STORY BEHIND THE PLAQUE
Service Reflections of 1st Lt David G. Poedel, U.S. Air Force (1971-1990)

In June 1971 I planned to enlist in the Navy Reserve as a Personnelman, which was guaranteed because I was a Navy Sea Cadet and did US Navy Reserve Boot Camp in 1968 and did a 2 week cruise on the USS Lexington (CVT-16). A complication for my future is that I decided I wanted to become a Hospital Corpsman. That meant Class A School, then Fleet Marine training and then 2 years active duty. Well, I was 6’3″ and weighed 136lbs.. Me hauling a Marine out of a firefight was laughable with my physique and I had my first existential crisis.I. The only logical thing to do (given my age and the fact that my draft lottery #32) enlistin the Air Force for 4 years and by the grace of God and my big mouth, I bypassed Air Force BMT and did the briefest amount of medical training the Air Force offered: Medical Helper. It was pretty amazing Drill Sergeant, I don?t intend to be disrespectful, but I already know this stuff; in fact I taught it in my Navy Sea Cadet unit?. His response: Would you like to become an assistant drill Airman or some such thing (I got a 100% on the test)? No Sergeant, I enlisted to become a medic. A year or so later I found out that the Air Force took my entire BMT Flight and made them all Security Policemen. My evidence was a Security Clearance form with the AFSC for Security Police. Thank you, Jesus, for giving me my assertive and fearless mouth and mind to seldom take for an answer.

My initial enlistment was the greatest growth period of my life. During that enlistment, I discovered my ability to lead, my ability to learn vast amounts of medical knowledge and skills, and my ability to apply and teach what I learned.

While I had “issues” with maturity, I now see that this was normal, and, for the most part, my superiors were supportive and understanding, though not always enlightened. My immersion in emergency medicine, on my own initiative and supported by the physicians I served with, was amazing. I immersed myself in cardiology and pediatrics, shadowing the pediatricians in the clinic on my own time so as to gain their confidence. A real high point was when the first Phase 2 Physician Assistant students came to our hospital; I got to tag along with them and also learned a TON from that experience.

Just for fun, I enlisted in the Navy Reserve as a Hospital Corpsman HM2 and trained with my paramedic buddies which was pretty boring. I was looking for a commission as a Medical Service Corps in the Navy Reserve. Before it happened, the Air Force recruited me to be the XO of a new Air Force Reserve Contingency Hospital at Davis-Monthan AFB. After a year serving in an O-5 slot as a SSG, I finally got my “butter bar”..

My years of commissioned service were interesting. I entered a career field that I was not particularly interested in (hospital administration) and never received the necessary schooling to enable me to serve with any kind of distinction. I served to take a unit that was a mess and bring it to the level of Excellent in a Health Services Management Inspection. During that time, I was making a vocational transition into the Holy Ministry of the Lutheran Church. When the unit received the Excellent award, I elected to leave the unit, allowing two other NCOs to be commissioned into the Medical Service Corps.

When the AFRES elected to take away the pay slots for my AFSC, I elected to resign and return to civilian life.

I entered the Medical Services field, which began in a medical-surgical unit at the USAF Regional Hospital at Minot AFB. I gained some very good basic nursing education and experience. I developed severe headaches and was sent to the Regional Medical Center at Scott AFB for evaluation.

No significant reason for my headaches was found, but since I managed to stay at Scott AFB for over 90 days, I was PCSed to the Patient Squadron at Scott. Having been released from patient status, I put in for orders and was sent to Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. It was here that I blossomed in knowledge and skill in emergency medicine. I devoured information, shadowed physicians, and gained confidence in wound repair, resuscitation, physical examination, and therapeutics. In retrospect, I was able to do amazing things and was successful in providing excellent patient care.

While on active duty, I took an EMT class at Pima Community College. The next semester, I was a lab technician, assisting in teaching the class. A year later, I was teaching my own classes part-time on the base for the college. I started going to college at this time, and by the time I left the Air Force, I was well on my way to finishing my Bachelor of Science degree.

I elected discharge after my 4 years of service because the Air Force was getting too petty, and I was more interested in patient care; they were interested in playing Air Force.

At Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, we were a Strategic Air Command (SAC) so we had ‘Broken Arrow’ exercises. Once I caught on, it was pretty boring. The good news was that I got to spend some downtime with the Catholic Chaplain, who was assigned to the Emergency Department, where I worked. Every exposure, God was preparing me for my ultimate call: To be a Pastor. I am certain there are people who might have remembered me would be surprised at my vocation. Anyone who got a chance to know me heard me talk about this?.. Loving girls was gonna be a problem as a Roman Catholic, for all of the wrong reasons, I ended up becoming a Lutheran after my first marriage. God has a wicked sense of humor, folks!

One of my first calls from the ER was a “woman with a gun threatening to kill herself” at the base transient quarters. Security Police was on the scene, told me they thought she may have been drinking and had a gun. Then the senior NCO said “You medics know how to deal with this stuff, you go and take care of her”. So I did carefully. I saw the gun on the table and asked the lady if she intended to shoot me. She said no. I asked if she was planning to shoot herself and she didn’t respond. Well, I casually walked into the room and proceeded to care for the woman. I asked if I could move the gun so she wouldn’t change her mind?.she laughted and consented to me moving it.

This call was a harbinger of the next 4 years (or perhaps even true today) of my medical service in the Air Force and in the Tucson community. YIKES!

Davis-Monthan was by far the best, so much so that I stayed in Tucson after my enlistment was over. I taught full-time at Pima Community College for 30 years, and I served as a Pastor in Tucson. I lived in Tucson until 2005, when I moved to Phoenix to serve a church there.

The weather was the primary factor in my decision to stay in Tucson. I also got married there, had my children born there, and was divorced and remarried there while living there.

My least favorite was Minot AFB, which was mercifully cut short due to medical issues. The weather was deplorable with Winter starting in late September! I hate cold weather, and Minot was not the place for me.

My service in the Emergency Department from 1972-75 impacted me most and gave me the most amazing medical experience I could have ever received. Our drafted doctors were straight out of internship and residency and were confident in teaching. I became their “medical student” and was allowed to, literally, practice medicine under their supervision with a rapid movement to functioning independently. During the night shift, I was able to see patients, evaluate them, treat them, and send them home. While I had physician backup, I rarely found it necessary to wake the physician for backup. This was a marvelous experience!

My reserve experience in the Navy was pretty routine, and the Reserve Center was pretty boring. Working in the Emergency Room at the Air Force hospital brought me back to my old area of service. The staff had forgotten everything I had taught them, and their operations were very nonsensical.

Being commissioned was an interesting experience, as I re-enlisted as an SSGT, although I was recruited to serve as the Executive Officer of a medical detachment at an Air Force Reserve Contingency Hospital based at Travis AFB, CA. My commissioning took way longer than I expected, and I almost ran out of patience with the process. My commission finally came through, and it was a great feeling. Although I felt unqualified for my job, I put my heart into it and worked numerous TDY days in addition to my drill weekends. In fact, I put myself on 89 days of active duty during the summer so I could work on the paperwork for the unit. Training records were not filed, and agreements were not in place to mobilize us in case of war; it was a mess. About that time, the most amazing ART (Air Reserve Technician) CMSGT Evelyn Wahl was also assigned to the unit. She was AMAZING! She was incredibly bright and just one of the most pleasant people I have been privileged to serve with.

Evelyn and I worked incredibly hard reading and learning the regulations, and trying to accomplish the requirements that were supposed to be in place already. Long story short: we passed our first HSRI with a Satisfactory. I was commended by the Inspection Team for my attempts at getting everything in place despite many agencies not cooperating. It was great! I got an accelerated promotion to 1LT as a result of that inspection result. Great experience.

Thanks to a great Commander and ART, the unit got an Excellent rating the next HSRI.

It was both my 3rd and 4th year of my enlistment that I worked in the ER and ambulance service.

My greatest satisfaction and accomplishment was the feedback I received from the families of my patients and my patients. Those meant more than anything that the Air Force could do to recognize me. Equally, the respect the physicians and then the first Phase 2 PA students who allowed me to tag along with them during their training to become PA’s (the first in the Air Force).

Also, it was fun being Sgt Poedel in Febriary and Lt Poedel in March in Det 3, 12 USAFCH (AFRES). That was sweet!

Again, it was the evaluations of the patients and their families that meant the most to me, and that was my reason for serving and putting in the hours of study I did on my own time. There is no way to evaluate my service without the patients and families that I treated, and their thanks and healing were sufficient reward for me.

Also, during my commissioned service, we lost our Chaplain, and since I was an Ordained Lutheran Deacon, my CO asked if would serve an Additional Duty as Unit Chaplain. I did so, offering a Eucharist service during the Sunday afternoon of our drill weekends, and invited patients and staff to join us. That was cool!

It has to be the doctors! They were the best. The names I remember are Dr Seraffano, Tiegtmeier, Leiber, pediiatritions Drs Silverstein, and Weintraub, and I promise to edit this whenever my brain returns a name to recall.. The Orthopedic Surgeons who continued to encourage me by allowing me to join follow-up consultation after my emergency department service of resetting a bone and/or repair of a complex wound. They always deferred to me (go figure) that they were more than happy to come in if I didn’t feel comfortable doing the repair. Oh,, Gary Dusiak, and Mike Campbell are the internal medicine docs. This still blows me away?.I was 19 and 20 years old! They poured as much training into me when they were the MOD in the ER, by me shadowing and allowing me to share my thinking with them. This is still amazing to me! I want to remember each of their names. I will try to revisit this question when I can recall their names, as they deserve recognition. Two colleagues, or supervisors, who have greatly impacted me are John Springer and Joel Esparza. I know John was a Paramedic for the Tucson Fire Department. When I retired from EMS, I stopped running into John on calls, and moving to Mesa means I am not likely to run into him anywhere else.

I pulled so many practical jokes on the night shift at DMAFB Hospital. I rarely got caught, and most were incredibly immature. Working in an Emergency Room, I encountered patients with such a variety of serious and not-so-serious maladies. The behaviors under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs were actually kinda funny. Still, we never let the patient know that their current situation provided anything but excellent and affirming care, including follow-up visits when they were sober, could have caused embarrassment, but we never let on. I talked guys on LSD trips down, worked to gain trust of children, and their moms, and traded duty excuses for fresh pies in the middle of the night?..

We did take CPR manikins and sneak around the back entrance of wards and put them in an empty patient bed. Then the MOD would call the ward to inquire about the status on the patient Annie in a room the staff knew was empty, but?.. Good clean fun.

We would “initiate” new nurses by messing up the Resuscitation bay and put the “mark” on the stretcher with a toe tag and sheet over them. The nurse was told that we needed help to place the body in the morgue. There was a long and dark corridor en route to the morgue and half way down the passage the “patient” would moan and lunge toward the unsuspecting nurse. One night we managed to initiate 2 nurses because they didn’t want to tell their colleague!.I got a bit of a rebuke from the Chief Nurse, but the offended parties declined to file a formal complaint good for morale, yes. Immature? Oh yeah.

I used my emergency medical experience to challenge the Emergency Paramedic Exam for the Arizona Department of Health Services. I was the first person to be granted the opportunity, and I passed with ease.

I taught EMTs and Paramedics at Pima Community College and the University of Arizona College of Medicine, where I was a Lecturer in Surgery. I continued to practice as a Paramedic for private ambulance services part-time until 1990, when I ruptured a lumbar spine disc and elected to leave the field. I then taught Human Anatomy and physiology for the remainder of my 30-year tenure at Pima Community College.

I took that hospital experience into a stint as a Hospital Chaplain after entering the Holy Ministry, also. When you put the past 50 years into perspective, it is apparent to me that God was with me all the way and preparing me to serve as I continue to do. It is hard to believe how long ago this stuff happened and how much comes flooding into my memory every time I revisit these questions. Thanks to TWS for this opportunity to pass this down to my granddaughter, who is married to an Army NCO just commissioned 2LT.

The military gave me the confidence to lead and take risks to care for people, whether medically or spiritually. I now see God’s hand on me while learning, serving, sinning and repending. It was all good for the time it happened, and I am forever grateful for the service I was able to provide to my nation. I remain a patriotic veteran, though not involved in politics at all because I am the pastor to ALL of those I serve.

Go to college off-duty! Complete as much college work as possible while on active duty. Explore programs that give you civilian skills. I recommend that young medical enlistees consider the Physician Assistant Program as an excellent way to grow and mature into a career, whether in the military or as a civilian.

Not much yet, but I am praying I will find old friends from DMAFB and reconnect.