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I Wanted to be a Navy Corpsman
(February 19, 2010)
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With my father being a Navy Master Chief and living on Navy bases,
when my friends got together to play “war” we did not play Army we
played Marines. There were always Marine kids living in my
neighborhood.
This was in the early 60s and there had been a show on TV called
Combat. One of the regular characters was “Doc” the Army medic.
“Doc” was not allowed to carry a gun but he was always in the thick
of the battle with the rest of the guys in his squad. I wanted to be
“Doc” when we played Marines, only in the Marines the medical person
is not a “medic” as in the Army, he is a Navy Corpsman. | |
Van E. Harl |
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My dad gave me a cigar box and my mother helped me fill it up with
band aids, tape and gauze rolls. This was my first real first-aid
kit. Now I was “Doc” when we played war and I even got to use some
of the band aids when kids got scraps and cuts. I was so mad at my
mother because she gave me a bottle of iodine for the first aid kit
but I was not allow to put any of it onto a actual wound. I was
hooked-I wanted to be a real Navy Corpsman.
The Navy trains its Hospital Corpsmen at Great Lakes Naval Base,
about forty miles north of Chicago, Illinois. I was back in the area
visiting my parents and drove over to the Navy Base. There were
Corps School students marching all over the “hospital-side” of the
base.
While I was at my folk's house I was looking at some old paperwork
from ninth grade. A school counselor had written down that I wanted
to be a Marine when I finished high school. But he was not listening
when I had actually told him I wanted to be a Navy Corpsman attached
to a Marine infantry company.
My father was on an old Navy ship that was going to be scrapped. He
brought home a small, water tight, ship board first aid kit that was
headed for the trash. I still have that kit and just keep refilling
it with supplies as needed. When my father was stationed at Great
Lakes, the Vietnam War was on and a lot of new Corps School
graduates were headed to the jungles of that country with the
Marines. The US is in another shooting war and the demand for Navy
Corpsman is extremely high. I spoke to Captain Theresa Gee NC USN,
who is the Executive Officer for the Corps School and over sees the
training of in excess of 4000 new Navy Corpsman every year.
“Approximately 80% to 90% of the newly trained Corpsman will be
headed to an assignment with the Marines” advised Captain Gee. The
rest of the new Corpsman will go to Navy shore assignments or out to
sea on their first ship.
Things have changed in the military medical world since WW II when
doctors, nurses and corpsman were not allowed to carry a weapon. The
old Soviet philosophy of “shoot the chaplains and medics first–it
helps demoralize your enemy” had a lot to do with US military
medical personal receiving ground combat training and being issued a
weapon when they went to the field. They can only defend themselves
and their patients, but it is a far cry from the days when the
Japanese shot every unarmed Corpsman that came into their rifle
sights.
One thing you will not see in this war is a Red-Cross arm band on
anyone. It only gives the Muslim extremist something to aim at. The
Corpsman career field is the most combat-decorated in the Navy they
have twenty two Medal of Honor recipients. More US Navy ships have
been named after Corpsmen than any other Navy rating. One of the men
raising the flag at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima was John Bradley, a
Navy Corpsman.
On many ships and in remote operating locations the Corpsman is the
only trained medical help for a Sailor or Marine. On the back of the
shirt of a Corpsman killed on Guadalcanal, written in his own blood
by a wounded Marine were these words “where Angels and Marines fear
to tread, there you'll find a Corpsman dead.”
I never became a Navy Corpsman but my respect and admiration has
only grown over the years. Corpsman-up, thanks “Doc” and thanks to
the new breed of Corpsman–the men and women who stand between death
and their patients and win the medical battle. | |
By
Van E. Harl
Copyright
2007 About Author:
Major Van E. Harl, USAF Ret., was a career police officer in the U.S. Air
Force. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the
Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. Major Harl is a graduate of
the U.S. Army Infantry School, the Air Force Squadron Officer School and the Air
Command and Staff College. After retiring from the Air Force he was a state
police officer in Nevada.
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