| He hasn't gone to a prestigious medical school for
four years. He hasn't interned at a big city hospital. And chances are he came to his job
through a personnel computer in the Pentagon. But he can save your life. Not only that, but maternity cases are not beyond him. He knows how to put on a pair of sterile rubber gloves, make a hospital bed with or without a patient in it, give that helpless patient a bed bath, or give blood plasma intravenously.
At the reception station, when the 'career counselor' said, "Son, you're going to be a medical corpsman," it was like an old John Wayne war movie suddenly being run through at high speed. The man with the red cross on his helmet was slithering up through the mud, under heavy machinegun fire and cascades of mortars, to treat a wounded trooper up in 'no man's land.' For boys who winced and looked the other way when their father took a splinter out of their finger, the blood, the blistering, running burns, the shrapnel holes and the ugly, persistent skin rashes suddenly become their world. The Medical Training Center (MTC) in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, is where all medical personnel for the Army are trained. "I guess very few of the men are really happy when they're told they're going to be Ft. Sam alumni," wryly observed Specialist 5 Bill Manning, a 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry medic. Stroking his heavy, black, Zapata-style moustache, he continued. "Medicine, the idea of pain, suffering, that someone may be actually depending on you, even the smell of medicine, scares people off. Some people come into the Army hoping for a job at least a little bit away from the fighting. I know I did. I wanted social work. I had a college degree in it and felt I could help someone working in the job. "They put me in the 91 MOS classification and before I left basic I knew I was going to be a medical corpsman. I suppose most of the people going into medicine back in the world had the same idea I did when I decided I'd like the job. I wanted to help people. As a child I once witnessed an automobile accident and felt completely helpless in the face of the victim. Ever since I've wanted to help anyone who needed it." Being a medic still took Manning some getting accustomed to. "The 10 weeks at MTC cover a panoply of subjects, with the curriculum ranging from basic physiology to how to sweep a hospital ward. Included were the sterile technique for handling necessary equipment, and how to administer the whole array of injections," said Manning, pantomiming each one. The largest single area of instruction is in the administration of bandages and dressings and the consequent treatment of wounds. The use of splints, burn treatment, and different forms of artificial respiration are also part of the course. Treatment of shock and the heavily circumscribed use of morphine are two other areas of importance. "The program seems to be designed with an eye toward the field medic rather than the hospital orderly. With classes running from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., it seemed more like a high school than the Army, even if the men were going to war." At the end of the course the medic is prepared for what the Army thought he would be running into. According to Manning, the first few days on the job are the hardest. "It seems like when you graduate from MTC you really know something. But when you get out to the battalion aid station, get your aid bag and then go out to the firebase and look around, a strong feeling of inadequacy sets in. But experience fills in the educational holes quickly. "The men are waiting to see if you live up to their last medic, what your attitude is, just how much they think you know about the job. Then , all of a sudden, you're 'doc' and someone who can help the men."
"Sick call is any time someone needs something. All they have to do is ask. You might say my schedule is pretty flexible, but one thing I almost always do in the morning after giving out the malaria pills is to just talk with anyone who wants to rap." The medic can handle physical problems one way or another- salve for jungle rot, disinfectant for a scratch or blister, a clean dressing for an injury- but many times there's more than that. "It may sound corny, but it always helps to be a good listener. Maybe I can give him a little help, or if I can't, maybe I can tell him where he can get it." But the 10 weeks at Ft. Sam Houston prepare him for more than that. Treatment of battle injuries is also part of the curriculum. "That's what most of the men had in mind when they were going through Ft. Sam. The first sight of real blood seems to confirm their suspicions that they weren't cut out for the job. You never really get used to it, that is, seeing that kind of pain and suffering, but you just have to work with it or become useless." Most of the time medics stay back from the contact and treat the casualties brought to them, but sometimes they need a medic right up front. "Then you don't crawl, you run." Manning, who received the Silver Star for an action on October 6, speaks from experience. The citation credited him with moving out under fire to patch up four men, helping them back and providing help elsewhere. "For a few seconds you forget yourself and don't really think about the thing you're doing. My hands shook and I felt sick to my stomach but I had the men there and they needed the help and I knew how to give it, so I did. Even though it's really natural to think of yourself first, for a little while you don't. Your friends are out there dying, taking fantastic chances for you. I just wanted to be sure they came back. You worry about what you did later." Manning was reluctant to leave the field. "The usual tour of duty is 6-8 months in the field and the rest of the time at a firebase or in the rear. But after contact, when you've really helped someone, maybe for the first time in your life, it's difficult to leave. When the time came to rotate I hated to leave. I thought I should stay to get the new medic squared away, to make sure he knew what was going on. You just want all the guys you know to get through." Next to helping wounded Skytroopers, bringing 20th century medicine to the Vietnamese villagers is Manning's favorite job. "One time, when we went on a MEDCAP, we came on a boy with what we suspected was tetanus. His back was bowed and his jaw contorted. We treated him as best we could and sent him to the district dispensary. We came a week later and he came bounding into the room, one of the first ones in, all well. I couldn't have been happier." For Spec. 5 John Bauer, a co-worker of Manning's, to become a medic was a more deliberate action.
Feeling he did have a commitment to his government, Bauer decided the way to deal with the problem of military service was to volunteer as a medic, though his complete medical experience consisted of a Red Cross first aid course and three days in the hospital to have his tonsils out. Classified as a 'conscientious objector' by the Army, Bauer does not carry a weapon and refuses to kill. Raised in a religious family, he developed a strong moral code and a profound antipathy to war and violence at an early age. "I subscribe to the ancient belief that God created man in his own image, and to defame is to profane them both," Bauer said, adjusting his wire framed glasses and smiling a little self-consciously at his perhaps too abstract phrase making. Though raised in a certain set of beliefs, a free examination of ideas was also part of the family tradition. "At first I accepted the teaching without question. As I grew up I began to ask why. I still don't think I've found all the answers, but I think I'm getting there." The University of Indiana failed to provide the answers to support his earlier teaching. In the highly individualistic morality of Henry David Thoreau the humanitarianism and 'reverence of life' of missionary Albert Schweitzer and on a hiking trip around the Midwest, Bauer began to see the basis of his parents' philosophy. After six weeks of basic training and 10 weeks at MTC Bauer approached Vietnam with his still inchoate beliefs. "Being a CO and medic over here puts you in a difficult position. You've already stated how you intend to react to a specific situation in the field long before you've ever experienced it. That's always the most difficult question for a CO to answer-- 'How do you know what you'll do when....?' You may believe that all living things must be respected, that each has the right to the one eternal moment in the universe, but contact out in the jungle and the safety or lack of it of your friends may appear to prove you wrong. It's something you have to judge, but first experience." How do the men treat a medic when they find out he does not and will not carry a weapon, even to protect himself? "The men were curious at first, some even a little angry" (Okay man, but they won't even let you in the PX without a weapon.) I did a lot of rapping those first few weeks. (In a war, man, you kill or they'll get you. They'll be after you whether you have a weapon or not.) Most were skeptical until after the first few firefights. "Whenever we humped I carried my pack, plus every pound of medical supplies I could pack away in the medical case, my pockets, the claymore mine bag, anything which would hold supplies. The impression I got was that they didn't mind my not having a weapon, as long as I was there when they needed help. "Here's what I was looking for all along, you depended on them and they on you, completely. (You cover me and I cover you.) What almost no one could achieve in the world, was the everyday reality here. The individual with a respect for other people could accomplish a great deal whether it's covering a sucking chest wound with a pressure dressing or curing a Montagnard child's tonsillitis." Whether a CO or just picked arbitrarily by the Army, the medic is a soldier that other G.I.s would agree accomplishes a great deal, a great deal indeed. |
He's the military's all purpose solution to the problem of medical treatment in
the forward area. He's the medical corpsman, military occupational specialty 91A10. In the
1st Air Cav a doctor is only minutes away by medevac helicopter, but it's those minutes
that make the difference and which the medic is trained to fill.
"To them you become a 'grunt', a special 'grunt', but still one of them.
Everyone works as a team. Each carries his share of the load, but if someone needs a hand,
he'll get it. It's just like being kin to all the men in the company. You help them and
they help you.
Vietnam became both a testing ground and a reaffirmation of Bauer's 'philosophy
of life.' According to Bauer, "Men are basically good and can and do help their
fellow men. Here, as in many other places I've seen, It's just a case of people caring for
and helping other people."