“My dad is a paramedic at home in Boyce, Virginia. Growing up, he would come home and tell stories about what he had seen and the calls he had run, so I developed a fascination for medical things.
The medical field is a great combination of logic and emotion -- I’m drawn to that. The logic being the math and the muscle memory to know what you have to do. The emotion comes when you’re dealing with people who are possibly having the worst day of their life. But, you’re there, and you reassure them you know what to do.
While I was in [military] technical training in Texas and Florida, I really loved it. It was so much fun, and the people were amazing. I knew serving on the COVID [-19] mission would be a great opportunity, but it’s also been fun to work with people I know in the unit.
As a medic, my job is to test people for the virus to help make sure they’re safe and the people around them stay safe and healthy. The Virginia Air National Guard is made up of a lot of different people who all do different things, but we’re all very necessary and vital to us being a functioning unit.”
--Airman Faith Coffelt, 192nd Medical Group Detachment 1 medical technician