To the untrained eye it’s pretty difficult to see the differences in the Army ACU uniforms. Except for a few patches here and there they are in fact exactly the same from General down to Private. The most important patch on the uniform is probably the one located in the middle of your chest. It’s the place that you display your rank. I’d say it’s the most important because that’s how I know who to salute as I walk past them, and who to expect a salute from. It is still bizarre to me to walk around the base and constantly be on the lookout for the rank on another soldiers uniform. The nice part is that since I’m a Captain I outrank most of the soldiers on the base so if I’m daydreaming or walking with my head down I’m unlikely to miss saluting someone of a higher rank. That’s not to say that it hasn’t happened though so it’s a nice little daily training exercise to walk with you head up and stay focused.
But it’s not the patch that shows my rank that I was interested in. It was the blank spot on my uniform that I was beginning to feel self-conscious about. You don’t get a patch on your right arm until you are deployed, and even then you have to have your “boots on the ground” for at least 30 days. It’s a status symbol, something that says that not only am I in the Army, but I deployed and here is my patch to prove it. Well, I’m happy to say that my right arm is no longer bare. It not holds the insignia of the unit that I’m attached to over here - the 44th Medical Brigade.
The 44th Medical Brigade was formed on December 30th, 1965 at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. It’s mission is to organize, train, deploy, command and control their subordinate medical units to provide corps-level combat medical, and community health support, across all levels of conflict and in peacetime garrison environment. So basically the 44th oversees a bunch of smaller medical assets such as the 14th CSH(Combat Support Hospital) where I work in Baghdad and the 28th CSH which is another hospital set up across town.
The 44th Medical Brigade saw it’s first wartime action during Vietnam where it provided medical support for the whole country. Since then the various factions under the 44th Medical Brigade banner have served in places like Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Saudi Arabia(Operation Desert Storm), and now the War on Terror. It has also provided medical care after several hurricanes including Andrew and Katrina. The 86th CSH(another unit under the 44th) was featured in the HBO documentary “Baghdad ER” which was filmed about one mile from where I’m writing right now.
As a history buff it’s interesting for me to trace the lineage of the unit that I’m now a part of. Their history becomes my history now that I get to finally wear a patch on my right arm.
