Essay

[gere7404]

I'm working on my essay for CASPA. I tried a couple of revisions where I monotonously droned about my qualifications and the like. I decided to try something more story oriented to describe where I've been, what I've overcome and where I hope to go. Input is greatly appreciated.

 

My eyes burned from the sweat pouring over them, the hot concrete in the South Carolina sun burned my hands like sharp razor blades, and my arms felt as if they were undertaking the task of Atlas, ready to let the weight of the entire world come crashing down as I struggle, fighting gravity to complete this millionth push up. A drill sergeant paces through the ranks of privates sprawled across the field, shouting with bass and authority an announcement declaring today, September 11th, 2002, the first Patriot’s Day by order of the President. I was a patriot. I had never felt so proud in my life.

 

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the ins-and-outs of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding name for a combat medic. It begins going over patient assessments and gathering histories, how to diagnose common illnesses and what interventions I take to alleviate them. I’m taught how to change sterile dressings and address other patient care needs in a nice, clean clinic or hospital.

 

 

We later learn how to improvise tourniquets, as “living without a leg is way better than not living at all”; to prioritize casualties based on who might make it if I got to them quick enough, and who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, to try to make the last couple minutes as comfortable as possible, but to keep him out of sight to not upset his friends when he dies;  how I would only have nine seconds in the event of a chemical attack to suit up in bulky respirators and what auto-injectors to use to stop a soldier who didn’t mask up in time from breaking his back doing the “funky chicken.” 

 

I graduate with class 01-03, the first batch of new combat medics of 2003 on a cold Texas February. The next month the United States invades Iraq.

 

 

I dismount from an armored gun truck. I check my 5’s and 25’s for IED’s -- home-made bombs hidden everywhere throughout the country like Easter eggs. Security is priority as memories of drill sergeants hammering the concept that “the best battlefield medicine is fire superiority” ring through my mind, my hands are on my rifle long before I pull my overstuffed aid bag over my bulky body armor vest.   

 

 

I lower my rifle. Her eyes probably look just as surprised as mine. She is sprawled across the back seat of a battered old Opal sedan, her back arched in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us smoking a cigarette. Minutes earlier, his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy. When he jumped out of the car, arms waving, a second burst would have cut him in half. At the last second, a sergeant recognizes something is off and calls a cease fire. If he didn’t, I would likely have been packing his gunshot wounds with trauma gauze, trying to hold him together with ace wrap and cloth tape.

 

 

Prior to deployment, I attended a combat medic refresher course in which we covered labor and delivery. I remember laughing then, thinking, “Why would I ever deliver a baby in Iraq?” I was assigned to an infantry platoon, where every single one of my soldiers was male. What were the chances of delivering a baby? 

 

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord in the dark with a seat belt cutter before wrapping her up in the same kind of space blanket I would use to keep a casualty warm on his helicopter ride off to safety.  It felt strange to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. 

 

 

My daughter was born when I was in Iraq. I couldn’t wait to hug her when I looked at her picture. My wife hugs her and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. I’m the IED now. I’ve exploded and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. 

 

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady in the impossibly white lab coat. How can you understand? The VA provider is a nice lady. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. The memory jolts me to images of crash test dummy toys I played with as a kid, which, at the push of a button would launch their limbs in every direction, exactly what explosions do to bodies. How can she understand?

 

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is in the middle of rural Oregon. The news has a special on how we have some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen by doctors in the entire VA system. The rep on TV says we just can’t hire providers; we can’t entice providers to work out here, out nowhere, for a government salary. I work as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this.  

 

 

I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day. I’m no longer kept up by nightmares; I’m kept up worrying about due dates and my GPA. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, nor a non-commissioned officer, but I still have a mission: To take care of my brothers and sisters in uniform, from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home. I do not want to become a Physician Assistant for monetary gain, prestige or for job security. I want to prevent the indignity of veterans having to wait months on lists for appointments to understaffed care teams, to never feel their provider is oblivious to their unique issues and experiences as veteran, that nobody understands what they have gone through. 

 

 

I understand.

 

[coffee]

Hello,  I edited it by making some sentences more concise and flow more smoothly, and added my thoughts as I was reading it. Here are my general thoughts: 

• The style you write in is definitely different than all the personal statements i've read, and that's what stood out to me first. I like it!
• You have excellent experience, but i think you can cut back on a lot of your description about your training and what you saw; remember you only have 5000 characters (including spaces) and at the moment you're >500 characters over the limit
• I also think the part about your daughter is unnecessary, as I don't' see how that plays a part in you wanting to become a PA
• You definitely have a strong and convincing motivation for why you want to be a PA, and as a reader I wish you would have expanded on that, as well as ob your transition to the journey to become one

 I am also in the process of applying to PA school, so take what I say with a grain of salt.  I hope I helped!  (Note: I copy and pasted directly from a Word doc after using "Track Changes"  and the Commenting feature. Sorry if it's confusing. Lemme know if you want the actual document and I can email to you.)

 

My eyes burn from the sweat pouring over them, the hot concrete in the South Carolina sun burn my hands like sharp razorblades, and my arms feel as though they were undertaking the task of Atlas, ready to let the weight of the entire world come crashing down as I struggle, fighting gravity to complete this millionth push up[i1] . A drill sergeant paces through the ranks of privates sprawled across the field, shouting with [i2] authority and announcing that today, September 11th, 2002, is the first Patriot’s Day by order of the President. I am a patriot. I have never felt so proud in my life.[i3] 

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the ins-and-outs of the duties of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding name for a combat medic. I learn how to assess patients, gather histories, diagnose common illnesses and what interventions to take to alleviate them. I am [i4] taught how to change sterile dressings and address other patient care needs.

 

I later learn how to improvise tourniquets, as “living without a leg is way better than not living at all”; to prioritize casualties based on who might make it if I got to them quick enough, and who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, to try to make the last couple minutes as comfortable as possible, but to keep him out of sight to not upset his friends when he dies;  how I would only have nine seconds in the event of a chemical attack to suit up in bulky respirators and what auto-injectors to use to stop a soldier who didn’t mask up in time from breaking his back doing the “funky chicken.” [i5] 

I graduate with class 01-03, the first batch of new combat medics of 2003 on a cold Texas February. Next month, the United States invades Iraq.

 

I dismount from an armored gun truck. I check my 5’s and 25’s for IED’s -- home-made bombs hidden everywhere throughout the country like Easter eggs. Security is priority as memories of drill sergeants hammering the concept that “the best battlefield medicine is fire superiority” ring through my mind, my hands are on my rifle long before I pull my overstuffed aid bag over my bulky body armor vest.   

 [i6] 

I lower my rifle. Her eyes probably look just as surprised as mine. She is sprawled across the back seat of a battered old Opal sedan, her back arched in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches us while smoking a cigarette. Minutes earlier, his machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy. When he jumped out of the car, arms waving, a second burst would have cut him in half. At the last second, a sergeant recognizes something is off and calls a cease fire. If he didn’t, I would likely have been packing his gunshot wounds with trauma gauze, trying to hold him together with ace wrap and cloth tape.[i7] 

 

Prior to deployment, I attended a combat medic refresher course in which we covered labor and delivery. I remember laughing then, thinking, “Why would I ever deliver a baby in Iraq?” I was assigned to an infantry platoon, where every single one of my soldiers was male. What were the chances of delivering a baby? 

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord in the dark with a seat belt cutter before wrapping her up in the same kind of space blanket Iwould use to keep a casualty warm on his helicopter ride off to safety.  It felt strange to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. [i8] 

 

My daughter was born when I was in Iraq. [i9] I couldn’t wait to hug her when I looked at her picture. My wife hugs her and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. [i10] I’m the IED now. I’ve exploded and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. 

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady in the impossibly white lab coat. How can you understand? The VA provider is a nice lady. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. The memory jolts me to images of crash test dummy toys I played with as a kid, which, at the push of a button would launch their limbs in every direction. This is exactly what explosions do to bodies. How can she understand?

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is in the middle of rural Oregon. The news has a special on how we have some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen by doctors in the entire VA system. The rep on TV says we just can’t hire providers; we can’t entice providers to work out here, out nowhere, for a government salary. I work as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this[i11] .  

 

I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day. I’m no longer kept up by nightmares; I’m kept up worrying about due dates and my GPA. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, nor a non-commissioned officer, but I still have a mission: To take care of my brothers and sisters in uniform, from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home. [i12] I do not want to become a Physician Assistant for monetary gain, prestige or for job security. I want to prevent the indignity of veterans having to wait months on lists for appointments to understaffed care teams, to never feel their provider is oblivious to their unique issues and experiences as veteran, that nobody understands what they have gone through. 

 

I understand.[i13] 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

 [i1]Feels like a run-on sentence

 [i2]Not sure if it makes sense to say “shouting with bass”

 [i3]You wrote with conflicting tenses in this into paragraph. It seems like you intended to write in the present tense, so that’s what I changed it to.

 [i4]I think best to avoid contractions in personal statements

 [i5]This is really interesting content, but I feel it should be broken up into multiple sentences.

 [i6]I think this paragraph is unnecessary and doesn’t add much to your story

 [i7]I’m not sure this paragraph adds to your story either except to talk about the types of situations you saw. I think it would help more to talk about an incident where you were actively involved in caring for someone. Or just skip straight to the labor paragraph.

 [i8]Interesting phrasing

 [i9]When transitioning from the previous paragraph to this paragraph, I somehow assumed that the baby mentioned previously was your daughter born in Iraq.

 [i10]This is a sudden transition. Not sure if good or bad, but I had to pause and reread the sentences a few times to realize that you’re talking about two completely different moments. Also, is your wife cowering in the picture? Cowering implies a sense of fear, not sure if that’s the word you’re looking for.

 [i11]This is also a sudden transition. It makes me wonder about when/how you got started as a nurse assistant.

 [i12]I think you should expand on your decision to focus on being a PA and your motivation for doing so

 [i13]Love love love how you end your essay, referring back to the previous paragraph about the provider that treated you. A strong ending that reinforces your motivation to becoming a PA. 

[gere7404]

Coffee, thank you for you time taken to provide the amazing input.

 

I helped deliver a baby in Iraq in July. It was actually a funny story in some ways, we were training a unit that had a lot of problems and the convoy we were on became halted for several hours, blocking traffic. The father literally risked his life trying to get his wife to the hospital for his baby to be delivered.

 

My daughter was born almost exactly a month before on June 1st, several months before her due date. I didn't get to see her for the first time until October. I had a lot of post deployment issues and combat post-traumatic stress disorder -- the paragraph about my wife and baby being afraid of me was the moment my wife gave me the choice to either seek help or to live my life by myself, because my family was terrified of me. 

 

I underwent prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD for the better part of a year (unfortunately, I tried to also take classes during it, the first semester I had a very bad GPA, a D, a C and a B). It was incredibly difficult for me to trust the providers I was assigned until I finally was referred to a veteran who I felt I could be open with. It was the defining moment when I realized that I wanted to work for the VA. The paragraph of my wife and daughter was an incredibly personal one and represents a major obstacle I had to overcome on my way to where I am now. 

 

I'll work on some revising. Thank you again for the advice.

[coffee]

My daughter was born almost exactly a month before on June 1st, several months before her due date. I didn't get to see her for the first time until October. I had a lot of post deployment issues and combat post-traumatic stress disorder -- the paragraph about my wife and baby being afraid of me was the moment my wife gave me the choice to either seek help or to live my life by myself, because my family was terrified of me. 

 

I underwent prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD for the better part of a year (unfortunately, I tried to also take classes during it, the first semester I had a very bad GPA, a D, a C and a B). It was incredibly difficult for me to trust the providers I was assigned until I finally was referred to a veteran who I felt I could be open with. It was the defining moment when I realized that I wanted to work for the VA. The paragraph of my wife and daughter was an incredibly personal one and represents a major obstacle I had to overcome on my way to where I am now. 

Ahh, okay I definitely did not catch the importance behind the story with your daughter and wife.  I think you should expand on the points above (i.e. your wife and daughter --> PTSD therapy and taking classes --> not trusting the providers and being referred to the veteran; maybe one or two-ish paragraph for each) . Then and talk less about your training and the story about the machine gun.  

 

Then again, I am just one person. I am curious to know what anyone else thinks?

[gere7404]

A drill sergeant paces through the ranks of privates sprawled across the field, shouting with bass and authority an announcement declaring today, September 11th, 2002, the first Patriot’s Day by order of the President.

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the ins-and-outs of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding name for a combat medic. It begins going over patient assessments and gathering histories, how to diagnose common illnesses and what interventions I take to alleviate them. It ends with the improvisation of tourniquets, as “living without a leg is way better than not living at all”; how to prioritize casualties based on who might make it if I got to them quick enough, and who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, to try to make the last couple minutes as comfortable as possible, but to keep him out of sight to not upset his friends when he dies.

 

I graduate with class 01-03, the first batch of new combat medics of 2003 on a cold Texas February. The next month the United States invades Iraq.

 

I lower my rifle. Her eyes probably look just as surprised as mine. She is sprawled across the back seat of a battered old sedan, her back arched in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us smoking a cigarette. Minutes earlier, his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy. When he jumped out of the car, arms waving, a second burst would have cut him in half. At the last second, he recognizes something was off ceased fire. If he didn’t, I would likely have been packing gunshot wounds with trauma gauze, trying to hold people together with ace wrap and cloth tape.

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord in the dark with a seat belt cutter before wrapping her up in the same kind of space blanket I would use to keep a casualty warm on his helicopter ride off to safety.  It feels strange to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. My own daughter was born a month earlier, 7000 miles away without me. I couldn’t wait to hug her when I saw her picture. 

 

Now my wife hugs and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. I’m the IED now. I’ve exploded and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. They tell us it’s normal to have a readjustment period when you get home; life changes when you are overseas and things may be difficult at first. This isn't normal. 

 

My wife drops me off at the VA. They go down a checklist; do you have nightmares? Constantly feeling on guard? Detached from loved ones, angry outbursts? I’m diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. I agree to begin prolonged exposure therapy, the VA’s latest evidence based treatment for PTSD.

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady from behind a clip board. The VA provider is a nice lady. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. How can she understand?

 

James is the latest in my new providers. I’ve gone through three or four after it was impossible for me to open up to them. James was a corpsman in Vietnam – he’s a veteran just like me; for the better part of a year he helps me through my issues. He works for the VA so he can keep taking care of soldiers and sailors. He inspires me, and after I finish PTSD treatment I look for a job with the VA myself.

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is in the middle of rural Oregon. The news has a special on how we have some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen by doctors in the entire VA system. The face on TV says we just can’t hire providers; we can’t entice providers to work out here, out nowhere, for a government salary. I work as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this.  

 

I’m no longer kept up by nightmares; I’m kept up worrying about due dates and my GPA, which plummeted when I went through treatment. I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day working towards my goal of becoming a professional in medicine, a Physician Assistant. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, but I still have a mission to take care of my brothers and sisters in uniform - from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home. I do not want to become a Physician Assistant for monetary gain, prestige nor job security. I want to be a provider veterans can trust, someone who knows their experience from a firsthand perspective. I want them to never feel that nobody understands where they have been or what they have gone through.

 

I understand.

[coffee]

WOW. Okay, after rereading your reply to my edit and reading your new version, I realized two things that I did not catch before:

1. The story about the woman, her husband and the machine gun relates to the story about you delivering the baby. I thought they were two separate stories/moments; I did not realize that the woman was in the middle of labor.
2. When you said “[you were] the IED”, you meant that as an analogy to how you blew up into violence. That is really a good analogy. When I first read it, I thought that you had literally blown up and had to be hospitalized because of it. And that your wife was cowering in a picture. Your new draft is more clear, and it actually gave me shivers thinking about how emotional that moment must have been.  Now I understand how that story is important leading to you deciding on PA. My apologies if I caused offense by dismissing it earlier.

I think you’ve made the transitions between paragraphs more smooth understandable. The new content you added in your last four paragraphs is excellent. They also gave me shivers with how much I can sense your motivation to become a PA. The only thing I would change is the following two paragraphs:

 

“I lower my rifle................etc................trying to hold people together with ace wrap and cloth tape.

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord in the dark with a seat belt cutter............ ”

 

• The description for the first paragraph confuses me. I did not understand who you were pointing the rifle at; I didn’t understand that the woman was pregnant and in labor; who exactly was speeding toward the convoy (the kid or the husband?); who jumped out of the car and who would have been cut in half (again, the kid or the husband?) etc.. I guess there are a lot of “he”s and I’m not sure which “he” you are referring to.
• Make the transition better between these two paragraphs, maybe by adding “moments later, ____________” at the beginning of the second paragraph or just combining the two. I may have assumed they were two completely unrelated/isolated events because all the other paragraphs in your essay seems to be that way.

 

 Also, the following paragraph has a really long run-on sentence, and I think it would help if you wrote it like so:

 

· At Fort Sam Houston I learn discover the ins-and-outs of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding name for a combat medic. It My learning begins with going over patient assessments and gathering histories, how to diagnosing common illnesses and what interventions I must take to alleviate them. It ends with the improvisation of improvising tourniquets, as “living without a leg is way better than not living at all”; how to prioritize prioritizing casualties based on who might make it if I got to them quick enough and or who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps. This would make the their last couple minutes as comfortable as possible, but but to keep him them out of sight to not upset his their friends once when he they die dies.

 

I think you should even take out the “improvising tourniquet” part of the sentence to make it read better.

 

Overall, I think this is a great improvement with the essay! Thank you for sharing your story.

[gere7404]

Coffee, thank you again for your input, it has been incredibly helpful. Another revision with your advice, I tried to trim fat and clarify in places you recommended. I've kept some of the training bits in the essay; they elude that the job was not just clean clinical practice, but a sobering reality that combat medicine, especially with the nature of the Global War on Terrorism, a sometimes brutal affair. After taking some inventory I also corrected James' period of service. He's old but he's not Vietnam era old, after thinking about his office I realized he was in the first Gulf War. I also incorporated part of the VA's motto, a quote by Abraham Lincoln, "To care for him who shall have borne the battle" in the closing. 

 

It is 5000/5000 characters per CASPA.

 

 

A drill sergeant paces through the ranks of privates sprawled across the field, shouting with bass and authority an announcement declaring today, September 11th, 2002, the first Patriot’s Day by order of the President.

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the skills of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding title for a combat medic. It begins with subjects such as patient assessments and gathering histories, diagnosing common illnesses and what interventions I take to treat them. It ends with topics like the improvising of tourniquets to prioritizing casualties based on who might make it if I got to them quick enough or who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, making their last couple moments as comfortable as possible -- but keep them out of sight to not upset their friends when they expire.

 

I graduate with class 01-03, the first batch of new combat medics of 2003 on a cold Texas February morning. The next month the United States invades Iraq.

 

I lower my rifle. Her eyes probably look just as surprised as mine. She is sprawled across the back seat of a battered old sedan, her back arched in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen, moaning in the universal language of agony. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us smoking a cigarette. Minutes earlier his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy. 

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord on a dark Iraq road with a seat belt cutter I’ve used to free soldiers from vehicles stricken by the roadside bombs – IEDs. I wrap her up in the same kind of space blanket I would use for a casualty suffering hypovolemic shock from a traumatic amputation.  It feels alien to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. My own daughter was born a month earlier, 7000 miles away without me. I couldn’t wait to hug her when I saw her picture. 

 

Now my wife hugs and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. I’m the IED now. I’ve exploded and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. They tell us it’s normal to have a readjustment period when you get home; life changes when you are overseas and things may be difficult at first. This isn't normal. 

 

My wife drops me off at the VA. They go down a checklist; do you have nightmares? Constantly feeling on guard? Detached from loved ones, angry outbursts? I’m diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I agree to begin prolonged exposure therapy, the VA’s latest evidence based treatment for PTSD.

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady from behind a clip board. The VA provider is a nice lady, and she tries. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. How can she understand?

 

James is the latest in my providers. I’ve gone through three or four after it was impossible for me to open up to them, to trust them. James was a corpsman in the Gulf War – he’s a veteran just like me; for the better part of a year he helps me through my issues, which mirror his decades before. He works for the VA so he can keep taking care of soldiers and sailors. He inspires me, and after I finish PTSD treatment I look for a job with the VA myself.

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is in the middle of rural Oregon. The news has a special on how it has some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen for primary care in the entire VA system. The face on TV explains we just can’t hire providers; we can’t entice people to work out here, nowhere, for a government salary. I work here as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this.  

 

I’m no longer kept up by nightmares; I’m kept up worrying about due dates and my GPA, which plummeted when I tried to continue school alongside prolonged exposure treatment. I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day working towards my goal of becoming a professional in medicine, a Physician Assistant. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, but I still have a mission to take care of my brothers and sisters in uniform - to care for who have borne the battle, from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home.

 

I do not want to become a Physician Assistant for personal gain, prestige nor job security. I want to be a provider veterans can trust, someone who knows their unique experiences from a firsthand perspective – a fellow veteran who uses the same health care system they do. I want them to never feel that nobody understands where they have gone or what they have gone through.

 

I understand.

 

[coffee]

Hello, again! 

 

In terms of content:

I feel like everything is golden except for that same paragraph that starts with “I lower my rifle…..etc……. erratically towards our convoy.” It is certainly more clear about what you’re describing with the kid and the woman's husband, but when I read it, I still feel like it’s missing some context. To me it’s not clear that the woman is pregnant even from her “back arching in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen”; rather, I assumed she was injured. So when I moved onto the next paragraph about you cutting a baby’s umbilical cord, I was left wondering what the purpose of the previous paragraph was. Honestly, when I read your whole essay without that paragraph it sounds much better. Try getting a second opinion on that?

 

Besides that, I like the flow of your story and I can feel the emotion behind it. As a reader and fellow pre-PA, I think your essay effectively conveys your motivation for PA and gives me insight into who you are as an individual. All without being boring or cliché!

 

In terms of grammar and sentence structure:

You have a few lengthy sentences even though I can see that you try to indicate pauses with dashes, semicolons and commas. I think some of them are misused, but honestly I’m never sure which is correct to use and in which cases, so try to get a second opinion on that, too?

 

This is one of the paragraphs where a sentence or two was lengthy. With the edit below, it reads better to me:

 

James is the latest in my providers. I’ve gone through three or four after it was impossible for me to trust and open up to them, to trust them. James was a corpsman in the Gulf War – he’s a veteran just like me;. for For the better part of a year he helps me through my issues, which mirror his decades before. He James works for the VA so he can keep taking care of soldiers and sailors. He inspires me,. and After I finish PTSD treatment, I look for a job with the VA myself.

[gere7404]

The function of the paragraph in which I lowered my rifle and discovered the woman in labor was sort of to set the tone that it was taking place in the middle of the war, a segway between the invasion and giving labor. We almost killed everyone inside of the car, the gunner thought it was a potential car bomb. It somewhat reinforces the contrast between what we learned in medic school, clinical and medical procedures on one hand, and combat trauma on the other. It conveys an uneasy level of stress, sort of a segway into later when I'm diagnosed with PTSD. 

 

The actual delivery paragraph further highlights the duality of the medic's role, where I used the same equipment I used for combat trauma to help deliver a baby. 

 

The last thing I thought I would do was deliver a baby in Iraq. In fact, I joked around when I went to a predeployment training course where we had to do a module on labor and delivery because I thought the idea was so preposterous. I was in an infantry company, so my job generally was to go on patrol with the door kickers and most of that dealt with trauma. I'm really lucky there was no complications, to be honest I was completely caught off guard, I didn't know what to expect when they said they needed a medic, all that was said was "Hey, we need doc up here, like.... NOW" 

[coffee]

Ah okay, now I understand the context! Here is my suggestion to make the context more clear, using almost the your exact words:

 

"I lower my rifle. Her eyes probably look just as surprised as mine. She is sprawled across the back seat of a battered old sedan, her back arched in pain as she holds her bulging abdomen, moaning in the universal language of agony. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us smoking a cigarette. Minutes earlier his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy.  Our gunner thought it was a potential car bomb and we almost killed everyone inside the car. The woman holds her bulging abdomen as she arches her back in pain. She is in labor in the middle of war.

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord on a dark Iraq road with a seat belt cutter......etc."

 

It gives more context, is more clear on the fact that she is in labor, and ends on a transition to you cutting the umbilical cord. What do you think?

 

Edited to add: Delivering a baby in Iraq as a combat medic really does seem preposterous. I admire your ability to successfully handle unexpected situations.

[gere7404]

It was recommended I add more in there regarding my previous experiences with Physician Assistants, so I chopped it up further and added a different paragraph. Minor vocabulary tweaks; 5000/5000 characters.

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the skills of a health care specialist, the Army’s soft-sounding title for a combat medic. It begins with subjects such as gathering histories and physical assessments, diagnosing common complaints and what interventions to treat them. It ends with topics like the improvising of tourniquets and triaging casualties based on who might make it if I get to them quick enough or who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, to make their last couple moments as comfortable as possible -- but keep them out of sight to not upset their friends when they expire.

 

In Iraq, the Battalion Physician Assistant serves as the first line leader to the medics in our unit. He instructs his own courses covering advanced combat medicine and minor surgical procedures. His motto to becoming subject matter experts is “see, do, teach” and he has us all lead classes on subjects after we learn them. He tells us though he won’t be out there on patrol with us, our hands will be his. 

 

I peer through the dirty window of a car, lowering my carbine at the sight of a terrified young woman sprawled across the backseat. Her back arches in pain as she guards her bulging abdomen, moaning in the universal language of agony. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted on top a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us. Moments earlier his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy.

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord on a dark Iraq road with a seat belt cutter I’ve used to free soldiers from vehicles stricken by roadside bombs known as IEDs. I swaddle her in the same kind of mylar blanket I would wrap around a casualty suffering hypovolemic shock from a traumatic amputation.  It feels alien to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. My own daughter was born a month earlier, 7000 miles away without me. I couldn’t wait to hug her when I saw her picture.

 

Now my wife hugs and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. I’m the IED now. I’ve detonated and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. They tell us it’s normal to have a readjustment period when you get home; life changes when you are overseas and things may be difficult at first. This isn't normal.

 

My wife drops me off at the VA. They go down a checklist: do you have nightmares? Constantly feeling on guard? Detached from loved ones, angry outbursts? I’m diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I agree to begin prolonged exposure therapy, the VA’s latest evidence based treatment for PTSD.

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady from behind a clip board. The VA provider is nice, and she tries. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. How can she understand?

 

James is the latest in my providers. I’ve gone through three or four after it was impossible for me to trust them enough to open up. James was a corpsman in the Gulf War -- he’s a veteran just like me. For the better part of a year he helps me through my issues, which mirror his decades before. James works for the VA so he can keep taking care of soldiers and sailors. James inspires me. After I finish PTSD treatment I look for a job with the VA myself.

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is in the middle of rural Oregon. The news has a special on how it has some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen for primary care in the entire VA system. The report explains we just can’t find providers; we can’t entice people to work out here for a government salary. I work here as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this. 

 

I’m no longer kept up by nightmares. I’m kept up worrying about my GPA, which plummeted when I continued college alongside National Guard service and prolonged exposure therapy. I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day working towards my goal of becoming a professional in medicine, a physician assistant. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, but I still have a mission to serve my brothers and sisters in uniform; to care for those who have borne the battle, from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home.

 

I do not want to become a physician assistant for personal gain, prestige or job security. I want to be a provider veterans can trust, someone who knows their unique experiences from a firsthand perspective -- a fellow veteran who uses the same health care system they do. I want them to never feel that nobody understands where they have gone, or what they have gone through.

 

I understand.

[PA_Hopeful2015]

Wow! One of the best personal statement's I have read in a long time! Also, your edits have tremendously improved your statement! I am soooo glad you took off the first paragraph. I have read enough personal statements to a point that reading a "hook" actually bores me now. Not to say you shouldn't start with one, but I just cannot imagine how Adcoms can read thousands of statements with a "hook".

 

I honestly think what you only need is a nice academic record to go along with your awesome/unique experiences. If that is the case, I think you are pretty much guaranteed an interview/acceptance!

 

Above all, thank you for your service and ensuring our safety! :)

[coffee]

Yesss! Good idea with adding the paragraph about the PA and starting the intro with your training. I agree with PA_Hopeful2015, it is one of the best personal statements I have read. I almost suggest deleting everything on this thread in case someone else has the idea to plagiarize anything from it! Though I don't think many applicants can say they've experienced what you have.  Congrats on your excellent work on this hurdle of the application process, and I wish you the best of luck with everything else!

[gere7404]

Coffee, thanks for the help. I really couldn't have written it without your amazing input. I'll risk the plagiarism and leave it up, perhaps seeing the revision process and method of how you pointed out certain changes can be of help to other people struggling with their statements. 

[gere7404]

I honestly think what you only need is a nice academic record to go along with your awesome/unique experiences. If that is the case, I think you are pretty much guaranteed an interview/acceptance!

 

 

Actually, my GPA is pretty dismal, hovering right above a 3.1. I was called up to duty in the National Guard several times after the drop period before there was a law that let soldiers drop classes outside of normal dates (came in effect 2010, I was activated multiple times from 2004-2009). Also, when I started prolonged exposure therapy I was in the middle of Anatomy and unfortunately my mental health and the integrity of my family came before that so I ended up getting a D. Later on I retook the series and maintained an A throughout -- the last two years I've had all A's with the exception of a B+. However, CASPA isn't really the most forgiving system so I'm sort of freaked out by it.

[Bfreeskier]

This really one of the best statements I've read, I feel like you've put us in the car with that mother, and the trials that you faced when coming home. Your desire to help future Veterans is clear and I feel  you spoke to that clearly and powerfully. I hope we are applying to some of same schools, It sure seems like you'd be assets to any program that chooses you!

[PA_Hopeful2015]

@gere7404: Above 3.0 puts you into the playing field and it is NOT a death sentence. From what I have gathered, they look at an uphill academic record while placing emphasis on the last 2 years of the record. So, you have a fairly great chance at getting interviewed somewhere as long as you play your cards right! I'm sure many schools favor applicants with military background, but I would even go beyond researching schools that provide support for individuals with your background -- once you have that list, this should hint you which schools should be included in your high preference list. Of course, there are other factors that would influence your decisions but having a school that fully supports your background would be icing on the cake.

 

Also, I would second what @Bfreeskier said. It would be an honor to be part of your Cohort!  

 

 

Best of luck!

[PA_Hopeful2015]

I re-read your statement again for structure and grammar. Your message/content is amazing! I would suggest fixing your sentence structure (ie. the 3rd sentence on your first paragraph is a huge run-on sentence).  

[gere7404]

Chopped off the end of the third sentence to add something about the demographics we serve at the SORCC; Stanford's mission is to produce Primary Care providers for rural Californians, and my facility is the main facility that provides primary care for veterans in Siskiyou, Del Norte, and Modoc counties. Still at 5000/5000 characters -- every edit is like a careful balancing act not to run out of precious characters!

 

At Fort Sam Houston I learn the skills of a health care specialist, the Army’s official title for combat medic. It begins with subjects such as gathering histories and physical assessments, diagnosing common complaints and what interventions to treat them. It ends with topics like the improvising of tourniquets and triaging casualties based on who might make it if I get to them quick enough or who I should move off to the side, in the shade perhaps, to make their last couple moments as comfortable as possible before they expire.

 

In Iraq, the Battalion Physician Assistant serves as the first line leader to the medics in our unit. He instructs his own courses covering advanced combat medicine and minor surgical procedures. His motto to becoming subject matter experts is “see, do, teach” and he has us all lead classes on subjects after we learn them. He tells us though he won’t be out there on patrol with us, our hands will be his.  

 

I peer through the dirty window of a car, lowering my carbine at the sight of a terrified young woman sprawled across the backseat. She arches her back in pain and guards her bulging abdomen, moaning in the universal language of agony. A twenty year old kid behind a machine gun mounted atop a mine-resistant patrol vehicle watches over us. Moments earlier his warning burst of machine gun fire caused her husband to nearly swerve off the road as he sped erratically towards our convoy.

 

I cut a skinny baby girl’s umbilical cord on a dark Iraq road with a seat belt cutter I’ve used to free soldiers from vehicles stricken by roadside bombs known as IEDs. I swaddle her in the same kind of mylar blanket I would wrap around a casualty suffering hypovolemic shock from a traumatic amputation.  It feels alien to have the blood on my hands come from the beginning of a new life, instead of draining from an ended one. My own daughter was born a month earlier, 7000 miles away without me. I couldn’t wait to hug her when I saw her picture. 

 

Now my wife hugs and shelters my baby with her body as they cower in the corner. I’m the IED now. I’ve detonated and destroyed everything around me. The wall in front of me has another hole in it. Blood runs down my split knuckles. They tell us it’s normal to have a readjustment period when you get home; life changes when you are overseas and things may be difficult at first. This isn't normal. 

 

My wife drops me off at the VA. They go down a checklist: do you have nightmares? Constantly feeling on guard? Detached from loved ones, angry outbursts? I’m diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I agree to begin prolonged exposure therapy, the VA’s latest evidence based treatment for PTSD.

 

“I understand,” says the smiling lady from behind a clip board. The VA provider is nice, and she tries. But she’s not a veteran. She’s never been pinned under mortar fire or seen the aftermath of an IED, littering a road with human debris. How can she understand?

 

James is the latest in my providers. I’ve gone through three or four after it was impossible for me to trust them enough to open up. James was a corpsman in the Gulf War -- he’s a veteran just like me. For the better part of a year he helps me through my issues, which mirror his decades before. James works for the VA so he can keep taking care of soldiers and sailors. James inspires me. After I finish PTSD treatment I look for a job with the VA myself.

 

The VA’s Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics is located in rural Oregon and serves thousands of Oregonian and Northern Californian veterans. The news has a special on how it has some of the longest wait times for veterans to be seen for primary care in the entire VA system. The report explains we just can’t find providers; we can’t entice people to work out here for a government salary. I work here as a nurse assistant in the behavioral health unit, which is the scope of practice my experience in the Army has qualified me. A few years ago, the VA wanted to admit me to a place just like this.  

 

I’m no longer kept up by nightmares. I’m kept up worrying about my GPA, which plummeted when I continued college alongside National Guard service and prolonged exposure therapy. I work nights with split days off so I can go to school during the day working towards my goal of becoming a professional in medicine, a physician assistant. I’m no longer in the military, no longer a medic, but I still have a mission to serve my brothers and sisters in uniform -- to care for those who have borne the battle, from previous generations of draftees to future warriors yet to return home.

 

I do not want to become a physician assistant for personal gain, prestige or job security. I want to be a provider veterans can trust; someone who knows their unique experiences from a firsthand perspective, a fellow veteran who uses the same health care system they do. I want them to never feel that nobody understands where they have gone, or what they have gone through.

 

I understand.