COB ADDER, – For a flight medic here, notice of a medical evacuation mission starts the wheels turning in her mind, but then instinct takes over. “I'm never nervous on the flight out,” Staff Sgt. Cynthia Dalton said. “I go over every possible scenario in my mind, but when we touch down, I just go.”
Dalton, is assigned to the 2nd Bn, 104th Aviation Bde -- part of TF Keystone said, "I can see why people burn out. I go over everything I could possibly have done differently. We do our jobs, but it always seems like there's something I could have done different or better.”
Dalton, a daughter of military parents, said she knew from an early age she wanted to help soldiers, but tried various jobs before finding a career path that was right for her. “I joined the Army at 17 when I was a junior in high school,” she said. “I went to basic training between my junior and senior years, and started training to be a medic right after high school.”
While serving in the Army Reserve, Dalton got additional medical training as a civilian and worked for a nursing agency. She was serving as a reservist in Germany on Sept. 11, 2001, and was activated there, serving in a medical support unit and helping soldiers prepare for deployment to the Middle East. “I did literally hundreds of immunizations every day,” she said. When she returned to the U.S., she switched to the Penn Army NG to take advantage of the education benefits.
After getting soldiers ready for deployment at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, Dalton spent the 3 years leading up to her current deployment helping NG soldiers return to civilian life. “I love helping soldiers,” she said. “Soldiers come back from deployment needing many kinds of help to reintegrate into civilian life. The Guard has the help available. I make sure they can get access to the right resources.”
In preparation for deployment to Iraq, Dalton trained as a flight medic. She has worked with 2 medical evacuation companies during the deployment, including an Oregon-based unit during training in Oklahoma and Kuwait. She is currently serving with an Alaska-based active Army medevac unit. Dalton works a 48-hour cycle, sleeping and eating at the hangar while waiting for medevac calls.
When she returns to the U.S., Dalton said, she plans to take a full-time job as the medical sgt for the Penn NG’s 55th Bde in Scranton. “That will be the end of flying for a while,” she said. “I'm sure I'll miss it.”
