Feature: “I was waiting for seven years to hear my name on the list”: Chief Hospital Corpsman Weldekiros Aregawi

Chief Hospital Corpsman Weldekiros Aregawi. Official Navy photo by Douglas H Stutz, NHB/NMRTC Bremerton public affairs officer

By Douglas Stutz

Addis Abeba – With the announcement that four Sailors assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness Training Command Bremerton were selected for advancement to the rank of chief petty officer for Fiscal Year 2024, we asked each to reflect on their designation.

Weldekiros Aregawi has reached a point during his Navy career where the notion of service before self is even more pronounced than it was before.

Such reasoning is born from a Navy Medicine career of 19 and a half years which has always been predicated on helping deliver healthcare to those in need.

“At this stage of my career, I’m not here for myself. I’m here to help junior Sailors and the operational mission,” said Weldekiros, who professes he specifically joined the Navy to become a hospital corpsman and take care of patients.

Consider that original goal accomplished and then some.

Along with his specialty training as a respiratory therapy technician, Weldekiros has branched out to include such collateral duties as being part of the command’s financial specialist and command resilience team(s). Yet all of those responsibilities – and more – came to a sudden, unexpected halt the morning of August 21, 2023 upon hearing he was selected to become a chief petty officer.

“I was waiting for seven years to hear my name on the list. It was a surreal experience. I am grateful to be selected,” related Weldekiros. “The executive officer, command master chief, director of administration and all the Chief’s Mess walked into my office to notify me. After waiting for so long arriving this moment is heartwarming experience.”

Weldekiros readily acknowledges that advancing to the rank of chief brings an entire different level of accountability.

“It is a huge responsibility. Chief in the Navy is a subject matter expert and a humble servant,” stated Weldekiros, acknowledging that his life will go through a number of overlapping changes once he becomes a chief.

“Everything I do affects all the Chief’s Mess,” stated Weldekiros, who opening credits two leading chief petty officers, Senior Chiefs Hospital Corpsmen Romualdo Humarang and Alexander Burkhart for helping groom him to follow in their footsteps. “Being a genuine human being, committed to always doing the right thing and be humble are what I strive to do.”

“It is going to be challenging. I will continue to read and learn from everyone I work with and work for”

Weldekiros Aregawi

The expectations for Weldekiros and three other hospital corpsman first class petty officers assigned to NHB/NMRTC Bremerton loom large. There’s a reason why a common phrase heard throughout the Navy Fleet I, ‘go ask the chief.’ Chiefs are subject matter experts, chiefs have operational readiness experience and chiefs are demonstratively the personification of Navy core values of ‘honor, courage and commitment.’

“It is going to be challenging. I will continue to read and learn from everyone I work with and work for,” said Weldekiros, born in Ethiopia before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota in Dec 2002. He is married “married to my beautiful wife Asteddar and we have two children, Adonay and Tsiyon. He joined the Navy in April 2004.

After joining the Navy in 2004, his duty stations include Camp Pendleton, Fleet Surgical Team One, Naval Medical Center San Diego, and NMRTC Bremerton with deployments in 2005 to Iraq and 2011 and 2017 to Afghanistan and two in the Indo-Pacific theater of operation.

The best part of his career leading up to this point?

“Meeting people from different corners of the world, trying local cuisines and visiting many tourist attraction sights,” he said, listing a who’s who of notable global travel destinations he has visited all as part of Navy Medicine; Guam; Sydney, Perth and Darwin, Australia; Dubai in the United Arab Emirates; Bahrain, Jordan, Thailand, Singapore; Santiago, Chile; Lima, Peru and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

When asked to sum up his experience with Navy Medicine in one sentence, Weldekiros replied, “working together, we are one team.” AS

Editor’s Note: Weldekiros Aregawi’s story was shared with Addis Standard by Media Outreach Dept of the Navy Office of Community Outreach.