Good morning Coalition! (Or whatever moment of the day is in your time zone)
Today’s blog post is dedicated to let you know a little bit more about the International side of things here at SOM+C.
First of all, a couple of words on yours truly here. My name is Mike Turconi, I have worked for a few years with the Italian Army SOF as an NSOCM medic. During that time, I have had the chance to work in many countries, coming to work with the best professionals in this “business”, some of whom are among the Coalition founders. Last year I decided to cross the pond and now I live in Canada, constantly travelling to try and enhance myself and SOF medicine with it. This is the reason why SOM+C decided of me as the International liaison, in case you were wondering.
Here at SOM+C it is paramount for us to reach every single reality across NATO and its allies and make sure they can all benefit from the perks of this extraordinary community . Why is that? We figured out that, besides all efforts, too often Medics from outside the American military are a little under represented and under engaged. It is nobody’s fault, since too often they belong to smaller realities that have an hard time being represented at the decision table. Sometimes, you guys know that, it is as simple as not having the funds to send people to this or that important meeting. Because of all of this, we figured out we could use out network as an advantage to overcome the issue. You know, all revolutions start with a push from below (well most of them) and we have got some punk spirit in us.
What a lot of people do not realize, is that smaller realities have a great potential to improve the overall outlook we have on SOF Medicine. Why you ask? Because they are used to work in resource depleted environments, because their PACE plan often starts from Emergency, because their Medevac is more often than not a Casevac, and so on. They do already what bigger realities have to force themselves to do in training. So yeah, even if you come from a small country SOF unit, you have a lot to bring to the fight!
Enough talk let’s see how this all works!
We have designed a system of Country Delegates across NATO and allied countries. Key figures are identified among their national communities, ideally SOF senior medics or other players that have a major role in their communities, and we make them Delegates for their respective country. Their role as Country Delegates is to facilitate the access of their own people to our organization, spreading initiatives, answering questions, proposing projects and bridging directly to the staff.
Some people I have met personally and witnessed their role of responsibility and amount of knowledge, some others have been recommended, some have approached us and proposed themselves (we vet everybody, don’t worry). So if your country is not yet represented and you think you meet the criteria above, do not hesitate to get in touch with us and propose yourself.
If your country is represented, and you didn’t know, get in touch with your delegate right away and team up t figure out what’s your next step.
Here is the list of countries we are present in with some of the contacts information for the respective SOM+C delegate. I am proud to present you with this list, that sums up decades of cumulative SOF medicine experience among the Delegates. The names are not publicly displayed for obvious PERSEC reasons as many of our Delegates are still Active Duty Operators but you can find out more contacting them directly.
The process in is on-going, so new countries and Information will be added as they become available.
SOM+C International
Australia australia.somc@gmail.com
Austria austria.somc@gmail.com
Belgium belgium.somc@gmail.com
France france1.somc@gmail.com
Greece hellas.somc@gmail.com
Ireland ireland.somc@gmail.com
Italy Italy.somc@gmail.com
Poland poland.somc@gmail.com
Singapore singapore.somc@gmail.com
Spain spain.somc@gmail.com (point of reference for all Spanish speakers/si hablas español ponte en contacto a través de este e-mail)
Mike Turconi NSOCM, FP-C, TP-C (I just passed the exams, so I was waiting for a chance to brag)
SOM+C International Liaison
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