Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
By Ashley Craig, Navy Office of Community Outreach
MILLINGTON, TN – Petty Officer 3rd Class Vanessa Garcia, a native of Hesperia, California, serves the U.S. Navy and is assigned to U.S. Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Garcia graduated from Hesperia High School in 2020.
The skills and values needed to succeed in the Navy are similar to those found in Hesperia.
“Growing up, I learned that one of the most important things in life is having good friendships,” said Garcia. “My closest friends live in Los Angeles; I’ve known them since middle school. I also made good friends when I was stationed at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Virginia. Back home and everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve met some amazing people who are all very different and I’ve appreciated all of it because it shows me different aspects on life. These people have been there for me during my hardest times and have been a great support system to me. I want to be part of that support system for others.”
Garcia joined the Navy three years ago. Today, Garcia serves as a hospital corpsman.
“I joined the Navy to get a head start on life,” said Garcia. “I was looking for opportunities to learn new skills and wanted to be good at something. I wanted to be a cryptologic technician interpretive (CTI), which is a language analyst, but they didn’t have any billets available at the time. I knew I wanted a job that included helping people so my recruiter gave me the option of hospital corpsman.”
Garcia works in the emergency department at Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay and is training to become a corpsman assistant for sexual assault medical examinations.
“I like giving people the care and support they need,” said Garcia. “When I was a kid, I used to watch ‘Avatar: The Last Air Bender.’ The TV show’s main character brings peace and balance to the world and the spirit realm during a time of war. The characters had to work together to end the war and destruction. They demonstrated leadership, friendship, finding inner strength and showing positivity in the face of adversity. I wanted to emulate these qualities in my own life. I wanted to be part of a team.”
Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay provides health care to the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay community, which consists of approximately 4,500 military members, federal employees, U.S. and foreign national contractors and their families. The hospital also operates the only overseas military home health care facility providing care to elderly special category residents who sought asylum on the installation during the Cuban Revolution.
With 90% of global commerce traveling by sea and access to the internet relying on the security of undersea fiber optic cables, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity of the United States is directly linked to recruiting and retaining talented people from across the rich fabric of America.
Garcia serves a Navy that operates far forward, around the world and around the clock, promoting the nation’s prosperity and security.
“We will earn and reinforce the trust and confidence of the American people every day,” said Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations. “Together we will deliver the Navy the nation needs.”
Garcia has many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during military service.
“My proudest accomplishment is hard to define,” said Garcia. “I’ve learned so much in three years. Working in labor and delivery taught me about patience, working with different personalities and how to interact with patients while learning skills from the nurses. They gave me my first real experience in how to be a leader. I surprised myself and did more than I thought I was capable of, and it made me see that I’m a hard worker who can do hard things and see those things all the way through.”
Garcia is also proud of serving in the intensive care unit aboard USNS Comfort during Continuing Promise 2022, a humanitarian mission that saw Comfort complete mission stops in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras.
During these mission stops, Continuing Promise medical teams focused on working alongside partner nation medical personnel to provide care on board and at land-based medical sites to increase medical readiness, strengthen partnerships and enhance the combined capabilities of the U.S. Navy and partner nations to respond to public health disasters and humanitarian crises.
Continuing Promise 2022 saw more than 13,000 patients, participated in more than 25 subject matter expert exchanges, conducted five humanitarian assistance and disaster relief workshops, shared in 18 Women, Peace and Security initiative events and partook in 11 community relations engagements.
“We visited South America, offering aid to every country we visited,” said Garcia. “We faced challenges because of the language barrier and didn’t have many translators so we had to learn phrases in Spanish to try to communicate. The great effort the medical team put toward helping people made a difference in countries that didn’t have much medical support. I felt proud to be part of that support.”
Garcia can take pride in serving America through military service.
“I get to be part of something greater by serving my country and the Navy,” said Garcia. “I get to be part of history.”
