Brownsville native enlists in U.S. Naval Reserve

By GARY LONG
Staff Writer

Crystal Corbeil always wanted to be a nurse and always wanted to be in the military, so when she took the oath of enlistment for serivice in the U.S. Navy Reserve earlier this month in San Antonio it was the fulfillment of something to which she had long aspired.

“That day, it was a check-the-box, goal-reached day. I was glowing,” she said this past week by telephone. “I aspire to be a commissioned officer in the Navy nurse corps. They are attached to military hospital ships like the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort, and seeing that ship out in New York Harbor last spring confirmed to me what I want to do, and that I want to be a part of the corps of Navy nurses.”

The USSN Comfort, a 1,000-bed hospital ship, was docked in New York Harbor early last spring, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak in New York City.

Corbeil, who lives in Rancho Viejo, is married to Chief Petty Officer and Navy Chief Aviation Ordinanceman Joseph Corbeil. She is a Registered Nurse at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen. Joseph Corbeil is assigned to the Talent Acquisition Onboard Center Alamo City in San Antonio.

A 2005 graduate of Lopez High School in Brownsville, she and her husband met while still in high school and married at 18. She earned her bachelor’s of nursing and later became an RN.

“I’m excited to say that I’ll continue to work as a nurse during the work week, and on weekends my part time job is to be part of the U.S. Navy at the Naval Operations Support Center in Harlingen,” she said.

Corbeil will attend recruit training in March, with follow-on training as an intelligence specialist. Her ultimate goal is to earn a commission as a Navy nurse.

“I feel that the Navy is in the lead for providing healthcare to its sailors, Marines and family members. Joining the reserves and eventually becoming a Navy nurse is my way of giving back,” she said in a news release from the Navy Office of Community Outreach.

Corbeil said she hopes to inspire others to join the nursing field because “we need more nurses” and the military because “similarly it has a lot of benefits to offer to those who seek these careers.”

She added that VBMC has seen higher patient numbers during the pandemic and even welcomed assistance from Army and Navy military nurses when the pandemic reached its peak in the Rio Grande Valley during the late summer. She said stress levels rose, making it hard for frontline nurses “not to get blindsided” by what was happening.

“The ultimate goal is always to care for the patient, and the reward is to see them get better, to improve from zero to 100 percent,” she said.

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