A Vietnamese medic jumps from a secure position behind a rice paddy dike, crossing a swampy paddy under fire from Viet Cong guerrillas in Binh Dong province along a canal on the edge of the Plain of Reeds, Aug. 8, 1966. He was coming to the aid of wounded regional forces in a skirmish between the Viet Cong and a company of “ruff-puffs,” (regional forces and popular forces). (AP Photo/Horst Faas) I used this photo because although he is Vietnamese, he was caught in the act of doing what all Combat Medics and Navy Corpsmen do, very often at the cost of their lives. As compared to the widespread medical community, the enlisted men (and women) trained as Combat Medics and Navy Corpsmen have only basic medical skills. But to soldiers and marines involved in combat, those medics and corpsmen are lifesavers. Not only do they ascribe fully to the Oath of Hippocrates (which all doctors once upon a time held sacred) but they go much further. To those they minister to, they are addressed as “Doc,” and given their penchant for sacrifice at the cost of their very lives, they are much deserving of the title, more so even than those who have spent years in medical studies. On record are story after story of combat medics throwing themselves on a grenade to save fellow soldiers; story after story of a combat medic throwing himself on a wounded soldier to shield him from incoming bullets or grenade shards; stories innumerable of combat medics going into harm’s way to treat a wounded soldier, when soldiers all around him were hugging the ground to avoid a rain of bullets. A great portion of this nation’s Medal of Honor winners, the highest medal this country can bestow upon its warriors, have been doled out to combat medics and corpsmen. The majority of those medals so bestowed are given posthumously; the combat medic, the Navy corpsman, gave his life that a wounded soldier might live. Great shall be their reward in another time and in another place, for of such did Jesus speak; (John 15:13) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
