Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Kiara Field is home in Buxton for Christmas. Contributed / Kiara Field
No one could miss the Field family when they greeted Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Kiara Field last week at Portland International Jetport. A poster reading “Welcome Home Kiara” was held aloft by her relatives, who were decked out in red sweaters and red bells.
Field is home in Buxton for the first time in 18 months after being granted a 12-day leave from her medical duties.
Her grandmother, Mimi Bourque, also of Buxton, said her granddaughter was smiling as usual when she got off the plane last week, but “her face got red.”
“Nice to come home; it’s refreshing,” the Navy corpsman said later during a phone interview.
While she’s back in Maine Field, said she’ll enjoy the short time she has with with her parents, Tony and Kim Field, and other relatives, including some family Christmas parties.
“It’s so good to see her back,” Bourque said. “It’s a real treat to have her home and have her safe.”
A 2019 Bonny Eagle graduate, Field enlisted right out of high school and is assigned to the dermatology department at Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California. She also has traveled stateside vaccinating civilians during the pandemic.
Following boot camp, Field completed hospital corpsman training in Texas, followed by advanced training in Ohio.
Bonny Eagle Assistant Superintendent Lori Napolitano said Field was a “great student and school citizen,” during her high school years, and a “terrific mentor and helper with the younger dance students” at All That Dance in Buxton. Field’s interest in a medical career was also apparent when she attended the health occupations program at Westbrook Regional Vocational Center, Napolitano said.
Hospital corpsmen duties include administering emergency medicine, working as operating room technicians, maintaining patient records, and assisting Naval doctors and nurses. Their patients include sailors, Marines and SEALs.
Field’s past duties have included serving with military groups that have supported the civilian response to the pandemic. She was part of a combined Army and Navy medical group that administered 16,000 vaccinations for COVID-19 at clinics held in New Jersey. Last year, she was aboard U.S. Naval Ship Mercy, a hospital ship that sailed to Los Angeles to help relieve hospitals during the pandemic.
After her leave is over, Fields will return to the medical center in sunny Southern California, where she’ll be until April when she reports to Field Medical Training Battalion East in Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina.
“It’s combat medic training,” Field said. “I could deploy with Marines.”
It doesn’t surprise Napolitano that Field joined the Navy as a corpsman.
“She is someone who always steps up to help others and has always had an interest in health and public safety,” Napolitano said.
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