{"id":2418,"date":"2010-02-22T08:32:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2418"},"modified":"2010-02-22T08:32:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T15:32:37","slug":"the-citizen-soldier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=2418","title":{"rendered":"The Citizen Soldier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dr.
Trainor, an otolaryngologist, was recently deployed to the Horn of Africa to fly RC-12 and C-12 planes for the Air National Guard. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Brian Trainor \u201982<\/strong> is remarkably calm, considering he\u2019s about to leave his loved ones, his successful medical practice, and his country for the next year. He wasn\u2019t expecting the Air National Guard to schedule him for deployment to Djibuti, Africa, in early January\u2014still, he\u2019s making the best of it. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to go,\u201d he said in early December. \u201cMorally, it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

His aplomb comes from knowing that this is only the latest twist in a lifetime of change\u2014the newest chapter in what he describes as a \u201cForrest Gump<\/em>-like life.\u201d Like Gump, he\u2019s stumbled into all sorts of careers and opportunities over the years, leading him from recording studios to military planes to operating rooms. Still, it\u2019s hard to believe that these achievements have been the result of Gump-esqe dumb luck\u2014they seem more like markers of a modern-day Renaissance man.<\/p>\n

Music found him first. Trainor began playing the piano at age 5, and at 9, held his first recital. By his freshman year at TCNJ, \u201cI was a devoted musician and figured that\u2019s what I\u2019d do,\u201d he said. He majored in music and physics\u2014both of which interested him because \u201cyou really get to analyze what\u2019s going on\u201d\u2014and went on to record in studios and perform in clubs throughout the region.<\/p>\n

After graduation, he enrolled at Columbia University to study auditory biophysics\u2014the scientific study of musical sound\u2014but three years in, the army reserves called. When he\u2019d signed up for the reserves with a few friends at TCNJ, \u201cmy thought was four years and out,\u201d he says. But when the reserves offered him the chance to learn to fly planes, he couldn\u2019t turn it down.<\/p>\n

He came back in command of a helicopter unit, and at the same time, \u201csome people started talking to me about clinical [ear, nose, and throat] and going to medical school.\u201d Once again, an invisible force was guiding Trainor\u2019s life, and who was he to fight it? He enrolled in Biology 1 and 2 at TCNJ and soon after was accepted to an osteopathic medicine program.<\/p>\n

After working in Saint Barnabas Medical Center and New York University, he opened a private practice in Scottsdale, AZ, in 2005, specializing in otolaryngology and performing complex, eight-hour head and neck surgeries on cancer patients.<\/p>\n

His practice was successful, and life was good.<\/p>\n

Then, in October of last year, Trainor was given official orders that he would be deployed to Djibuti in January 2010 as the pilot-in-command on RC-12 and C-12 planes. \u201cWe\u2019ll be moving people around the areas of Africa where they think Al Qaeda or the pirates may be,\u201d he says. \u201cThe belief is that Africa is ripe to be the next Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, my view is that nothing good\u2019s going to come of this,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut as an older guy, I think it\u2019s important to serve. There is a definite role for someone who\u2019s parental age. A lot of the young guys think they\u2019re invincible\u2014they\u2019re going to go [into a dangerous situation] no matter what. But when someone who is their father\u2019s age says, \u2018We\u2019re going to wait two or three days,\u2019 they listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disparate as his musical, medical and military pursuits have been, Trainor recognizes the connections between them, tracing everything back to his early love of music. \u201cAs a musician, you learn to do things in real time, and that translated into doing surgery well,\u201d he says. \u201cIt also translated into flying and using that big piece of machinery as I would a synthesizer or keyboard.\u201d
\nA musician must also be \u201cvery sensitive to what your audience feels about your concert,\u201d Trainor adds. \u201cA lot of that translated into my military experience\u2014you have to get a feel for what people are thinking. And of course, that\u2019s helped me in medicine, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he returns from Djibuti, Trainor hopes to slow the frantic pace that\u2019s defined his adult life. \u201cI hope it\u2019s the last deployment I have,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019d like to come back and retire from the military and keep being a surgeon.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, he\u2019ll be working on his newest project while in Africa: a screenplay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Brian Trainor’s career has taken him from recording studios to military planes to operating rooms in what he himself describes as a \u201cForrest Gump-like life.\u201d But his achievements seem more like markers of a modern-day Renaissance man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":2419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-march-2010"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}