I am about to enlist as a 68W in the Army Reserve and my recruiter has given me a few options for what type of unit I want to join.

One that sounds interesting is a Army Reserve Combat Support Hospital unit. I think I have a good idea what a CSH does, but what does a 68W do there? With so many officers in the medical branches available to provide medical care, I am curious what the 68W does. Is it all bedpans and mopping?

Any information about job duties what a typical drill weekend is like would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rcj2009,

I enlisted, but instead of being assigned to a CSH (no jobs available), I have been assigned to a USAH (US Army Hospital) unit.

Can somebody shed some light on what I can expect? Nobody seems to be able to tell me.

Will I have opportunities to deploy?
Will there be much opportunities for training?

Are we allowed to say what unit we are being assigned to and where? I don't know what the policy is on something like this.

You'll depliy when your unit does. You can always request to deply with another unit. A lot of units are "over strength" on paper but when it comes time to deploy you'll see that about 20% of people have suddenly developed chronic life threatening ailments that keep them from deploying. So it's a decent chance you can deploy earlier than scheduled.

Training..it depends on your unit. Some units cram every minute of the day with relevant and intelligent training, others sit around and play cards inbetween doing equipent inventories. Pester your NCOs for quality organized training if you fell there is too much down time. It's their job to train you.

MIKE

CSH = isn't that the former M*A*S*H units?

My husband is an USAR with a CSH. His drill weekend, almost always starts with PT. This is usually followed by afternoon classes of some sort. The classes could be anything from wearing field equipment, to medical teaching. One weekend, they took a field trip to a local battlefield, and had a park ranger give a guided tour with civil war history. Another weekend, they spent doing weapons training at the range. They went into the woods another weekend, and traveled in groups using a compass, and completing a variety of tasks. His two weeks of summer drills were spent with another unit 6 states away, performing 'global medic'. He said they had Neurologists, and various doc's who did teaching of typical injuries. He also spent some time roll playing as a 'victim'.