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HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan (2/24/2012) - During the late
afternoon hours of Jan. 30, Marines with 9th Engineer Support
Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), were working hard
to take apart a medium girder bridge in the rural district of
Garmsir, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. During the disassembly,
part of the bridge inadvertently gave way and landed on a Marine's
leg, sending him to the ground, writhing in pain.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Soto,
right, gives medical supplies to Lance Cpl. Nathan A. Morningstar
during the construction of a bridge in Garmsir, Helmand province,
Afghanistan, Jan. 30, 2012. Courtesy Photo |
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“Doc! Doc! Doc! Doc, get up here now!”
Sprinting on to the
scene with his medical bag on his back was Petty Officer 3rd Class
Michael Soto, a corpsman for the battalion. Though he did not know
exactly what was going on, he ran to where Marines were gathered.
Soto knelt next to the injured Marine and began to determine the
extent to which his leg was damaged. Soto's hands trembled slightly
as he used his scissors to cut the Marine's trousers to expose the
injury.
Once he determined the Marine had suffered a closed
fracture, Soto grabbed some splints out of his medical bag. After
setting the Marine's leg, giving him some medicine to dull the pain
and taking his vitals, Soto began joking with his patient.
“Oh man, now you're going to be on light duty for the rest of the
deployment,” chuckled Soto. “You're going to be our new |
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clerk.” |
During this time, other Marines had coordinated a medical
evacuation. Less than 30 minutes later, a UH-60 Black Hawk
helicopter landed in a field next to the bridge site. The
injured Marine was placed on a litter and carried toward the
aircraft with Soto leading the way.
“The way Doc Soto
took care of everything and really controlled the site was
almost a textbook medevac,” said Staff Sgt. Brian Glory, a
combat engineer with the battalion, which is part of 3rd
MLG, III Marine Expeditionary Force when it is not forward
deployed. “He did his job extremely well.”
The
21-year-old Soto has come a long way in his three years
since joining the Navy. Growing up in Lake Villa, Ill., the
self-proclaimed party animal never took anything too
seriously. Now he is entrusted with rendering emergency
medical treatment to Marines on the frontlines of
Afghanistan.
Soto decided to join the military, like
much of his family. His father, Antonio, spent 22 years in
the Navy as a sonar technician. For much of Soto's
childhood, his father was aboard a ship at some remote
location around the world.
“I saw what the Navy did
for my dad,” said Soto. “The stories he'd tell me and the
pictures he'd show me ... I definitely wanted to do something
like that too.”
At first, Soto wanted to join the
Marine Corps, but his father, a career sailor, had other
ideas. Antonio suggested to his son that he become a Navy
Corpsman, functioning as the primary medical caregiver to
Marines on the battlefield.
“You're kind of like a
Marine in a way,” Soto was told by his father. “You'll be
treated differently because you're a sailor, but you're
going to learn a bunch of medical stuff.”
Soto was
sold on the idea. After graduating from boot camp and going
through hospital corpsman school, he got his first taste of
what life is like in a Marine unit when he went through
field medical training at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton,
Calif.
“A lot of guys are like, ‘Oh, it wasn't that
bad,' but it was pretty hard for me,” said Soto. “I learned
a lot though. It definitely opened up another side of the
corpsman rating. I was thinking it was all in the hospital
and then I was exposed to actual tactical care in the field
on the ground.”
Once that pillar of training was
completed, Soto received orders to Camp Hansen on Okinawa,
Japan. After working in a clinic for a while, he was
transferred to 9th ESB.
In the months leading up to
their current deployment to Afghanistan, Soto trained
alongside the Marines and worked hard to get them medically
ready. During this time, he learned Marines like to poke fun
at each other and even more so at any sailors who are within
their ranks.
“He's too soft so I try to harden him
up,” jokes Lance Cpl. Jesus B. Penagraves, a combat engineer
with the battalion. “I try to make him feel like a Marine.
Thick skin – he needs it.”
In order to fit in, Soto,
who is naturally cheerful and outgoing, had to embrace the
unique culture in which he was placed.
“Everyone
talks trash to each other,” said Soto. “You just kind of
take it. I just got used to it. I started talking trash
back, then I became one of them.”
Three months into
the deployment, “Doc” Soto is just one of the guys. He has
made many friends in the platoon, who he says help him get
through every day.
In addition to prescribing
aspirin, patching up small cuts and pulling splinters from
the fingers of Marines, Soto frequently tries to help out
with the labor-intensive work his friends are engaged in
when they are building bridges.
Glory often chases
Soto off the building sites out of fear of him possibly
getting injured.
“There are a lot of times he tries
to get involved and help the Marines out because he's
created that camaraderie,” said Glory. “That's just Doc
Soto, but I hold him back because if he gets hurt we're kind
of done.”
At the time of the accident, Soto had taken
a break from walking around checking on his Marines and
decided to sit down to read a few pages of “Starship
Troopers.” Not long after sitting down, he heard the call
for help. Without hesitation, the 5-foot-7-inch, 140-pound
sailor sprinted to the bridge site in only a few seconds.
1st Lt. Matthew E. Paluta, a platoon commander with the
battalion, believes that Soto's actions have given the
Marines peace of mind for the rest of the deployment.
“It wasn't a major injury, but (Soto) definitely proved
his worth,” said Paluta. “It's one of those things when
Marines see their doc performing that well under pressure,
it breeds confidence. Their minds won't be distracted as
much now.”
Not only do the Marines now have
confidence in Soto, but he also has more confidence in
himself and his fellow Marines.
“I'm happy it
happened while we weren't being shot at,” said Soto. “It
helped me out a lot today because I actually got to see the
bigger picture. I got to see how everything worked. Now I
know all I really have to do is just focus on my job.”
By USMC Cpl. Bryan Nygaard
2nd Marine Logistics Group
(Forward)
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2012
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