Naval hospital hires first wounded Marine through REACH program

Naval hospital hires first wounded Marine through REACH program
September 05, 2012
AMANDA WILCOX
DAILY NEWS STAFF

John Althouse/The Daily News
Retired Gunnery Sgt. Felix Rivera speaks with Al Austin, the coordinator for the REACH Program, at the U.S. Naval Hospital aboard Camp Lejeune.

Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune recently hired the first wounded, ill and injured Marine trained through the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s (BUMED) REACH program.

REACH, which stands for Reintegrate, Educate and Advance Combatants in Health Care, trains wounded, ill and injured Marines and sailors during their recovery for a federal civil service career in Navy medical operations.

Former Marine Gunnery Sgt. Felix Rivera is the first student to have gone through the program and be offered a job working in his field.

Rivera served 16 years in the Corps before narrowly missing the blast of a suicide bomber while deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. Standing 30 feet away from the bomb that killed one Marine, 12 civilians, six Afghani policemen and injured many more, Rivera was thrown several feet by the explosion and severely wounded from shrapnel. He spent three years in the Wounded Warrior Battalion before finally being discharged from the Marine Corps.

“I thought I was going to be the next sergeant major of the Marine Corps,” Rivera said of the difficult decision he faced once learning he was no longer medically able to serve because of his injuries. “It was hard for me.”

He said he wanted to stay close to the Marine Corps, an organization he’s always loved and admired, and so when the opportunity to join REACH presented itself, he took it.
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