Outstanding! Glad it went well for her.
What kind of boat, if you know and can say? One of these, maybe?: Special Operations Craft – Riverine - Wikipedia
I don’t think that’s it. It’s a boat that goes out into the ocean for a few days so soldiers can get their AIT training. She’s there just in case someone gets hurt.
When she told me about the cut leg, I told her to write it down in a casebook (doctors still do that, right? My gyno does.)
Congrats to ivygirl! Shodan Jr. did the same path - he was a combat medic.
Regards,
Shodan
Crap, I just realized I wrote AIT training. That’s like saying ATM machine. :smack:
Ivygirl throws so many acronyms at me I have to remind her she’s talking to a civilian and she needs to explain herself.
Shodan, is your son still in the Army?
Ft. Eustis is AIT site for Transportation Corps so it could be one of the Army’s Landing Craft Utility or Coastal Tug classes, being used to give the MOSs involved in boat transport their training cruises.
Last time she was on the boat for four days, so there must be sleeping accommodations.
Hooray for ivygirl!
I don’t think your comparison is accurate. I am not an EMT so it’s possible I’m not understanding things, but [this site says
](http://www.ems1.com/careers/articles/1058465-What-are-the-requirements-to-be-a-paramedic/)I don’t know if classes are structured the way you say; I seem to recall when I was in college that many 3 Credit Hour classes would meet for more than 3 hours per week.
Also, the College of Southern Nevada lists 3 classes and 9 Credit Hours necessary to complete the first tier of EMT training before testing for certification, which is almost double what you said was necessary.
woot ivylass
Good to hear an update about ivygirl. Makes us all vicariously proud through you 
Bump to announce she’s been pinned an E-3 now!
I’ve been checking this thread, too. Such great news (well, everything except the zit videos!! ;))
Non American here. What does E-3 signify?
There’s this crazy thing all the kids these days are calling “Wikipedia”: Uniformed services pay grades of the United States - Wikipedia
The third Enlisted grade, counting from the bottom; Officers get the letter O. Depending on country and branch of service they’ll have different names.
She’s Private First Class now.
Cool. Does that mean she’s fully combat ready? Was her time on the training vessel considered a real (for lack of a better term/I don’t want to sound dismissive) assignment?
The Finnish army doesn’t have a private first class. Conscripts get promoted to private (or jäger in my case) after basic. If you aren’t selected to squad leader or reserve officer training, you then specialise in a specific combat role where if you’re good enough you get promoted to corporal. Before you’re dismissed from service you get your wartime assignment and are considered combat ready.
Private is E-1, don’t need to make a higher grade to be considered combat ready.
She’s a medic, so I don’t know about combat ready. Maybe a Doper with better experience with US Army can weigh in. I don’t think she’s allowed to carry a weapon per the Geneva Convention. I could be mistaken though.
She was on the training vessel not to train herself, but to be there in case a trainee got hurt.
Right, she was already at her first duty post. She is fully qualified for her duties.
If she were to be assigned to a unit to be deployed on the battle line, she would first join it and train with the rest of them until the unit was deemed ready for deployment.
In the Army, if you enter as an Enlisted Soldier being a HS graduate you enter as a Private, E-1, and upon completing a certain time of satisfactory service and training stages you are promoted successively to Private, E-2, and to Private First Class, E-3. If you have had college/university education, depending on number of credits you already have accumulated,you may enter as E-2 or -3.
She had some college, so she enlisted as an E-2. It’s been about a year, so time to be an E-3.
I don’t know if she has to meet qualifications to be an E-4 or if that’s automatic too.
medics carry a pistol as a defensive weapon only. they are not allowed to carry an offensive weapon (rifle). There are qualifications for E4, it is quite common for promotion qualifications for E2 E3 and E4 to be waived (company commanders are granted a certain number of waivers each month? year? don’t remember) depending on the needs of the Army to fill slots at certain pay grades for various MOS’ otherwise it is pretty much automatic once time in service and grade requirements are fulfilled. Heck sometimes Finance promotes a soldier before the chain of command does.
I was promoted early to E2 by Finance waived to E3 and E4 and missed a lateral promotion to Corporal only because my MOS didn’t officially have provision for that rank (I had fulfilled all of the time in position/duty qualification requirements, it had been done before for the squad leader I replaced, my new CO was just being a pissy West Point stickler)