Pros of Green Beret Medics/ Special Forces Medical Sergeants:

They have the ability to provide more in-depth self-aid. When you are shot you want to be able to fix yourself first and if you are a Medical Sergeant you have the skills necessary to perform aid on yourself efficiently and as quickly as possible to provide aid to others or to keep fighting. Secondly, your team has a lot of trust in a Medical Sergeant for when they get hurt to provide the care necessary to keep them alive. Also having the opportunity to do cross training which is fun because everyone in Special Forces wants to know what to do when a soldier is injured and how to "plug up" a wound. The medics teach course to the rest of the Special Forces (no matter if they want to be a medic or not) so they have the basic tools on what to do ex: apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Sean Rogers recounts how he was able to stop the bleeding from a gunshot wound on the team interpreter. Without the training he received from the Medical Sergeant, Roger may not have been able to save the interpreter's life. Having the skills to help people medically is a great skill and one that can be easily pulled to swap teams to those who need a Medical Sergeant. 

​

Cons of Green Beret Medics/ Special Forces Medical Sergeants:

The training Medical Sergeants go through is rigorous and way longer for regular Special Forces. Medical Sergeants have to pass SOCM to be qualified as a medic. In SOCM, you are constantly on the chopping block to be cut from the program, and if you get cut there are no guarantees you can go back and choose a different job. After passing SOCM, you go back to the rest of the Phases of Special Forces Course. They are beat down the worst as they completed a 56-week rigorous training. Instead of 2 years for Special Forces, Medical Sergeants take 3 years if all goes well. 

 

Medical Sergeants require a lot of hard work and perseverance and as Rogers says they are the best guys on the team! Don't look at the success rate just work hard.