Baylor nursing, ROTC alum putting her training to work in Afghanistan

[On this Memorial Day, we remember all the men and women who have died while serving in our armed forces on behalf of our country. Below is the story of one Baylor Bear whose role is to rescue soldiers in danger of joining those ranks.]

Lani Pineda, BSN ’05, juggled nursing classes and ROTC training as a student at Baylor. Today, she’s putting both to use as an Army enroute critical care nurse in Afghanistan.

Pineda — now Captain Pineda — went into the Air Force after graduating from Baylor, but moved to her current role after seeing what Army nurses did in Iraq. “I saw them and I said to myself, ‘Oh – I want to do that,'” Pineda told Army.mil. She spent time in both Iraq and Germany before heading to Afghanistan as a nurse with the 30th Medical Command, Task Force MED-A, handling medical evacuation missions on the front lines.

“I wanted to say I put my combat boots to work,” Pineda said. “I saw how nurses played a role in patient care. To know that is your job as a nurse, to care for people physically, emotionally, spiritually — it’s one of those few jobs where you can honestly say you’ve changed somebody’s life.”

Sic ’em, Capt. Pineda!

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