CHAPTER 1
From Dixie Cup to Helmet
It was a snowy day at Great Lakes, Ill when we began our class "A" corpsman school. When we completed it 16 weeks later, the weather was better, but I was exhausted by the rigorous curriculum. I had studied, among others, Principles and Techniques of Patient Care, Minor Surgery & First Aid, Materia Medical & Toxicology, Anatomy & Physiology, Hygiene & Sanitation, Atomic, Biological & Chemical Warfare, and Military Requirements (the Navy way of doing things like recordkeeping, hospital or clinic procedures).
I enlisted my new friend, Wally Baker, who was second or third in the class standing to help prepare for the final exam. A few days later my twin brother Don joined us, and then a couple more fellows. Wally had plans to become a doctor after the military; his students all did well on the exam in the large auditorium where there were more seats in one row than there were in my entire high school class. I don't see his name on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial, so he might have made it. So many corpsmen are on that wall.
I remember the graduation ceremony when we all stood up and raised our right hand, while the Commanding Officer read the Hospital Corpsman's Oath.
We all took the oath very seriously, and we were all eager to start our new jobs.
The Corpsman's Oath
I solemnly pledge myself before God and these witnesses
To practice faithfully all my duties as a member
of the hospital corps.
I hold the care of the sick and injured to be a sacred trust
and will assist the medical officer with loyalty and honesty.
I will not knowingly permit harm to come to any patient.
I will not partake of nor administer
any unauthorized medication.
And off we went to our assigned duty stations; both Don and I were assigned to the U.S. Naval Hospital, Oakland, CA. Two boys from No where's ville, Missouri off to see the world as a sailor.
We were poor growing up, but we were a good Christian family. We said a daily prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance each morning in our schools. In 1963, I was a senior in high school. I was senior class president and an all-state basketball player. I played football and ran track just like thousands of kids across the country. Our house and car were never locked. In short, life was good. We lived in a state of innocence.
One day I was in high school, and 800 days later I was on the front lines in Vietnam. What had I gotten myself into? I was too young to vote but old enough to die for my country. I kept thinking to myself, would someone please shake me and wake me up? The recruiter, Petty Officer First Class Allan Ensor, didn't tell me the pitfalls of my enlistment. At age 19, I would witness atrocities that no one should witness at any age.
My twin brother Don and I had joined the Naval Reserves in Joplin, Missouri, in 1962; we were juniors in high school. We went to the Naval Reserve meetings every Monday night until we graduated from high school. Upon graduation we went to Great Lakes, Illinois, for boot camp (GLAKES). We both decided to become Hospital Corpsmen and enrolled in HM class "A" school, the training for future corpsmen, also at GLAKES.
Oakland Naval Hospital was also called Oak Knoll. There we were exposed to the servicemen who had lost arms and legs in the Vietnam War. Many of the guys were my age, and I immediately saw their lives were changed forever. Seeing these wounded soldiers made me realize the seriousness and tragedies of this war. For several months at the hospital, I pondered the situation I was about to encounter. But I was not destined to serve in Navy blue for long.
I received orders to the Fleet Marine Forces at Camp Pendleton, California. I was to become a corpsman with them. I left Oakland Naval Hospital in May of 1966 and attended Field Medical school training in Camp Pendleton, California. By early July I was attached to the Marine Corps as an 8404 corpsman, 10,000 miles from home and a whole world away from the life I'd known in Joplin, Missouri.
The Marines gave us corpsmen a 5-week training course under battlefield conditions. The training was extensive. We were taught field medicine, field operations and how to survive in a combat situation. After weapons familiarization, I qualified expert with a 45 cal. Pistol and M-14 rifle. We take and return fire. The Navy Enlisted Code for this position is 8404, so everyone uses that label as a verbal shortcut. Many corpsmen strongly prefer to avoid becoming an 8404. One wears Marine uniforms with Navy insignia. When you see a Marine in his greens but having on his arm the chevrons of the Navy, you have a Fleet Marine Force (FMF) corpsman. On the front lines in Vietnam a corpsman never wears a chevron on his jungle fatigues, there are no markings. You cannot distinguish the corpsman from the Marines. Even in the rear they do not wear them, unless they are in dress uniform.
Being a corpsman is arguably the most dangerous job in the Navy during hostilities; in the Vietnam War, we lost 690 Navy/USMC corpsmen. Almost 5,000 received the Purple Heart. More than twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to Navy corpsmen for actions during battles. When a soldier was wounded, it was our job to administer first aid, no matter where on the field he was hit. This is why so many corpsmen and medics were either killed or wounded. Corpsman is Navy/USMC while Medic is the similar position in the Army
My second day at Pendleton I was told to report to the office. Evidently the Marines didn't think too much of the bumper sticker on my car: "The Marines do have a few good men, Navy Corpsmen." I was told to take it off immediately.
My orders separated me from Don, who remained in Oakland. He would be assigned to a ship for a short time, but then he too went through the medical school training at Camp Pendleton. Then he was sent to Okinawa for duty.
I was sent from Pendleton to Vietnam. We took a Pan American Boeing 707 out of Los Angeles (LAX), made a fuel stop, and then on to Okinawa. From Okinawa to Vietnam it was a USMC C-130 Hercules. They were carrying cargo and troops. We sat on canvas seats. It was a very long and noisy flight. We were all new recruits, scared, confused, lonely, and depressed.
As I stepped off the C-130 at the Da Nang Air Base, the atmosphere seemed alien to me. I had never felt that depth of penetrating humidity before. At that moment I knew the world had changed. Within a few hours after my arrival in country, I was assigned to Second Battalion First Marines Hotel Company as an 8404 Field Corpsman. I knew that I was going in harm's way, and I wanted all the help I could get to get through it; prayer couldn't hurt.
A Corpsman's Prayer
Grant me, oh Lord, for the coming events;
Enough knowledge to cope and some plain common sense.
Be at our side on those nightly patrols;
And be merciful judging our vulnerable souls.
Make my hands steady and as sure as a rock;
when the others go down with a wound or in shock.
Let me be close, when they bleed in the mud;
With a tourniquet handy to save precious blood.
REFLECTION:
Being assigned to the Marine Corps was not something I planned on when joining the Navy. In 1966 the war in Vietnam started to escalate, and the Marine Corps were sending more and more troops. That is when Oakland Naval Hospital started receiving a high number of casualties who had lost their limbs. Several of our corpsmen were receiving orders to serve with the Marines in Vietnam. I knew then my time stateside was short. The stories I heard from the patients about the war was scary. When I arrived in country (Vietnam,) it took me little time to get acquainted with the hazards of war.
During my first battle, I treated three casualties. Returning to the CP (command post), one of the Marines called me an "angel in green." After he told me what it meant, I was truly honored. For a corpsman, being stationed with the Navy means serving in a hospital or a ship; this is called being "on the blue side." For corpsmen being stationed and serving in combat with the Marine Corps is called "the green side."
Ask almost any Marine who has been in combat what the phrase "Corpsman up" means, and he'll tell you it's a cry for what the Marine Corps calls the "angels in green." These are U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen specially trained for combat medicine. The phrase frequently follows the phrase "Marine down," which is what occasions the ministrations of the corpsman.
CHAPTER 2
Once More into the Breach
I flew out of Travis Air Force Base, California into Kadena AFB Okinawa, where we remained for 3-4 days. Everything we would need out on the field, they gave to us right there; we picked up uniforms, picked up weapons, helmets, flak jackets, ponchos, boots. Then a C-130 came in and took us all to Da Nang, Vietnam.
When I got off the plane, the heat just hit me in the face. It was extremely hot that day. I'll never forget the smell of Vietnam. I can hardly describe; It smelled like death to me. It smelled really weird.
Nobody knew where my unit was when we flew into Da Nang; the plane took me to Phu Bai because they thought my unit was there. It was not, so they flew me to Chu Lai and again it wasn't found. Finally, we found them about 3 days later, 26-30 miles south of Da Nang. They first took me to 1st battalion headquarters, and I was there a couple of days before they took me by truck, a 6-by, to my unit.
I reported to the First Marine Division, Second Battalion, Hotel Company. Its company of 120 Marines was situated 26 miles south of Da Nang. My first clinic was set up in an old French school house. Each company was allotted six corpsmen; however, the most we ever had at one time were three. Each time the Marines went on a patrol a corpsman had to be with them. So the few corpsmen in Hotel Company were very busy, since it was running patrols day and night.
I reported to our company, September 3, 1966. On that very day as I was unpacking, a Marine corporal informed me that I was to report to a briefing for a night ambush. I grabbed my B-1 medical kit, 45 cal. pistol and M-14 rifle and headed to the meeting. There were twelve of us, and the squad leader, Corporal Sanders, was in charge. Several of the grunts were wearing shoe polish on their faces; they were a scary sight. I was off on my first patrol.
I was spaced behind our radio operator, Corporal Gerace, AKA "Bomar." He was from the Bay area of California and at 19 years of age was already a seasoned warrior. He recognized my fears and said, "Doc, just stick with me; our Marines will protect you." The night was extremely dark; I don't think I had ever seen so many stars.
As we; were nearing a small hamlet 26 miles south of Da Nang, we started hearing banging on gongs and bamboo sticks. I asked Bomar what that was all about. He said it was the Vietcong (VC) sending Morse code messages. He said the messages also had a psychological effect which played on our nerves. I don't mind telling you it worked; my pants were already wet.
Within the first hour we made contact with the Vietcong. They were waiting for us. The sudden explosions of grenades and guns firing made it sound like the Fourth of July; but we were not celebrating. Then the inevitable happened; a Marine yelled, "Corpsman Up!" At that moment my heart sank. I prayed for God to protect me and to help me in my skills to treat the wounded Marine. This was the moment I had feared since my orders to Vietnam. My emotions were all on hyper alert, and I was having a fight or flight reaction. I was terrified and thought this could very likely be the last day of my life.
I ran as close to the ground as I could and stopped when I got to the squad leader. He said, "I need you to help that wounded Marine in the rice paddy." I soon learned that two Marines were hit basically at the same time; they were about twenty yards apart in the rice paddy. The first was about forty yards out in open ground. I thought to myself: is he kidding me? I stepped off the dike into the rice paddy. The mud was so deep each time I stepped the suction from the boot made it hard to move forward. My adrenalin was running so fast that I was worn out within the first few steps.
The fear that I felt and the chaos around me made it even more unbearable. I tried to move as fast as I could, but it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I heard a bullet whiz past my head, and some water splashed from a VC bullet. This was the incentive to pick up my pace. When I got to the wounded Marine, he had been shot in the abdomen and was in a lot of pain. I treated him as fast as I could and helped him back to the dike. All the while, the other Marines were giving me good fire support, as they always did. A couple of Marines carried him to an LZ (Landing Zone) for transport. The other warrior was shot in the face, instant KIA (killed in action). Before the night was over, I had treated three wounded Marines and one KIA. All of them were medevacked to the Da Nang Hospital.
The ages of the Marines were between 18 to 20 years old, about my age. This really hit home. It also hit me, back at base camp, that I really didn't know what war was all about. There was something about being there — hearing the cries of the wounded, rifles firing, grenades exploding, the smell of gun powder, blood, and urine — that brought home the reality of war.
Let me clarify about the flak jacket. A flak jacket or flak vest is a form of body armor. A flak jacket is designed to provide protection from case fragments from high explosive weaponry, such as anti-aircraft artillery, grenades, some round shot used in shotguns and land mines, and other lower-velocity projectiles. It is not designed to protect against bullets fired from small arms such as rifles or handguns. However, certain flak jackets are able to sustain certain gunshots, depending on the armor, the projectile, and the range from which the shot was fired. Since the Marines had more acquaintance with bullets than with artillery rounds, the flak jacket, though a help, did not provide complete protection.
Hotel company not only had a new corpsman, it had received a new commanding officer (CO) on September 1. About a week after my arrival, I was on a search and destroy mission as part of a twelve-man patrol. As we were crossing a rice paddy, we came under intense fire from the Viet Cong, and we all hit the ground. We were pinned down, so the radio operator called in for 81MM mortar. The first spotter round landed in the middle of us, and several Marines were splattered with white phosphorus.
The Marines got up and started running for a safe place to hide. I do not remember the Viet Cong shooting at us during this circus act; they were probably laughing at us running in all directions looking for cover. Five of the Marines received 1st degree burns. White phosphorus burns when exposed to air and will continue burning; the proper treatment for phosphorus burns is to apply sulfate patches over the wounds, but I had left them at the command post. As a new corpsman, I was not prepared for this. I quickly washed the burn area with water and applied mud over the wounds to prevent air from reaching the white phosphorus. The major problem was when the mud dried it would flake off and the wound would start burning again. The burns were not that serious, but I would have liked to have gotten the Marines back to the CP (Command Post) for proper medical attention.
The radio operator called the new CO to request permission to return to the CP to attend to the burns. He refused our request and ordered us to continue our patrol. This made some of the Marines extremely upset, and they griped for the rest of the patrol. A couple of days later, a jeep arrived at our company post and picked up the commanding officer.
A new CO was left to replace him. To my knowledge he did not say a word to the troops about his departure.
I heard later that day that a Marine left the CO a threatening letter on his bunk. It said that if he ever ran a patrol with us, it would be his last patrol. This may have only been scuttlebutt with the troops, but I personally witnessed all the facts. I believe the story is true. The CO was with us for less than two weeks before his speedy departure. Personally, I did not have any ill feelings toward the commanding officer. He made a command decision, and it was our duty to carry out those orders, However, some of the Marines took it much more personally; they were burned and I wasn't. I would also like to add: for the remainder of my tour, I never went on a patrol without sulfate patches. I would have liked to end the story here, but I feel responsible for what had transpired. If I had the sulfate patches in my unit one bag, I could have treated the wounds; we could have continued our mission and the CO would not have been involved. The Marines never blamed me for what had happened, and from that day forward I did the best job as a corpsman as I possibly could.
