That’s a Fact, Jack
camp lejeune, doc bradley hall, field medical training battalion school, health care, military,
In honor of John “Jack” Bradley, get ready for the brand-new Doc Bradley Hall.
The 28,000-square-foot building is currently under construction in Jacksonville. It eventually will house the long-established Field Medical Training Battalion school at Camp Lejeune. The medical school helps corpsmen learn how to treat Marines and sailors who are wounded in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Up until now, the battalion school has been headquartered in a number of old buildings on the Camp Lejeune base, but ground was broken in late 2008 to construct the new, state-of-the-art training hall. It is tentatively scheduled to open in December 2009.
As for Doc Bradley, he was a pharmacist who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In addition, he was one of the six men who were immortalized in the famous photograph of the flag-raising endeavor on the summit of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Camp Lejeune officials say the Doc Bradley Hall will not only be a modern architectural building but also will feature top-notch equipment to treat injured military personnel.
When corpsmen graduate from the Field Medical Training Battalion school, they will be even better prepared to go directly into pre-deployment training before heading to the Middle East.
Part of the intense training corpsmen receive includes working on mannequins that can simulate vital signs, amputations, hemorrhages, bullet wounds and more. The new building will feature a number of classrooms and administrative space and already is being touted as a state-of-the-art combat casualty training center – even prior to its opening. The cost of construction for Doc Bradley Hall is estimated at $8 million.
Story by Kevin Litwin
