Im not putting you on light duty for ringworm in your scuzzy crotch, Doc said.
He handed the guy a tube of topical ointment and a fistful of aspirin.
I told you last week to stop wearing skivvies.
His bayoneted rifle serving as a holder, a wounded Leatherneck gets an injection of blood plasma from a Navy Corpsman during the battle for Okinawa. Image: U.S.M.C.
We were leaving at dawn the next day and Hospitalman 3rdClass Fred Giese was in hard-ass mode.
And Doc Giese took that responsibility seriously.
He viewed the 25 or 30 Marines in the third platoon as his personal little neighborhood medical practice.
A wounded Marine is rushed across a smoke-marked landing zone southwest of Da Nang. Image: SSgt.W. F. Schrider/U.S.M.C.
He knew each of us more intimately than we liked sometimes.
He knew about our families and our foibles.
He knew our physical and psychological conditions and he kept a wary eye on both at all times.
U.S. Navy corpsmen treat a Vietnamese soldier during Operation Meade River, 10 miles south of Da Nang. Image: U.S.M.C.
It was hard to figure Doc sometimes.
He told me once that in Medical Corps school it was a crapshoot.
If not, he went to field training and became an FMF Corpsman with the Marines in Vietnam.
A wounded Marine is transported to a field hospital by Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163. Each helicopter carried a corpsman to treat the injured. Image: SSgt.B. J. Collett/U.S.M.C.
Fred Giese saw it differently.
The detonation blew big holes in his chest and peppered his face with shrapnel.
Nothing we said could convince him that he hadnt personally failed one of his charges.
A corpsman patches up a Marine wounded during a mortar attack in January 1968. Fortunately, the injury was not severe. Image:Cpl. Wolfe/U.S.M.C.
When we werent occupied with other field chores, we all attended Docs field medical training.
He wanted a platoon of his potential patients who could all do rudimentary life-saving procedures.
Today that sort of Combat Lifesaving training is formalized SOP in most military units.
Corpsman James W. Davis prepares to treat Vietnamese villagers during an operation by the 7th Marines near Hill 55. Image: LCpl.R. B. Sanville/U.S.M.C.
Fred Giese had been wounded himself by frags from various incoming rounds a couple of times.
If hed been willing to file the paperwork, I figure he would have earned about five Purple Hearts.
But that wasnt his style.
A Hospital Corpsman with A Company. 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, treats a wounded NVA soldier that was captured during Operation Prairie. Image: LCpl.Scott M. Leighty/U.S.M.C.
Thats when Doc became one.
An AK round hit him in the chest.
He spun and dropped on his back next to the man hed been bandaging.
Corpsmen remain integral to Marine combat operations. Corpsman 1st Class Conners, shown recovering in bed, was one of the first combat casualties of Operation Desert Storm. Image: NARA
Fearing a sucking chest wound, I tried to remember everything hed taught me about field first aid.
Probably should have left it at that but the morphine syrettes in his kit had caught my eye.
Wed all seen Doc administer morphine from those syrettes.
Corpsman 3d Class Glenn G. Simpson carries a Vietnamese soldier up a steep slope east of An Hoa. Image: Cpl.Hank Berkowitz/U.S.M.C.
They looked like the little travel-size toothpaste tubes you get sometimes as samples.
Hell with the NVA, Doc groaned.
Im gonna shoot you before you kill me with that morphine syrette.
A Marine helps a Navy Corpsman. The Corpsman was wounded while moving to help a wounded Marine. Image:Cpl. Wolfe/U.S.M.C.
We stayed in touch until he died of a heart attack about three years ago.
He was just one of some 10,000 U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen who served with Marines in Vietnam.
