JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
Retired Senior Master Sgt. Michael Currey, a former Air Force Independent Duty Medical Technician, spent the afternoon answering questions and sharing stories about his experiences from decades ago with IDMT course instructors and students November 20 at the Medical Education and Training Campus on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
An Independent Duty Medical Technician, or IDMT, is a highly skilled medical technician trained at the level of a physician’s assistant. They are assigned to operate medical aid stations at remote or isolated duty stations worldwide, as well as provide medical support to non-medical field units, other government agencies, and joint service missions as directed by the Department of War.
After enlisting in 1965, Currey attended medical apprentice technical school at Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, where he learned basic emergency medical care, as well as various aspects of nursing and primary patient care.
His first assignment brought him to Peshawar Air Station, Pakistan. “I enjoyed Pakistan,” Currey shared. “There was a 1500-man security service facility. We had a full clinic with physicians and surgeons, and we had a repeater site (Cold War communication/radar station) up in the mountains. The guys who worked in the clinic emergency room would rotate out every three months to provide medical support to personnel at the repeater site, out in the middle of nowhere. It was good duty back there.”
As a medic, Currey was able to travel with the Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Pakistan. “We traveled all over the country, saw the locals and everything. We got to go all over India, we got to go to Nepal, we got to go to Burma, all over that part of the world.” He encouraged the students to get out and experience the culture wherever they are assigned. “Pakistan was a good assignment, but we got out. Don’t stay on base. Get out and see the local people, the economies. It’s wonderful, and you really learn a lot.”
Following Pakistan, Currey served two back-to-back tours in Vietnam, one as a combat medic for an Army unit. “I got to Vietnam in the summer of ’66 and the Army was so short on medics that they were borrowing from the Navy and from the Air Force,” Currey recalled. “I’d been on station for about three days, when I was called into the squadron commander’s office and asked if I had unpacked yet. I said no, and he told me to go pick up some supplies then go to the armory and pick up a weapon. I asked where I was going and he said, ‘we don’t know.’
“For the next six months I was with the 509th then with the 173rd Airborne Brigade out in the Iron Triangle as a combat medic with no experience. I just prayed for the first three weeks that I wouldn’t kill anybody. Luckily, I didn’t,” Currey chuckled.
The valuable skills Currey learned in Vietnam prepared him for emergencies he would encounter in subsequent assignments.
“We had a light aircraft go down when I was in Hebo [Mount Hebo Air Force Station, Oregon] and the fire service went down and rescued the pilot and brought him to me. He was in very bad shape. In Vietnam I learned how to put in chest tubes and (other trauma care) in the field, so I was ahead of the game. We got the chest tubes in him and took care of his other injuries. If I had not known how to do that from my time in Vietnam, he would not have survived.”
Upon his return stateside, Currey was selected for duty as an IDMT without formally training as one. Currey explained that on the job training for IDMTs was standard practice before a school was created. “Back then, you learned by yourself and hopefully you’ve got a senior tech on station who’s been out there for a while and can guide you,” he explained. “If you were trained to do it and you were comfortable doing it then you’d do it. If you weren’t trained don’t do it, don’t compromise the patient care.”
Then, in 1969, an IDMT technical school was created at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas. The Air Defense Command mandated that all members serving as IDMTs would attend the new six-week school. Although he was already on independent duty, Currey attended the school and was in the second graduating class along with fourteen others, some of whom had been on independent duty for as long as fifteen years. “It did help being in the school because some of the things that we went over, like some of the environmental health and lab stuff, was useful. But seeing patients and the other things I was already doing, there really wasn’t a lot of difference being in the school.”
Currey completed five overseas remote tours, five domestic isolated tours, and two long tours as an IDMT, ending his service as the Superintendent of Hospital Emergency Services at the Air Force Academy following an illustrious 26-year career.
Asked what his favorite tour or most memorable experience was, Currey stated that he didn’t really have a favorite tour. But one experience stood out. “Delivering a baby on station,” he answered.
“Most of the places where we were had families. When I was up at Havre Air Force Station in Montana in February of ’69 we got a stretch of weather that, when I got there it was minus 25, the next day it was minus 52 and three days later it warmed up to minus 46 and that was the worst we saw in a stretch of three days. I had a partner at the time but, unfortunately, he still lived in town. We were isolated because of the snowstorm, 40 miles out, so he couldn’t get to work. So, I’m managing the aid station with multiple patients; these two guys who have the flu, one guy who got shocked after grabbing a line on a radar tower, and one of the dependent wives was having her baby. She was having postpartum bleeding, but I couldn’t stop it and didn’t have any drugs to do that, so the commander sent four guys on snowmobiles eight hours into town to get me the drugs that I needed to stop the bleeding. I’m up there for nine days helping all these folks in the aid station. If I didn’t have the help of one of the wives on base who was a nurse I couldn’t have done it.”
Because IDMTs were operating independently most of the time, Currey and a few colleagues recognized the need for a reference guide of rules and procedures they could follow. “We had no protocols back then. In ’71 or ’72 a few of us got together and wrote the original protocols. You’re operating independently. You can pick up the phone if you’ve got a phone connection to your supervising physician if you can get them on the phone, but most of the time you can’t, you’re on your own making the decisions knowing full well what the repercussions are if you make a bad decision.”
Currey praised the meeting, calling it “an unbelievable experience” and beyond his expectations. The opportunity also inspired IDMT course instructors and students.
“Hearing where he’s served and what he’s accomplished in his career was incredible,” stated Capt. Colleen Bernal, an IDMT Instructor. “His story shows us the advancement and what the future of our IDMTs could and will continue to do.”
“It’s amazing to be able to see history through the eyes of someone who lived it,” said Senior Airman Jose Lopez, one of the IDMT students who met with Currey. Another student, Staff Sgt. Rylee Hatch, added that “listening to Mr. Currey made us realize that we’re stepping into a lineage much bigger than ourselves. His service has set the foundation we’re standing on today.”
IDMT student Staff Sgt. Andrew Null summed up the impact Currey’s visit had on him and his classmates. “Listening to his missions and experiences was invaluable. He’s lived the kind of moments we’re training for.”