Meet Bradley Vander Zanden. He’s currently in the United States Navy, formerly in the United States Army, a former Marine, a former physician’s assistant and now he’s adding one more title to the prestigious list: osteopathic physician. Vander Zanden, after a nearly 20-year military career, is set to graduate from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth as part of the Class of 2025.

Vander Zanden, who will be commissioned a lieutenant in the Navy at graduation, matched in family medicine at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood). Yes, a Navy officer matched into an Army residency program at the same place where he spent many years as a PA in the Army. Vander Zanden’s wild ride through multiple branches of the military began 20 years earlier on a dare, yes, a dare. His epiphany for going to medical school came in a Kuwaiti desert on a chaotic night in a tent. Vander Zanden has spent nearly half his life serving his country, and now he’s preparing to continue his life of service at Fort Cavazos and beyond. Here’s how his journey through America’s Armed Forces unfolded.

A man of his word

Vander Zanden might have worn three different uniforms in the military, but make no mistake, he’s a Marine.

“I will always consider myself a Marine first and foremost,” Vander Zanden said. “The Marine Corps just gives you a feeling of being one; it’s hard to explain unless you have experienced it, but there is a reason we say, ‘once a Marine, always a Marine.”

He was a few years into his undergraduate work in Wisconsin in 2005 and while on a trip with his best friend, the seed for military service was planted on a ski hill.

“While going up the chair lift, my friend began discussing with me the possibility of him joining the military. I told him, if he was going to do it, then he should go all in and join the Marines because they were the toughest. He quickly replied, “If I do it, you’ll do it?” Which I immediately agreed to without another thought,” Vander Zanden said. “Three weeks later, my friend calls me up out of the blue from the Marine Corps recruiters office, he asked if I was able to swing by because he decided to join and wondered if I was still in, like I had said. As a man of my word, I went down to the station that day and enlisted in the Marines alongside him.”

A man of his word indeed, but not unprepared. Vander Zanden had an uncle who was a Marine, but this impulsive decision was “totally a dare.” That dare changed his life’s trajectory. After completing basic training and four years in the Marines, his first overseas deployment came in August of 2009 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Al Taqqadem, Iraq. After his time in a war zone, Vander Zanden came back a changed man.

“Iraq really changed me,” Vander Zanden said. “Everyone in this country should experience something like that, not war, but to go outside our borders and see the world for what it is. The privileges that we have here, the freedoms that we share, it’s just remarkable. I went through communities in Iraq that don’t have running water or electricity. It really gave me a sense of appreciation for what I had back here as an American and gave me more of a sense of purpose for what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”

What exactly was that? He thought about law school, maybe even politics, since he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science with an emphasis in law, but it was during his pre-deployment training in 2009 that he volunteered to learn combat lifesaving, first aid, Stop the Bleed and much more that service members on the battlefield needed to know.

“I got to learn how to do IVs, splints, and stop the bleed,” Vander Zanden said. “I learned combat life-saving skills, but didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had a degree in Political Science, but I have a passion for health care.”

Leaving the Marines for the Army

Having more focus, he went back to school and finished up a degree in kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, but if he continued down the medical path, his career in the Marines would be over.

“They don’t have a medical field; the Navy is in charge of medically caring for Marines,” Vander Zanden said. “I knew I was on the right track when I came across the Inter-service PA Program for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.”

Vander Zanden was accepted into the IPAP through the Army. Now serving active duty as a soldier, he was sent to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio for a grueling 29-month accelerated program. The program came with a lot of pressure; there were no breaks once it started, if you failed out of the program, your military career was basically over. He finished the fast-track program in August of 2016, earning a Master’s in Physician Assistant Studies and his certification as a physician assistant.

He was assigned to Fort Cavazos in January of 2017 and was a Battalion PA for the 3-8 Cavalry Battalion, 3rd Armor Bridge Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. He was responsible for providing first-line combat health support at home and while on deployment. It wasn’t long until he was deployed for a second time. In February 2017, he began a ten-month deployment to Camp Buehring, Kuwait, as part of Operation Spartan Shield.

“I was the first battalion provider in the theatre, a brand-new PA with just three days of clinical experience and the only provider on the ground for two weeks,” Vander Zanden said. “There were no doctors or other PAs, just me, until the rest of the brigade medical team arrived.”

Vander Zanden was three months into his deployment when, as he called it, “the perfect storm of patient care” happened. A night that changed his entire motivation for medicine.

He was on the night shift, all alone, when a first patient walked into his “medical clinic,” which was merely a tent with office partitions and shower curtains for doors. While he’s treating one patient for an anaphylactic reaction, in walks another, then another and another. Next thing Vander Zanden knows is he’s delivering an EpiPen to help save a soldier from his life-threatening reaction, one man screaming about his back, one with a knee injury, a rolled ankle and his medical tent had become chaos in a desert.

“There was a moment where I was standing in the middle of this tent in the hall, it was pure adrenaline, a moment of clarity came over me,” Vander Zanden said. “This is what I was meant to do, I wanted more and I needed to learn more.”

Instead of crumbling under the weight of that night, it was a life-defining moment for Bradley.

“Immediately after that night, I knew I was going to apply to medical school.”

He still had his military obligation to complete with the Army first, which was four more years. After his final deployment to Korea in June of 2019, once again with 3-8 Calvary Battalion 3rd Armor Bridge Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, that solidified his passion and his desire to go to medical school.

“I found myself in South Korea as the only medical provider on a firing range near the DMZ (demilitarized zone) with about 1,000 soldiers,” Vander Zanden said. “It was exhilarating! The next higher level of care was a Korean Hospital about 30 miles away or a 45-minute flight to the closest American Hospital, but I had it covered! I found my calling to work in a rural environment with limited resources to help people with what I have. We had to do the most with what we had.”

Vander Zanden knew his medical knowledge at the time wasn’t enough, but he used his remaining time in the Army wisely, studying for the MCAT and getting ready to apply for medical school.

In the Navy

When back at Fort Cavazos, Vander Zanden found the bureaucracy of getting the military paperwork approved to start medical school frustrating, very frustrating. He spent 16 years in the military, so he knew how things worked, but was tired of waiting. He had already begun medical school classes and wasn’t willing to wait anymore, so he talked with a Navy recruiter and in less than one month, he was out of the Army and into the Navy on the Health Professions Scholarship Program.

“For me, going to the Navy is like going back to the beginning because they are in charge of the Marines’ medical care,” Vander Zanden said. “I plan to go back and be a doctor for the Marines.”

Wanting to practice medicine in rural locations, it was TCOM’s Office of Rural Medical Education that drew him to Fort Worth. His wife, a social worker and Major in the Army herself, was stationed at Fort Cavazos and he wanted to be around her as much as possible.

“I picked TCOM because of the rural medicine program,” Vander Zanden said. “I was hoping to be able to do rotations around Fort Cavazos and wouldn’t be an absentee husband or father.”

Vander Zanden sacrificed while in medical school. He lived in an RV down by the Trinity River and in his first two years, his wife would come to see him, and he would do the same by traveling back to Fort Cavazos, especially in his second year when his wife was pregnant. The five-hour round trip each time was worth it to maintain a strong marriage, even if that meant not getting an A on a test.

That didn’t mean Vander Zanden was invisible on campus when he wasn’t in class. He served as president of the Association of Military Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons student organization, vice president of the Tactical Medicine Applications Group, a teaching assistant in the Anatomy Lab, and TCOM’s patient safety course, of which he is now a Certified Professional in Patient Safety.

It was all done with the unwavering support of his wife Sarah, who just completed a Ph.D. of her own in medical social work.

“She is so incredibly supportive, and I was going to be there for her as much as I could,” Vander Zanden said.

It was also necessary as he became a father to two beautiful children while in medical school, a 2-year-old daughter and an 8-month-old son. As he approached residency match, the military does things separately, he zeroed in on the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center Family Medicine Residency at Fort Cavazos, except there was one big problem.

The residency program is for the Army, which he left four years ago, not the Navy. There were other options for Vander Zanden, but his family situation dictated that he was going to do whatever he could for them.

“I put in 19 years of service with the military, had three deployments, and I just wanted stability for me and my family while in residency,” Vander Zanden said.

The program director at Fort Cavazos, the Army and Navy, went to battle together for Vander Zanden and his family. He was allowed to apply for the Army residency, which wasn’t allowed previously. The program at Fort Cavazos had previously petitioned the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to reevaluate the program to see if it had the capabilities to have eight residents as opposed to the six the program normally takes. Having been approved a few years ago, they used this opportunity to expand the program and illustrate that Vander Zanden would not be taking a spot away from a qualified Army candidate.

“They all advocated for me, this is a unique circumstance, and there were so many things that had to fall into place perfectly for this to happen. I can’t believe that it all came together,” Vander Zanden said.

In December of 2024, Vander Zanden found out he matched at the family medicine residency program at Fort Cavazos. The site is now a joint-service family medicine residency program to accommodate Vander Zanden and his unique situation. The program is now only the second joint-service family medicine residency program in the country.

“I am very grateful for this opportunity and can’t wait to begin this summer,” Vander Zanden said.

“The military is a fantastic organization,” Vander Zanden said. “It opened up opportunities I could have never dreamed about. What I wanted was an education, and that’s what I got.”

His education will continue at Fort Cavazos as his residency is three years. After that, he’s thinking about a fellowship, but where he practices is not a question anymore.

“I want to practice in some small rural town and be that small-town doctor,” Vander Zanden said. “You can’t have family medicine without the word family.”

After almost 9 years of marriage and now two little ones at home, he takes every opportunity he can to spend time with them.

His family is proud and his country is grateful for his 20 years of military service with three different branches. Not bad for a career that started on a dare and it’s not over yet.

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