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[ Music ]

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>> I often
tell the story about how when I

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was in...when I was in 4th
grade, I was going to elementary

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school in Austin, Texas and it
was around the time of the Texas

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Sesquicentennial and we all had
to write to famous Texans and I

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wrote to Alan Bean and got a
letter back from him and it was

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so exciting to
hear back from him.

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Astronauts were...it seemed like
they were everybody's hero at

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the time but then to actually
get something back where the

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postmark was NASA, that put
astronauts on a pedestal for me

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forever.

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I went up to West Point and I
just fell in love with the place

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and there's a lot of history
and tradition; very rich.

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That's part of the place and I
really just became...just that

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captured my imagination and
from that point forward, I

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really...all I wanted to do was
go to West Point from the latter

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half of high school.

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I ended up majoring in
engineering and I took a lot of

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the pre-requisites that I needed
to go to medical school --

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biology and chemistry -- and was
able to combine all of those and

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still was able to go directly
into medical school and I went

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to Uniformed Services University
to health sciences in Bethesda,

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Maryland which is the Department
of Defense's medical school the

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trains all four services
and public health service.

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I graduated from there and
did my residency in emergency

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medicine at the University of
Washington/Madigan and combined

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with the Madigan Army Medical
Center, Fort Lewis, Washington

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and after finishing my residency
after 3 years in emergency

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medicine, I volunteered for the
special operations community.

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One of the most rewarding
aspects...the most rewarding

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aspect of my career were those
experiences I had serving in

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those kinds of units doing great
things for the country; Iraq,

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Afghanistan, Africa and
all over the country.

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It has been going great.

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It has been one of the most
exciting times of my life, the

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last year and a half just
focusing on training constantly,

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different aspects
of the training.

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We have learned Space Station
systems which was a challenge

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for me not having a background
in mechanical/technical systems

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as they relate to aircraft and
spacecraft so we spent a lot of

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time...many hours in classes
learning about the Space Station

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systems.

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We have Russian several hours a
week, anywhere from 2 to 6 hours

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a week of Russian instruction.

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The last component is that EVA;
Extra Vehicular Activity or

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spacewalking and that is another
big component of our training as

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well where we learn all
the systems of the EMU, the

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spacesuit, and all the systems
for using the airlock to get

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outside, and then how to
fix the Space Station.

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You go in that big pool; maybe
you have seen a picture of the

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big tank that we do where we
actually do spacewalks in the