NavyDEP - View Single Post - What do HM's actually do while in the fleet?

Dianakit12 · 01-17-2014, 07:06 PM

I'm stealing my gf's account for this, so don't bash on her. But if you want to know what a small part of being a corpsman is about here's my own story.

I deployed to a shit hole valley in Afghanistan. (I'm not going to get specific on time or where because I don't want to be tracked or have friends tracked down.) I was with med battalion and worked in a shock trauma platoon (stp). We were the first to set up second echelon care at that forward operating base (fob) and things were busy. I'm talking patients (pts) every single day; mostly blast injury pts, not as many people actually getting shot. But we had one unit getting hit pretty hard. But there was one day where we had 2 come in at once. It was one Marine and another Doc. I didn't know the Doc but he was a brother and that was all that mattered. I didn't work on him but I did work on the Marine. He had been blown up and both his legs were messed up I’m talking hamburger with bone sticking out. His left arm was hanging on by a thread. He was in a bad way. To spare the rest of the gory details, we secured his airway, stopped the bleeding, and even got in a few units of blood before we put him on the bird. In my mind I wrote him off as a triple amp. He might live, he might not, but he wasn’t going to use that arm again and would be lucky if he could keep his left leg but the right was pretty much done. This happened a few years ago and I can still recall most of their faces like it was yesterday. The things you see in that environment can be burned into your very fiber of your being but they will most defiantly haunt you in some way or another.

But the story didn’t end there. It picks up again about 6 months later I was back in the states taking my basic motorcycle course and there was a guy there who rode a cruiser. Nice bike nice guy but there was something about him that bugged me it felt off. About three days into the course everyone is sitting on the bleachers swapping war stories when the guy starts telling his. “Ha I was blown up twice" he said, “We were out on patrol when I stepped on an IED and f^*ked up my legs. Then, as they were carrying me out, the doc on my left shoulder stepped on another one and messed up my arm." I piped up, "Wait a minute, where were you at?” He said he had been in the same valley I had and even during the time I had been there. Then it hit me, I had treated this Marine! I remembered the exact moment the call went out I recalled all his injuries and what we had done for him. And here he was the triple amp with both his legs attached and a working left arm that was all there. He walked with a slight limp and a cane but he was fine! He was riding a damn motorcycle! About an hour later I met his wife. This man, that I thought could have died in transit for all I knew, was able to walk, ride a motorcycle, and stand next to his wife because of the work my team did. It was then that the number of 98% sunk in. We walked away from that hell on earth with a 98% survival rate. That was unheard of even to this day! I worked with an amazing doctor and had even better corpsmen around me because they all practiced so far beyond their scope of practice.

The question asked at the start of this post has no easy answer. Corpsmen are the red headed stepchild of two branches. We are the only corps in the Navy and by far the single biggest rate. We are found in hospitals, on ships, subs, in tents, in the dirt, and under brush looking threw a scope. We are a breed apart from all others. We are made of a different metal. Our past is paved with the blood of both friend and foe and littered with real life heroes. The pride we share is immeasurable the bonds we form indestructible.

I tell people that I could bitch about my job for three days on end and still have things to bitch about. Yet at the end of the day, I don’t see myself doing anything else because to say I love what I do is an understatement. I am a Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class FMF, and this is just a taste of what it is to be called Doc.

01-17-2014, 07:06 PM	#22
Dianakit12 Active Duty Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: SoCal Posts: 68 Rep Power: 15	I'm stealing my gf's account for this, so don't bash on her. But if you want to know what a small part of being a corpsman is about here's my own story. I deployed to a shit hole valley in Afghanistan. (I'm not going to get specific on time or where because I don't want to be tracked or have friends tracked down.) I was with med battalion and worked in a shock trauma platoon (stp). We were the first to set up second echelon care at that forward operating base (fob) and things were busy. I'm talking patients (pts) every single day; mostly blast injury pts, not as many people actually getting shot. But we had one unit getting hit pretty hard. But there was one day where we had 2 come in at once. It was one Marine and another Doc. I didn't know the Doc but he was a brother and that was all that mattered. I didn't work on him but I did work on the Marine. He had been blown up and both his legs were messed up I’m talking hamburger with bone sticking out. His left arm was hanging on by a thread. He was in a bad way. To spare the rest of the gory details, we secured his airway, stopped the bleeding, and even got in a few units of blood before we put him on the bird. In my mind I wrote him off as a triple amp. He might live, he might not, but he wasn’t going to use that arm again and would be lucky if he could keep his left leg but the right was pretty much done. This happened a few years ago and I can still recall most of their faces like it was yesterday. The things you see in that environment can be burned into your very fiber of your being but they will most defiantly haunt you in some way or another. But the story didn’t end there. It picks up again about 6 months later I was back in the states taking my basic motorcycle course and there was a guy there who rode a cruiser. Nice bike nice guy but there was something about him that bugged me it felt off. About three days into the course everyone is sitting on the bleachers swapping war stories when the guy starts telling his. “Ha I was blown up twice" he said, “We were out on patrol when I stepped on an IED and f^*ked up my legs. Then, as they were carrying me out, the doc on my left shoulder stepped on another one and messed up my arm." I piped up, "Wait a minute, where were you at?” He said he had been in the same valley I had and even during the time I had been there. Then it hit me, I had treated this Marine! I remembered the exact moment the call went out I recalled all his injuries and what we had done for him. And here he was the triple amp with both his legs attached and a working left arm that was all there. He walked with a slight limp and a cane but he was fine! He was riding a damn motorcycle! About an hour later I met his wife. This man, that I thought could have died in transit for all I knew, was able to walk, ride a motorcycle, and stand next to his wife because of the work my team did. It was then that the number of 98% sunk in. We walked away from that hell on earth with a 98% survival rate. That was unheard of even to this day! I worked with an amazing doctor and had even better corpsmen around me because they all practiced so far beyond their scope of practice. The question asked at the start of this post has no easy answer. Corpsmen are the red headed stepchild of two branches. We are the only corps in the Navy and by far the single biggest rate. We are found in hospitals, on ships, subs, in tents, in the dirt, and under brush looking threw a scope. We are a breed apart from all others. We are made of a different metal. Our past is paved with the blood of both friend and foe and littered with real life heroes. The pride we share is immeasurable the bonds we form indestructible. I tell people that I could bitch about my job for three days on end and still have things to bitch about. Yet at the end of the day, I don’t see myself doing anything else because to say I love what I do is an understatement. I am a Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class FMF, and this is just a taste of what it is to be called Doc.