into your arm. My friend, Kurt, was my medic once. He decided that I should be a special patient and get an IV in my basilic vein, which is not typical and it hurt, and he also decided I should get two NPA's. One for each nostril. I was strapped to a little, and wrapped in a space blanket so I couldn't do much to resist. It was cold so I laid there wrapped up for about a half an hour deciding on whether or not I would worm my way out. I did worm my way out and self treated my newly inflicted arm wound and massaged my nasal passages. I then got back under the space blanket for a quick nap until the instructors ended the exercise.
On the final night/day it was an all nighter exercise. We just kept swapping in and out from being patients and medics. It was pretty exhausting and frustrating. It was also cold and wet. At about 0200 my friend Josh and I decided that we had enough and that we were going to wait it out as long as we could in the holding area where people took a break before going back at it. We huddled under a space blanket and hid our faces. We were leaned up against a concrete loading bay and facing east. I know this because when I popped my head up from under the space blanket the sun was rising directly in front of us. It was a sight that brought relief and happiness. Relief knowing that the last day was done and that we would clean up and go home that afternoon. I say happiness and not joy because happiness is fleeting and joy is a longer lived emotion. I was happy the sun was up but I was not happy with all the work ahead to get to my real bed back in the barracks complex. Regardless, I woke my pal up and we decided to act like we were role playing the whole time.
If you ever come across a young medic like myself, go ahead and ask him or her about their time at Camp Bolus. You'll see many different emotions come across their face and maybe even smile. You'll be sure to get at least a ten minute story!