HM1 Jozef Szwabo: From Rough Waters to a Steady Course

When a critically wounded service member comes through the door down-range, every second counts. For Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jozef Szwabo, a radiology technologist at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, readiness isn’t a slide presentation or an annual box to check. It is the real-world difference between life and death.

"My current official job title is the directorate leading petty officer for Clinical Support Services," he said. "I'm also the most senior technologist for radiology.”

Szwabo’s path to medicine started far from any hospital. Growing up in Florissant, Missouri, he was raised by his grandparents in a strict, structured home. His grandfather, a World War II Army veteran, taught him lessons about discipline and gratitude that never left him.

"He was the old-school Army," Szwabo remembered. "He was a Bataan Death March survivor, so he was very strict about food. What you took was what you ate, don't take any more or any less."

Even in this environment, with time came challenges. After a few teenage missteps that landed him on probation, Missouri youth programs and his grandfather helped him secure a second chance. During the height of the Iraq war in 2007, Szwabo stood before the commanding officer at the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) asking for a waiver to enlist in the Navy.

"Any man that knowingly knew that they could die for another man was good by me," the commanding officer told him before signing off.

His transition to boot camp set the tone for an unconventional military career.

"I had a low-key smile on my face, because while everyone else was getting yelled at, we kind of got shuffled to the back," he recalled. "There were three of us, what would be considered degenerates at the time, that were loaded up in a van, instead of taking a flight with the rest of the recruits. They drove us all the way from the St. Louis MEPS to the Great Lakes boot camp where we went through (kind of like) the back door for processing. Once we got there, they split all three of us up, and we never saw each other again."

Szwabo successfully completed boot camp and Hospital Corps “A” School. After which, he reported directly to the Fleet Marine Force at Camp Pendleton, deploying with Combat Logistics Battalion 11 under the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He quickly learned trauma medicine on the fly, practicing live-tissue cutdowns, running tactical Humvee courses with military police, and standing long shipboard watches aboard the steam-powered USS Cleveland.

"That ship truly was a piece of history," he said. “The Navy is trying to get back to that core standard of maritime warfighter readiness, having anyone, at any time, fully ready to deploy and respond to any crisis. And I actually got to experience that while stationed there."

As Szwabo’s career progressed, mentors encouraged him to specialize. He went to X-ray school, picked up computed tomography (CT), and became a clinical instructor. Later, while deploying aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort for humanitarian missions across South America, he took on the challenge of building the ship's first interventional radiology suite from scratch.

"This was the first time they had an interventional anything on the ship," he said. "I made a go-by book and put everything in place, so in the event something happened to me, they could take my place."

Today, his biggest challenge is keeping that combat edge sharp during peacetime. Military treatment facilities typically treat young, healthy active-duty personnel, retirees, and dependents, not the high-impact polytrauma seen in combat. To stay sharp, he works off-duty shifts in a civilian trauma center at Baptist Health, operating high-speed CT equipment.

"I got a second job to continue my skillset outside to work with more trauma," he explained. "They have a 256-slice cardiac CT machine, one of the most state-of-the-art machines in the area. It captures 256-cross-sectional images of the body in one rotation, speeding up the data timeline up, especially for patients with special cases like strokes or bleeds.”

With this specialized expertise, Szwabo has become an increasingly valuable asset to the military medicine community. “This training continues to prepare me for special assignments, like if they needed me to go to Kandahar or Al-Asad to provide CT support. I would be able to support the mission and not have any issues or worries, because I have the skillset that allows me to teach someone or write a book for ‘dummies’, teaching the basics of scanning."

Szwabo brings that same high standard back to his Sailors in Jacksonville. He personally trains general-duty corpsmen in basic radiography and pushes his team to earn civilian national certifications in phlebotomy and radiology.

"I told leadership, 'I'll take anybody you got. I don't care if it's your ‘problem child’. I will utilize them, and we will turn that department around,'" he said. "If I say I’m going to do it, I do it! And I'm not going to tell anyone to do anything I wouldn’t actually do. I believe in being the leader you want to have, whether it gets you promoted or not."

His advice to junior corpsmen preparing for future deployments is straightforward: train before the crisis happens.

"If they're dreaming it, they need to achieve it. They need to find a way," Szwabo said. "If you want to be Fleet Marine Force qualified, go do it. Go to the fitness training. Start hiking on the treadmill while wearing packs on your back and prepare yourself. Make sure you can do the runs. If you can achieve muscle memory early, that's what’ll help you snap out of fear and be able to just do it."

For Szwabo, true readiness also means being honest about mental health and personal struggles. After years of handling suicides and autopsies in the morgue, combat deployments, and personal loss, he found himself struggling with insomnia and leaning on alcohol to cope.

"The morgue was definitely one of my most depressing experiences," he admitted. "You don't realize how much it affects you until later. I had trouble sleeping. Eventually, I started drinking to sleep."

With the support of his wife, Szwabo stepped forward, got help, and gradually moved away from alcohol, making it the exception rather than the norm. Today, he openly models that sobriety for his Sailors at official functions.

"Now I'm the leaning rock, the guy in the back, drinking the 0.0 alcohol-free malt beverage," he said with a smile. "I tell them, 'You guys go have fun, I'll be your DD.'"

Underneath the technical skill and the leadership, he stresses that everything begins at home. His wife has been his rock since before his first deployment, holding down the home front and keeping him grounded. Together they’ve raised two boys, including his oldest, a gifted "miracle baby,” and spend weekends on the road for AAU basketball tournaments.

"I only make kings," he joked, before turning reflective. "Warfighter readiness starts with the family. If everything's not set, you can't be set."

Approaching his projected rotation date and weighing retirement against putting on chief petty officer anchors, his focus remains clear.

"I just want to give it one more shot. I don't want to call it quits, because I'm not a quitter," he said. "I want to see it to the end and know I did my best at the end of the day, so I can leave with my head held high and not have any regrets.”

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