Summer - United States Special Operations Command

From the Command SurgeonVirgil “Tom” Deal, MDCOL, USACommand SurgeonHQ USSOCOMWell, to say that I’m a bit awed would be an exercisein understatement. The contributions of theSOCOM Surgeon’s Office over that last eight years havebeen highly significant. The improvement in the diagnostictools and the effectiveness of an increased array oftherapeutic interventions available to the Special Operationsmedical personnel throughout the prosecution ofthe conflicts at hand has been huge. I really have tosalute the surgeons, senior enlisted medical advisors(SEMAs), and staff that have stood the watch in Tampaand beyond since 9/11.Now that the music has stopped for this summer’sround of medical musical chairs, I am astonishedto find myself standing beside the one that oughta beclearly labeled “Rocky”. Please join me in saluting oneof our finest as he heads to the other side of MacDill,AFB – and the other side of the planet – to take the reinsas the SOCCENT Surgeon. Stay safe, Rocky! Don’tstray too far from the STU for those times when I andthe rest of us need to ask the tough questions!Our year ahead certainly promises to be interesting.The Command’s awareness of the issues atten-dant to the impact of stress on the force continues to bekeen. LTC Craig Myatt chaired a two-day meeting ofthe Resilience Enterprise Working Group this month andwill be working with you and your reps to delineate bestpractices from what you guys are already doing to mitigatethe effects of the stress of eight-plus years of nearcontinuous deployments.Congratulations are certainly in order to JimLorraine, the first Director of the SOCOM Care Coalition,who’s been called upon by the Chairman to act ashis advisor on issues related to casualty care. Jim’s contributionson the long-term care of our SOF sick andwounded has been a new chapter in how we approachthe entire constellation of issues when providing for thewounded and dealing with the disability process.We’re looking forward to next month’s AdvancedTechnologies meeting in St Petersburg. Thatmeeting and your continued lessons learned input onwhat widgets are working and which ones aren’t providesmuch of the basis for a continued smooth acquisitionprocess. Please keep the critiques coming in.See you at the SOMA Conference, 12-15 Dec!86Journal of Special Operations Medicine Volume 9, Edition 3 / Summer 09