20th Special Forces Group

I spent a brief time where I thought maybe I wanted to maybe get out and be a police officer.

I was in 20th Special Forces Group during that time and then went on to 7th Special Forces Group later.

So I had 17 years as an operator when I went to med school.

And then I did another six, roughly six years in the Joint Medical Augmentation Unit afterwards.

[instrumental music] What happens when the medevac helicopter is not coming? War Dogs caught up with Master Sergeant Anthony Meza, NCOIC of Ridge Healer at the Defense Strategy Institute Op Med Symposium.

Sergeant Meza built his special operations medical background from Navy corpsman to special boat team operator to 20th Special Forces Group, and now runs an irregular warfare medical exercise that trains US and allied surgical teams to work off grid, off schedule, and off the golden hour.

Listen how Ukraine changed the training model and why an eight-person team may have to hold a post-surgical patient for days, not hours.

Stay tuned.

From state-of-the-art hospitals in the United States to the most austere environments across the globe, War Dogs has you covered.

Welcome to this special edition of a collaboration between War Dogs podcast and Op MedTV.

Today we're, uh, privileged to welcome Master Sergeant Tony Meza, and, uh, he's part of the 20th Special Forces Group, and he's gonna talk about some, uh, really innovative training things that they've got going on.

Thanks for showing up and being on the, on the podcast.

[laughs] So yeah, uh, 9/11 happens.

I went and found the 20th Group Florida Guard.

In January of 2002, I was enlisted and waiting to go...

You know, obviously there was such a rush of people trying to get in that there was actually a delay on-

Um, yes.

You, it kind of got voluntold, but it was the, the end state, but yeah.

Um, for, for the listeners, just to explain real quick, 20th Group is a little bit different-

Yeah