The Corpsmen Who Go Into Battle With the Marines
When Marines go into combat, there is often a sailor among them.
He wears the Marine uniform. He carries Marine equipment. He trains alongside Marines, sleeps where they sleep, marches where they march, and when the shooting starts, he goes forward with them.
But he is not a Marine.
He is a United States Navy hospital corpsman.
To Marines, however, he usually has another name.
“Doc.”
For generations, Navy corpsmen have accompanied Marines onto battlefields around the world. From the Pacific islands of World War II and the frozen mountains of Korea to the jungles of Vietnam, the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, corpsmen have treated wounded Marines while often exposing themselves to the same enemy fire that caused the wounds.
Their relationship with the Marine Corps has become one of the most enduring partnerships in American military history.
A Sailor Among Marines
The United States Marine Corps does not maintain its own medical corps.
Instead, the Navy provides medical personnel to Marine units. Navy hospital corpsmen assigned to the Fleet Marine Force become an integral part of the units they support.
For a corpsman assigned to an infantry platoon, that means becoming much more than someone waiting in a medical facility.
He lives with the Marines.
He trains with them.
He learns their weapons, tactics and routines. He carries much of the same field equipment, along with the medical supplies that may determine whether a wounded Marine lives or dies.
Over time, the distinction between sailor and Marine can become almost invisible.
Except when somebody gets hurt.
Then everyone knows exactly who the corpsman is.
“DOC!”
Few words shouted on a battlefield carry more urgency.
Running Toward the Wounded
Combat medicine presents a brutal contradiction.
When enemy fire wounds a Marine, everyone else may instinctively seek cover.
The corpsman often has to move toward the casualty.
He may crawl across exposed ground, enter a burning vehicle, climb into a fighting position or work while rounds are striking nearby. His first task is to stop catastrophic bleeding, establish an airway and stabilize the wounded Marine enough to get him to a higher level of medical care.
Sometimes that treatment happens in relative protection.
Sometimes it happens in the open.
Corpsmen have repeatedly placed themselves between wounded Marines and enemy fire, using their own bodies as protection while providing treatment.
Many have paid for it with their lives.
The Pacific War
The bond between Marines and corpsmen was forged especially strongly during the island campaigns of World War II.
At Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and countless smaller engagements, Navy medical personnel landed with Marine assault units.
The conditions could be horrific.
Corpsmen treated devastating wounds caused by machine guns, artillery, mortars and grenades, frequently with only the supplies they could carry ashore.
At Iwo Jima, some corpsmen landed under intense Japanese fire and immediately began treating casualties on the beaches.
One of the most famous photographs in American history also contains a Navy corpsman.
When the second American flag was raised atop Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, one of the six men captured in Joe Rosenthal's photograph was Pharmacist's Mate Second Class John Bradley, a Navy corpsman serving with Marines.
Bradley's identification as one of the flag raisers was later corrected after extensive historical investigation. Another Navy corpsman, Pharmacist's Mate Second Class John H. Willis, earned the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima after repeatedly returning to aid wounded Marines despite being wounded himself. Willis was eventually killed while treating casualties.
The stories of men like Willis illustrate just how deeply Navy medical personnel were embedded with Marine combat units.
Frozen Ground in Korea
Five years later, corpsmen again went into battle beside Marines in Korea.
During the Chosin Reservoir campaign in late 1950, Marines and sailors fought not only Chinese forces but temperatures that plunged far below zero.
Medical treatment became extraordinarily difficult.
Blood plasma and medical supplies could freeze. Hands became numb. Wounded men faced hypothermia and frostbite in addition to their combat injuries.
Corpsmen still moved among the casualties.
One of them was Hospital Corpsman Third Class William R. Charette.
During fighting in Korea in March 1953, Charette repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while treating wounded Marines. When an enemy grenade landed near the men he was treating, Charette threw himself over the wounded Marines and absorbed the explosion.
Badly injured, he continued providing medical care.
For his actions, Charette received the Medal of Honor.
Vietnam: “Doc” in the Jungle
The relationship continued in Vietnam.
Corpsmen accompanied Marine infantry units through jungles, rice paddies, villages and fortified positions. They served during battles such as Hue, Khe Sanh and countless patrols whose names never appeared in newspapers.
In Vietnam, a corpsman might be responsible for the routine medical needs of his Marines one moment and treating catastrophic combat wounds the next.
Marines came to know their corpsmen personally.
The corpsman knew who had allergies, who was sick, who had injured an ankle, and who needed to be watched after a difficult patrol.
That familiarity mattered when combat came.
The corpsman wasn't treating strangers.
He was treating his Marines.
Iraq and Afghanistan
The equipment changed dramatically in the decades that followed.
Modern corpsmen entered combat carrying advanced trauma equipment that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined. Improved tourniquets, hemostatic dressings and battlefield trauma techniques greatly increased the chances of surviving wounds that once would have been fatal.
But technology did not change the fundamental job.
Corpsmen still traveled with Marine infantry patrols.
They rode in Humvees and MRAPs through areas threatened by improvised explosive devices. They entered buildings with Marine squads. They accompanied units into places such as Fallujah, Ramadi, Helmand Province and Marjah.
And when Marines were wounded, corpsmen still heard the same call heard by their predecessors decades earlier.
“DOC!”
Some of the Navy's Most Decorated Sailors
The courage displayed by corpsmen serving with Marines is reflected in their decorations.
Navy hospital corpsmen have received numerous Medals of Honor while serving alongside Marine units, along with Navy Crosses, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts.
Their citations frequently contain remarkably similar descriptions.
A Marine is wounded.
Enemy fire continues.
The corpsman leaves cover.
He reaches the casualty.
And he refuses to leave until the Marine has been treated.
Sometimes the corpsman survives.
Sometimes he does not.
More Than a Medic
Calling a corpsman simply a “medic” does not completely describe his place within a Marine unit.
A corpsman may spend months or years with the same Marines. He shares their hardships and becomes part of the personality of the platoon or company.
Marines frequently describe their corpsmen with a kind of possessiveness.
Not *the* corpsman.
Our Doc.
That distinction says almost everything about the relationship.
A good corpsman earns the trust of Marines because they know that when everything goes wrong, he will be there.
And the corpsman knows something equally important.
Those Marines will protect him too.
The Eagle, Globe and Anchor — and the Caduceus
Navy corpsmen remain sailors.
They belong to the United States Navy and carry on the traditions of the Navy Hospital Corps.
But those who serve with Marines occupy a unique place between the two services.
Many earn the Fleet Marine Force qualification and become deeply immersed in Marine Corps culture. Some spend significant portions of their careers assigned to Marine units.
Ask Marines years after leaving the service about the sailors they served beside, and there is a good chance the first person they remember will be their corpsman.
Because somewhere in Marine Corps history—from a beach in the Pacific to a frozen Korean hillside, a Vietnamese jungle, an Iraqi city or an Afghan village—a Marine has been wounded and called for help.
And a sailor has answered.
“Doc's coming.”