Best Medic competitions are designed to push participants to their physical and mental limits during four days of relentless skill and endurance tests. In most cases, participants go into the competition with an edge: they already know their squad mate. However, at the 2023 Medical Readiness Command-East and U.S. Medical Research and Development Command Best Medic Competition at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, three MRDC competitors found themselves teamed up with people they had never met nor worked with – requiring them to quickly learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses while competing for the title of Best Medic.
Staff Sgt. Andy Medina, a health care specialist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Staff Sgt. Andres Loor Ortiz, the Chemical Casualty Care Division NCOIC at the Institute of Chemical Defense, found themselves paired up when they arrived at Fort Eisenhower for the competition, which took place Nov. 5-8. It was Medina’s first competition, and only Loor’s second. Although they had not met prior to arriving at Fort Eisenhower, Loor had been on the grading cadre of two prior events at which Medina competed and was familiar with his medic skills.
“I have seen him in action, and I know he’s a great NCO,” says Loor. “So, when I heard that I was going to be teaming up with him, I was very excited.”
Likewise, Medina says the two men quickly meshed into a good team with complementary strengths.
“I think being in the military for so long, you just kind of adapt when it comes to those situations,” says Medina. “You meet new people and you’re like, ‘We’ll get to know each other a little bit and learn from each other, and then together we’re going to beat this competition.’”
Medina says that his biggest takeaway from Best Medic is that a person never knows how far they can go until they’re pushed to their limits.
“Your mind will quit a million times before your body does,” says Medina. “And for sure, I wanted to quit a million times. But I told myself, ‘Just keep on moving. I know it sucks. I know your feet are blistered. I know you just want to lay down. But if you stop now, it’s just going to get worse. So, keep moving.’”
Staff Sgt. Chimaobi Umeh, the Operations NCO for the Institute of Infectious Diseases, met his teammate, Sgt. 1st Class Justin Montoya of the Moncrief Army Health Clinic, for the first time at the competition. Umeh originally planned to compete in next year’s Best Medic competition, but due to a shortage of candidates with either the Expert Field Medical Badge or the Combat Medical Badge, he volunteered to step up. With little time to prepare, he felt lucky to be teamed with someone who had gone through the competition before.
“It was easy to work with Sgt. Montoya because we were both open to learning from each other,” says Umeh. “He was a radiology specialist, so he relied on my medic skills for the medical portion of the competition, and I relied on his prior Best Medic experience for planning how we approached the events. He was also great at land navigation!”
Umeh says his biggest challenge was the combat water survival test, in part because he hadn’t had time to learn how to swim prior to the competition. He is proud that he didn’t fall out of any of the events, particularly the grueling 18-mile ruck march.
“I learned that I could adapt to conditions as they arose because I chose not to make excuses and test myself,” says Umeh.
Army medics learn how to form teams quickly as part of their training. But trying to build a partnership while operating in extreme conditions under intense scrutiny and constantly battling physical and mental exhaustion, is a test all its own. For Medina, Loor and Umeh, successful team building turned out to be an opportunity to add an extra, if unofficial, point on their score sheets.
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