The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - A Brief History of my Beloved U.S. Navy Hospital Corps | PPP #9

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

In A Brief History of my Beloved U.S. Navy Hospital Corps | PPP #9 I honor the history and sacrifice of my alma mater, the United States Navy Hospital Corps.

Hey everybody, Kevin Pinnell. Today we're going to cover a history of the United States Navy Hospital Corps from Loblolly Boys to Devil Docs. I was a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy for just under six years, so in keeping with kind of that second show where I covered ancient grappling to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I'm starting to dive more into the history of things in my life, things that I think other people will find interesting. And today I'm going to share the evolution and history of the position of the hospital corpsman in the United States Navy. Before I do that, thank you again for the great response to episode eight with Andrew

Smith, where we talked about starting from the ground up, early days of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, misconceptions about Judo, pretty cool things about starting businesses and being entrepreneurial. So please check that out. It's still posted everywhere. And I really appreciate everybody sharing, talking about it. Share this podcast with other people. Get in touch with me at peopleprocessprogress at gmail.com, the dot com, same name, and Instagram, either way, on things you'd like to hear about.

And we will get started in 3, 2, 1. I solemnly pledge myself before God and these witnesses to practice faithfully all of my duties as a member of the hospital corps. I hold the care of the sick and injured to be a sacred trust and will assist the medical officer with loyalty and honesty. I will not knowingly permit harm to come to any patient. I will not partake of nor administer any unauthorized medication. I will hold all personal matters pertaining to the private

lives of patients in strict confidence. I dedicate my heart, mind, and strength to the work before me. I shall do all within my power to show in myself an example of all that is honorable and good throughout my naval career. That is the pledge that every United States Navy hospital corpsman takes. It is in addition to the Sailor's Creed. It is in addition to the commitment we make when we raise our right hand and sign up for service in the military. The United States Navy hospital corps is one of the most highly decorated enlisted corps in all of the military. I am so proud to be an alumni of that program, and I look forward today in this episode nine, Loblolly Boys to Devil Docs, a brief

history of the U.S. Navy Hospital Corps and sharing my storyline, but more importantly, sharing the storyline of the folks that helped develop the hospital corps to what it is today. For all of my corpsmen out there, thank you so much to all those I served with. Good to keep in touch with you all. And for our Marines, of course, that we take care of, hoorah, hoo-yah, Navy. So myself, Kevin Pinnell, host of the People Process Progress podcast. I was a hospital corpsman in the United States Navy for about six years from 94 to 2000. At that time, we were pretty peaceful, some skirmishes here and there.

So I enjoyed a stay at boot camp at Great Lakes for a little bit. I stayed at Great Lakes to attend U.S. Navy Hospital Corps School. That's the A school or like the basic version. I had a good opportunity, and I mentioned this in some past podcasts, to start to develop my leadership. I had some lessons learned that were bad, some lessons learned that were good. I was the assistant leading petty officer for my hospital core class, so I learned how to lead within the class a bit. I also learned how not to lead by using my position when I got upset once. I learned about that, so great experience, Great Lakes, it's cold, stays cold, but it was a neat experience. So we'll get into the newer consolidation of US

Navy Hospital Corps training, but that's where I went to. And from there, I went to Bethesda Naval Hospital and I was in administration. So way back when, so for folks listening out there, we used to use paper and stamps and log books and things like that. Not the nice systems that we have today. So I did correspondence. I was the correspondence clerk for the admiral's office there in the tower. And if you've been to National Naval Medical Center, it's easily recognizable of any picture. It's the big tower in the middle.

So I was up in there, worked for a senior chief, did a pretty good job there, and had a chance to go out to Camp Pendleton, California for fleet hospital training, which was really cool. So that was getting those big cargo Connex boxes that can turn into hospitals, surgical suites. So I got to train in there. I trained in decedent affairs a bit, which means the morgue. So that wasn't awesome, but, you know, when I was brand new, so I still wasn't really a corpsman doing corpsman stuff, but it was very interesting

to learn about, you know, records and processing remains and things like that. And then I actually got to do a little red teaming as an attack on the base to help security do an exercise. So that was kind of cool. So my first rattlesnake out there, slept in the old school, big canvas tent. So pretty cool experience there.

From there, I actually kind of got my pass into, I had a buddy, my roommate actually worked in critical care in the intensive care unit. And that was kind of the place to be to do some high speed things. And I was fortunate that I got to transfer there. So most of my specialization when I was a hospital corpsman was as a critical care hospital corpsman, and it's not an official like C-school or NEC-like specialty, but we did go through a critical care course, the same one the nurses go through, so we got to do some high-speed things. I operated

about an LPN RN level. The only thing I couldn't do was, you know, have access to narcotics like registered nurses. And we were supervised by them when we had patients, but the critical care course taught us anything from central line placement or assistant placement to draining cerebral spinal fluid, starting IVs, drawing blood gases. So it was pretty extensive, learned how to read 12 lead EKGs, did the advanced cardiac life support course, became an EMT, and worked my way up to be the senior corpsman of the intensive care unit and then the assistant leading petty officer for all of critical care at Bethesda. So that was really cool. And really how I built my medical knowledge that I use today as an IT project

manager at an academic medical center. So, you know, think about if you served a while ago, you're serving now, how you can transfer those skills and down the road, which I'll talk about my kind of transition out, um, how you can use those beyond these, the very specific military skills. So, you know, having a medical background helps for sure, whether you stay in medicine or not. At the time, the transition from corpsman to civilian paramedic or nurse was not as good as it is now, and I'll kind of come back to that. While I was at Bethesda, though, I got to be on the USNS Comfort. That's the hospital ship, the big white ship with the big red cross on

the sides in front and stationed at baltimore got to go on a float over to the baltic as part of baltic challenge and exercise there do some flight ops on the flight deck and worked in the casualty receiving bay treated some real casualties and then did a big exercise over there so really cool actually got to sail across the atlantic through the English Channel, and see a cool area, go down to Visby, Sweden, a little island. Very cool experience. So that was really my big deployment in the Navy. After that, I had a short stint at Naval Diving and Salvaging Training Center in Panama City, Florida, where I was in the biomedical technician program. And if you've listened to episode one, kind of my intro re intro for the people process progress podcast, this podcast, I guess, you'll note that I talk about not making my dream. So when I was in the

Navy, before I joined, I really wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I read the books, watch the VHS tapes, old school jams, and wanted to do that. But I didn't prepare as well as I could have. I did take swimming lessons at the Y just to shore things up like that, but didn't really have my head in the game. When I went to do my screening test, which was, I think, the third time I'd taken it in the Navy, I missed buds by one pull-up, but qualified for dive school and said, oh, I'll do that. So, you know, I committed to something, and this is a lifelong lesson that I keep with me. I said, oh, okay, I'll settle for that. And settling for something like dive medical technician is not something you should do. It's a hard course physically and

mentally. And hats off to all my pals that made it through. And everyone that has done and does that job now, it's super hard. So don't go go into a course halfway don't go in there thinking it's going to be a party uh the trappings of you know wherever the school is uh focus on what you're doing but for me i did push myself through a lot of things uh water competency drown proofing uh the physical uh exercise uh for me it was the base swim where you're on your back uh can't use your arms, just flutter kick. And I was not very good at that and hadn't practiced it and didn't have the heart in it. Because I know a lot of folks in tough training like that push through and they make it even if they didn't train on it because they're all in. And so that's what you have to do.

So that'd be my advice is if you're going to go to some hard school, be all in, put everything into it and just, you know, do the best that you can. So, again, lessons learned in life, right, that I carry with me now. So now I do prepare better. I do push myself harder. I do go in when I go in, you know, and do some things. And so I was looking at, after failing that last swim, I was doing sit call for a bit, stayed at dive school a little bit, and then went back to Bethesda. So someone was looking out for me, saw my name as available, pulled me back, and also gave me some really good leadership advice, you know, making E5,

getting back there and saying, hey, this isn't like where you can just hang out, trying to push me to keep doing better. And I wasn't lazy, but, you know, you come back from something you failed at when you've been successful. And I had some great leaders there that gave me good advice to help me, you know, pull my bootstraps up and keep going forward. So for me, though, I decided to get out 2000, got that DD 214 a little bit for that. And around that time, getting Microsoft certifications and getting into computers was a great gateway to really instantly double my very low enlisted salary. And so that's what I did. So I got into IT.

And then from there, you know, did IT for a while and went back to school, got into public health and public safety and on down the road. And you can maybe if you check me out on LinkedIn, look at more of that. But that was my naval career. I enjoyed every minute of it, made great friends, saw the world, saved lives, lost lives. There were some tough times in there, some great times. And I'll touch on that near the end. But that's my quick me time as a corpsman. And I evolved so much.

And I'll talk a bit more of that. But I really want to focus on the corps itself today and how it has evolved so much and the process of the hospital core itself and of medicine, military medicine. And that's one thing that many of you probably know is that war, the military, conflict, horrible injuries are also what help us advance medicine. And that is so true throughout history. And I'll touch on medical innovations as well as the innovations of the position of the hospital corpsman throughout history. So let's jump into that right now. Again, thanks everybody for listening. PeopleProcessProgress.com, people process progress share this subscribe so here we go um so in 1799 so we're going way back still new america right not that old congress was like hey you know what we're going to send all these ships out we've got this this

new power we need to make sure that we're providing some kind of medicine for our people right and so they said hey you have to set up this space on a ship called a cockpit or sick bay. Well, there were surgeons, there were doctors already, but there's not enough of those to go around. And so, as I said in the title, this was the first name of the corpsman was called Loblolly Boy and actually became an official rate in 1814. So not my favorite name as a corpsman in our history, but you know what? Things evolve. Loblolly, though, was another name for porridge. And so Loblolly Boys used to serve this porridge to the sick and injured patients, and it stuck. And then it actually became an official rate in 1814 which is which is super wild but you know that's the early days that's the early uh development of an area dedicated to medicine

to treating the sick and injured on a ship right versus you know throw them on the floor somewhere or you know i can't imagine that and i'm sure it was still pretty rough not like today's pretty nice you know when i was on the comfort and that was a while ago um it was a hospital within an oil tanker essentially now there's even you know you can do the latest medicine in the middle of the ocean it's it's pretty amazing so let's jump to another time period from about 1814 to about 1888 and kind of like again this is my own research i'm not an academic expert um i had some history we had to know history to advance you know to become a corpsman it's part of your curriculum i'm interested in anyway but there's a few histories with some variation this is my

hodgepodge i'll share the the resources you know just like i did for the grappling the jujitsu one but about 1814 to 1888 the loblolly name turned to surgeon stewardward, male nurses, baymen, which baymen means meaning the sick bay, so literally bay men that are in the sick bay, to apothecaries. So, you know, you can see all these different names depending on the needs, probably on who was in charge. No, let's call them this, let's call them that. Wide variety of things. Also during this time, so, you know, 1814 to 1880, a lot of development in the United States happened.

And of course, near the end part of this time period, the Civil War happened, right? A little bit before that, anesthesia was discovered, right? Thank goodness. And so it was used a bit more in the Civil War, right? Before they would amputate limbs, which is pretty horrible. And the Civil War notorious, right? For scenes like that in many movies of amputating limbs and similar translate that medicine to a ship, right, to the, you know, the iron clads, to the big boats on the ocean. And fortunately for the folks that were having unfortunate, horrible things, you know, like amputations, that in the 1840s, anesthesia was happening. So a long time ago, we've had it. Of course, sometimes they didn't do the anesthesia well and the person died. But when it did work,

it helped at least kind of take away some of the pain. So let's jump to 1898. This is the anniversary, the birthday, the official hospital core establishment by President McKinley. So this is on the crystal glasses I have from the, you know, annual Hospital Corps ball and the t-shirts. And cool thing is I still have a couple of t-shirts from back then that have this 100 year anniversary when I was in in 98. Very cool. Get after it in them. So again, very nice. This established the ratings of hospital steward, which was a chief petty officer. So that's a very high enlisted, you know, chiefs run the Navy. Hospital apprentice first class, which was a third class petty

officer. So kind of a misnomer there. And we'll get into kind of what it is now. And then hospital apprentice. What's neat in this time is there were about 25 original apothecaries at this time that are considered kind of the plank owners of the hospital corps. So when President McKinley said, hey, let's make this official, there were 25 folks already in place that were the foundation that got us going and prepared us for the future as hospital corpsmen. So thank you to those 25 plank owners and President McKinley for changing things and establishing us officially. So let's hit 1900. The very first Medal of Honor won was earned by hospital apprentice Robert Stanley, but it wasn't earned here.

It was earned in Beijing, which then was known as Peking during the Boxer Rebellion. And here's the citation on his Medal of Honor. On June 13th, and again from June 20th to 22nd in Beijing, again, Peking back then, he volunteered to carry messages between the American and British legations. Despite heavy fire, for these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor a year later on July 19th, 1901. So they were over in China. They were during the Boxer Rebellion. We were supporting that or part of it. And he ran back

and forth right delivering messages so that's you know the first medal of honor that a hospital corpsman's won so hats off to you bravo zulu robert stanley no small feat you can read there's medal of honor website that talks about all the hospital corpsmen that have won he's he's the first one on there so godspeed you there robert thank you world war one horrible war right trench warfare we're using all sorts of chemicals we're taking a little bit of ground we're losing tons of lives again like i said earlier combat conflict advances medicine greatly because of the horrible need of injuries or the effects of something on someone. Here, rank structure again is evolving.

So again, this process of folks using these names, using these ranks, no, you know what, we're expanding more, we need to have different names. So that happens here. So now we're going to get hospital apprentice, hospital second class, hospital first class, pharmacist mates third, second and first, and chief pharmacist mates. So we've still got a blend of kind of current, pharmacist mates third, second, and first, and chief pharmacist mates. So we still got a blend of kind of current like hospital men and pharmacist mates. So we still got some old school things.

But what really helped was the improved rank structure allowed for it to expand, which helped us do other things in the world, particularly the war in France and for the occupation of Haiti in 1915, 1934. So more people, more rank structure, more leadership. Through this process of growth, the United States Navy, the government, the hospital corps expanded based on the needs, just like a dynamic org chart in incident management or on project teams. You grow and shrink it as you need it. You make functional titles or levels like that. And so that's what our government did. During World War I, the reputation of the hospital corps grew, especially from the field service with the Marines. So again, for folks that don't know, the hospital corps, the United States Navy provides the corpsmen or medics, which most people probably know of. Army and Air Force,

I believe, are called medics. And so Navy Hospital corpsmen are the medics for the United States Marines, right? So a lifelong partnership. Many corpsmen have served with the Marines. I did not officially serve with them. I treated them like down in dive school on the ship here and there. It was more of a blue side or ocean than green side with air and different tempo right so in you know 2001 and beyond a little bit after i got out we were in afghanistan iraq a lot more land-based warfare so a lot more need for corman to go into the field like that but uh world war one corman working working with Marines a ton and really built up the relationship and built up their reputation. At the time, in World War I, Corman wore the Red Cross on their sleeves.

The ranking in Sydney was a Red Cross, which is a cool, I think, kind of throwback signal. So it's very recognizable. And here are some of the awards. And, you know know folks say that you know you don't do all this work for awards but it's pretty astounding so in war one corpsman received 460 major awards it includes two medals of honor 55 navy crosses 31 distinguished service medals two u.s army distinguished Medals and 27 letters of accommodation. No small thing through no small level of unbelievable work, I'm sure, in horrible conditions. If you've seen a World War I movie, if you've read about World War I, it's just, to me,

the scariest kind of hell on earth scenario you could have. Huge medical innovations, again, spawned by the need, was the regular use of blood transfusions. People bleeding out, the best thing for them is more blood. And that's something that in more recent years, you know, we've really helped train other folks on is not necessarily using the blood, but not flooding people out that are clotting with too much fluids. So in World War I even, right in the early 1900s, we were using blood transfusions. We're also moving our battlefield aid stations near the front lines. And so you could get people on stretchers or over your shoulder or drag them, whatever, to these aid

stations, which means they got more definitive care than the quick stuff in the field. And there were voluntary ambulance drivers driving people all around, right between the hospitals and aid stations and the front lines and back to the rear. And a lot of these drivers, which is neat, and are there in partnership with these corpsmen and surgeons and doctors and treating were Quakers that were conscientious objectors, right? So folks that wouldn't, because of their beliefs, use a weapon, but they would get in an ambulance and they would drive in super dangerous areas and move patients around. And I think that says a lot, to not even have a weapon or use one, but you are more than willing to go risk your life to help save others by transporting them in ambulances. So hats off to the Quakers that were those voluntary ambulance drivers. Another thing, which is really a horrible way to discover it,

is World War I, there were chemical weapons. Gas, right, that burned your lungs, that choked you to death, that made you drown in your own fluids in your lungs. Just horrible things, horrible ways to die. The chemical weapons actually helped lead to the development of cancer chemotherapy. Right, cancer-killing chemotherapy. lead to the development of cancer chemotherapy right cancer killing chemotherapy so um physicians scholars looked at the effect of chemical weapons and found well hey this does so much damage to tissue does it also do so much bad damage to bad tissue like cancer and through

you know some high level science and chemistry stuff that i'm not going to get into they developed chemotherapy if you know about chemotherapy high-level science and chemistry stuff that I'm not going to get into, they developed chemotherapy. If you know about chemotherapy, you know it's pretty rough stuff. And again, one of the nurses I worked with during my time in the ICU had this statement, you know, it's not necessarily the cancer that kills you, sometimes it's the treatment, because chemotherapy is so strong. So, you know, hearing about where the development of chemotherapy came from, looking at the effect of chemical weapons on people's bodies kind of puts in perspective, not just cause it's, you know, radioactive chemicals and, and, you know, whatever the chemicals are made of and components, but just thinking about, you know, someone went, Hey, let's take this

horrible effect, this bad thing, and let's turn it into how we can try and treat people. And it did make huge differences, you know, chemotherapy saved many lives. And so unfortunate war one, you know, was the place to discover it, but fortunate that someone took the, took the time to look at something so bad and turn it into a positive use of effects on the human body. So pretty amazing. So Corman, huge, huge reputation builder and hard work and loss in World War I. In 1923, just after World War I, the dental technician rating became available. So if you were a Corman or pharmacist made or whatever iteration,

you know, title you wore, because we still had kind of those mixed titles, there was availability to start training in dental, right? And so down the road, the dental technician rating would be developed and it's, it has some medical training, but it's really like a dental assistant or a dental hygienist. And then later on in 48, kind of, you know, after World War II, you could actually go

directly into that rating. But in 23, Cormac could cross-train in dental work a little more extensively. So I thought that was pretty cool. And we, you know, worked with dental technicians quite a bit at Bethesda. They had a big dental school there and medical school, but kind of cool, I think. World War II, again, another huge conflict, right, a world war, and another proving ground to learn more through lessons learned in combat. And so the WAVES, or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service,

had the first hospital corps school in 1944, January 12, 1944, which is pretty cool. It was at Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. That's what it used to be called. That's what it was called when I went there. So a huge innovation for equality or a little more equality, right, for women that volunteered. My grandmother on my paternal grandmother, was also a WAVE. She was a yeoman, was E6, but that WAVE program was fantastic. Strong women doing amazing things.

Cool to see women join the hospital corps in 1944. During World War II, this is a crazy statistic, I think, of the 15 enlisted Navy men that earned the Medal of Honor seven of them were corpsmen right and again I'm going to dote on the corpsmen because it's just such an outstanding rating full of outstanding people

that when I saw that and the research was just astounding to me that you know almost half of all the Navy enlisted Medal of Honors were from corpsmen but we think about what they do in the theaters they were in and particularly you know marines heavy in the pacific or on ships um you know corpsman are right there with them that that's that's what happens um and of those corpsman of world war ii uh many folks probably marines and corpsman know this is the raising of

the flag on mount suribachi at iwo jima so the iconic world war ii memorial um you know statue and the flag going up uh one of those was a pharmacist mate uh so again still has the the mixed name there john bradley was there with the five marines that raised the flag so corpsman hand in hand with their marine brothers at the time now brothers and sisters and to summarize it better than probably i am the the effect and the greatness that the corps did in world war ii i want to actually read secretary of the navy james forestall's statement about corpsmen every 100 men of the united states navy and Marine Corps who were wounded in World War II, 97 recovered. This is a record not equal to anywhere, anytime. Every individual who was thus saved from death owes an everlasting debt to the Navy's hospital corps.

The Navy is indebted to the corps. The entire nation is its debtor for thousands of citizens are living normal, constructive, happy, and productive lives who, but for the skill and the toil of the hospital corps, might be dead or disheartened by crippling invalidism. So, to the 200,000 men and women of the hospital corps, I say on behalf of the United States Navy, well done. Well done indeed. Heck yeah. Guess what we had? Rating change. World War II, right?

Growing. 200,000 men and women. That's a lot. So really more in line with what they are today. So we have a hospital recruit, a hospital apprentice, and then a hospitalman. So that's E1 recruit, E2 apprentice, E3 hospitalman. Then we get into the petty officers. So petty officer third class, so HM3, HM2, HM1.

So that's hospitalman, petty officer third class, second class, first class. Then you have HMC or hospital corpsman chief. You have the senior and the master chiefs there. So that's in line with what's happening today, which is pretty awesome. And this is also a huge change to the current rating insignia, where the Red Cross was then changed to the Caduce, and the Caduce or Caduceus for folks out there is the medical symbol. So that's the staff with the two snakes wrapped around it and the wings, and that's the symbol. So that's what you'll the two snakes wrapped around it and the wings. And that's the

symbol. So that's what you'll see on a hospital corpsman's either collar insignia, if they're wearing the pins, or on their patch on their sleeve on their left arm. So that was a huge change that became the symbol for the hospital corps. And medical innovation, so many again, through such a big conflict antibiotics and treating and preventing infections were were huge because as you can imagine you know conditions dirty infection was a huge problem and killed folks and so the increased use of antibiotics and treating and preventing infections saved many many lives and we actually learned something from our enemies. So through captured German soldiers that happened to need x-rays, and again, the Americans in not just, you know, go take them to a ditch and execute them. And so we had captured German soldiers and some of them needed x-rays. And when we did x-rays, we found that they had metal plates

on bones. This was from when they had had fractures and they used metal plates to heal them. And they healed in half the time that our folks were because internally we had put metal plates in there, you know, or they had screwed them. So the German advancements in medicine helped us advance, right? So through conflict, so unfortunate, you know, circumstance, but, and that's still used today, right? People get screws in their bones, plates in their head, all these kinds of things. And so go figure that because we are good to the people that we were fighting against when they are injured, we found a way to help us get better. So great innovation there.

After World War II, Hospital Corpsman served for sure in Korea with the Marines. They landed at Incheon, and they were part of the retreat of the Chosin Reservoir. So that freezing cold, horrible circumstance there. All five enlisted Navy medals of honor were given to corpsmen that were serving with the marines during the korean war that's unbelievable again if you look at you know and i'm not totally surprised given the folks that i served with in various capacities the work that they did that we did that you have to do whether you're in the field on a ship in a, in a field hospital,

in an ambulance, working special events, doing whatever. You are the first responders for the Navy. I mean, so you do tons of stuff. And for the folks in Korea, the corpsmen in Korea, they just really got after it and took care of their folks there. A huge innovation in Korea was helicopters, used to helicopters. So imagine the time saved from getting someone in a helicopter to flying them to one of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals or MASH units, right? If you've seen that show MASH, then that's, you know, one of the things. And they show those helicopters as ones with kind of the big bubble that look like dragonflies a little bit. So the Korean War helped the medicine that Corman did and the care that Corman provided advance by the technology of helicopters to get patients to and from or from the battlefield, from point of injury or close to it,

to a MASH unit and then to more definitive care down the road. So that's a huge medevac. And there's been other movies, particularly about Vietnam, more for assault or combat focus. Particularly, they were soldiers using helicopters to go into battle. But in Korea, the innovation was to get injured folks out of battle. And that's a huge plus in saving lives. After Korea, on to Vietnam. And again, the United States has been in many conflicts and taken some big hits and also benefited from it. And the hospital core for its evolution of medicine that it could provide is one of those areas that has benefited. So

to look at these medical innovations and process development alongside with how the positions itself and the structure of it evolved is, is pretty wild to consider. Again, if you look at what you do every day, or you look at a project or an incident management team or jujitsu or something you're developing, you take bits and pieces from here and there from, from bad encounters, from good encounters, from less, you know, from strengths, strengths from areas for improvement and you apply them and then you try and make better and better products and that's what the core has been doing better and better alignment of positions better and better medical care levels better better survival rates and so in vietnam they really expanded and provided and they did this in other wars as well just this is

one of the good highlights from one of the sources I got of really, gosh, providing a wide array of services. So, sure, direct combat, medical support, both with the SEALs, Navy SEALs, with Marines, part of the Brownwater Navy. So that's on the small boats and the rivers. But also doing health care and advice to civilians, right? So helping the folks in Vietnam, the civilian populace there with sick call, with, you know, their kids that were injured, them being sick, hospital corpsmen with air holding clinics. They also were in positions to be medical advisors to the Vietnamese military units and help them with how best to treat their people. So what were some of these advances that corpsmen were part of?

And again, corpsmen weren't the only military medical folks using these technologies, but certainly right in the thick of things. Well, a big one was using frozen blood products, right? So if the blood products are frozen, they last a lot longer than a fresh pint of blood that's going to go bad in not that long of a time. So traumatic injuries, again, blood and blood products are the best thing to treat that to get volume back and someone to help people's clotting Factors a whole bunch of different things and so in Vietnam these a lot of frozen blood products At you know either point of care or soon thereafter getting folks to the the field hospitals there Also using dressings that had antiseptics a lot of burns in vietnam and so a huge thing with

burns is infection right because it's exposed that protective layer of our skin we don't have it gets burnt off pretty horrible to think about think about some of the burns particularly think about napalms and the other incendiary devices phosphorus that were used during that war and if folks were burned and we use these dressings that had antiseptic antibiotic substance on them, then it helped. So you put that on the burn and that helps, you know, fight infection off or help kill it if it's there a bit. And fluid management.

So another huge problem with being burned severely is that you lose a lot of fluid. And so managing fluid better was a great medical innovation during the Vietnam War era to keep burn victims more hydrated and from dehydrating and healthier. A cool innovation too is not as much of a direct medical one but it is more of a health and safety one, was acclimatization to prepare troops for getting there. So, you know, folks, if they're on a ship, not flying over, they're in a nice air conditioning

area, and then all of a sudden you pop out in Vietnam, which is pretty toasty and humid, and you're not acclimated if you're, you know, from the Midwest or somewhere cold, you're not used to a super humid jungle. So one thing they started doing medicine started doing was to get folks acclimated right so there'd be um times that they have to go outside on the ship where it was hot for a certain amount of time and then they would you know get troops used to that do some activities get them a little hot so by the time they got to vietnam they would be a little more acclimated than if they just showed up and came out of nice air conditioning and never went outside. And this is a time, not sponsored by

them or anything, but when they started using Gatorade to help with salt balance, right? So you sweat a lot, you got to keep the salt in there. So starting to use Gatorade or Gatorade like drinks was a thing that happened during the Vietnam War as well. Pretty wild. And, you know, some conflicts between Vietnam and 9-11 in this period, Beirut, Grenada, Desert Storm. You know, there were corpsmen

that died in the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that were stationed with them there. In Grenada, corpsmen carried stretchers and treated patients evacuated to the guam the uss guam was an amphibious assault ship that was just off the coast there and corpsman of course on the ship doing treatment and doing stretcher bearing and desert storm certainly tons of corpsman um there were between the corpsman that were on the

u.s and it's mercy and the comfort so the Mercy is the sister ship of the Comfort. One's in the East Coast, the Comfort. Mercy's on the West Coast. 5,880 corpsmen served with Marines during Desert Storm. A good buddy of mine was a Marine during Desert Storm, so hoorah to you. As he likes to tell me, yes, the Marines are part of the Department of the Navy. They are the men's department, but I'll give you that one, Mike. So, yeah, huge, huge partnership there during the storm.

You know, corpsmen treating the Marines there and then, you know, the hospital ships as well for any folks that were injured and evacuated to there and then on to more prolonged care. So then we get to a period for Quorman at 9-11. I had gotten out. I got out in January 2000, so just the following year. 9-11 happens to be four days before my anniversary. So as you can imagine, four days before you're going to get married, and 9-11 happens, which 9-11 is horrible in its own right. Imagine the impact.

I'll give a shout-out to my family and friends that got on the road and drove to our wedding. Thank you all for that. As you can imagine, at the Pentagon in particular, where there are corpsmen stationed, they first responded to the plane that hit the Pentagon. They're among the first there to provide care and do what they could for people at that site. So, you know, this period, this post 9-11, global war on terror and beyond, also huge leaps and bounds. When I was a corpsman, so 90-42,000, and not just corpsman, but medical medicine in general, paramedicine or anything,

it was a no-no for tourniquets. It was, oh, they'll lose the limb. That's the last thing you want to do. And as we'll see throughout the global war on terror and through great work, really, that the Army Rangers have done. So shout out, Army Ranger medics. Give you your props. And the development of the Tactical Combat Casualty Care, TCCC,

realizing, you know what, if we get these tourniquets on early and stop the bleeding and save the life and not worry about the limb we're getting better at surgery we can probably save the limb and the life and that's eventually what happens so that's one thing that we'll see happening throughout this global war on terror as everyone knows or has seen the news ieds or improvised explosion devices various injuries injuries, traumatic injuries, particularly loss of limbs. You've got to set that bleeding immediately or, you know, folks will bleed out.

Global warrants here are so SEAL corpsmen. Early on we were over there to get some payback, get some information, one of which is probably the most famous, Marcus Luttrell, who was a corpsman, right, when his four-man SEAL element infiltrated. they were in Afghanistan, part of Operation Red Wings. And if you know who Marcus Luttrell is, you know he's the lone survivor. Unfortunately, his brothers-in-arms died on that mission, but he was a corpsman, right? So corpsman getting in to get some payback for 9-11 to help free some people oppressed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. And again, that medical innovation, it's a pretty austere environment. So speaking of loaded survivor in that movie, they're at a high elevation, right?

You think one peak is it, and then you get to there, and then there's another mountain. And then so many things, they're at super high altitude, so it's hard hard to breathe even for folks that are in good shape it's just a lot of work so a thing that medical providers and corpsman had to do particularly in afghanistan is figure out how to treat wounded longer in the same spot that they were in before they could get them out right depending on their landscape depending on availability of medivacs. But the corpsmen assigned that were in the field had to learn to treat, stabilize, and maintain patients for days

due to the challenging landscape of Afghanistan. So, you know, that in itself is a process of adaptation to not having readily available resources or competing resources or, you know, not being able to take them out yourself. So, you know, corpsmen upped their game, did what they could for their folks, and treated folks really well and the best they could on the spot for days on end before they could medevac them.

So that itself, that process of having to kind of be on your own to take care of yourself for a little bit, similar to what I spoke about as a medical unit leader in the wildland fire service. So medical unit leaders out there have to go in the middle of whatever forest is on fire and thousands of acres and set up a medical system just like our corpsmen had to do and have to do in austere areas and remote areas in Afghanistan, Iraq, uh, right. The other front of our global war on terror and ongoing operations, um, is where the shock trauma platoon concept was really exercised. And so there were two shock trauma platoons, um,

with each surgical company. And really what that was was similar to kind of the aid stations from earlier wars, but really bringing it back. So it was close to the front lines where you get to a higher level of care beyond even the corpsman to then nurses and doctors to where they can do a lot of, a lot of pretty high level treatment right, right after the injury or very close to after the injury and reduce time, you know, from advanced care to evacuation, uh, in Iraq. And so there's, there's some credit there that these STPs or shock trauma platoons, uh, contributed to a 98% survival rate for combat casualties. Like that's, that's amazing,

right? I mean, to be able to save that high of a percentage of folks that are injured is again, a testament to the team of corpsman nurses doctors uh and just the work that has to be done even you know i'll circle it back to the corpsman before they can even get to somebody else to try and save lives get those tourniquets on the battle dressings the everything they have to do while they're also dealing with what they've just seen right what they've been through while they're still in danger or they hurt just you know shout out to the the corpsman in the field and the combat corpsman and all they've done another thing that's happened in more recent years we mentioned in in 23 the dental technician or

dental training was kind of available um was was to merge things and so here we're gonna we're gonna learn you know that the the corps core of physician and medicine will continue to evolve. Medicine is called practice, right? People practice medicine because it's trial and error. Now it's high percentage using what we know, not as much guesswork these days. But, you know, some stuff is tried and it doesn't work. Some stuff is tried and it works and becomes practice. And so what we'll see as well is for the position of dental technician, folks realize, you know, we need more people. We need to kind of reduce the administrative nature of the dental technician position.

And so it merged with the hospital corpsman position that was absorbed into it in 2005. And again, that's, you know, needs of the Navy. And if you're in the military or, you know, the Navy in particular, but the military, it's needs of insert service here is what's going to happen. So if you were a dental technician and you're working in a clinic somewhere and that's your day-to-day job, you may be then assigned somewhere else, maybe more field-based. And there have been dental technicians, and not to be remiss in that, throughout history and some of these other conflicts that did serve in the field that needed to, you know, get out there. We needed them out there. And so, you know, valiantly and with distinction. But that was a huge change.

There were two separate rates for a long time. And since 2005, they've been merged. So, you know, after I was out and I found that interesting, kind of keep it that or looking at the merger of that because it was – they're very – they're similar in the fact that they're both enlisted medical positions or were. But we worked kind of around them and not with them a ton to the point of that it was very clearly separate rating. So I need to see that merger. And then my alma mater the national naval medical center merged as well so again the process of looking at you know we have these two big nationally recognized internationally recognized military medical centers so there's this national

naval medical center that's in bethesda the walter reed army medical D.C. just down the road. And so in 2011, they were merged to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, right? So the thought being, hey, instead of separate services with this up-tempo in casualties and injuries and the need for rehabilitation, long-term PTSD treatment, you know, all the needs and resource needs, people needs, all those kind of things identified, the Navy and the military with, you know, all the needs and resource, resource needs, people needs, all those kinds of things identified, um, the Navy and the military with, you know, base realignment said, you know what, we're going to consolidate these places, services. And I was fortunate to actually go work a couple of times at Walter Reed when we were separate, uh, to kind of staff augment them.

Um, so neat cross training, neat to see what they do. And now, you know, joined together in this Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. Another huge change was to consolidate medical education for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. So that was moved to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. And so you want to talk about an uproar. You know, since 1902, the Navy's had seven different hospital core school locations. I mentioned I went from boot camp in Great Lakes to core school in Great Lakes at that time, and that was in 94. There were some folks that were going to San Diego.

Portsmouth, of course, was the first one in 1902. And then there were a few other locations you can see at the resources that I'll share, but to then say, and again, look at the need and look at the process of evolution of training needs for all military medicine, including corpsman to say, you know what, we're doing tons of field work. We need more hands-on. We need to focus. And I'll touch on some of this again for how that, the training content even changed uh but it makes sense right so it was very hospital-based clinic-based uh ship-based focus with some field and and if you went to a marine unit you went to field medical service school and then you got some field

medicine there uh you know how to apply field medicine rather or like i had a guy that was a fmf or fleet marine force corpsman as, as my lead core school instructor. So he actually gave us some field training on his own during core school, but it's still not the full course. So now, and in recent years, um, you know, Fort Sam Houston is it for the army Navy and air force because you know, it's, it's desert, it's going to be more field-focused, more hands-on, so you don't have to wait and get the practical application of your skills

when you show up at whatever command you're going to be at, whether it's on a ship or ashore or in the field or with Marines. And so that's a huge thing, and that's a shift in the A-school focus, really, from the treatment facility care to include huge elements of the, I mentioned the tactical combat casualty care, T-triple-C. And what that does, and that's available for civilian worlds, too, and I was an instructor with that for a decompression, CPR, splinting, pressure dressings on medical dummies. And for corpsmen, so that the Department of Defense has a much bigger umbrella on what, you know, their providers can do, particularly enlisted providers than say civilian world where you're a paramedic. So if I was a corpsman where I could do all these things,

do needle decompression, intubate means putting,ate means putting airways or breathing tubes in people. As a corpsman, if you get out for the longest time, you would have had to then also either try and apply some of your credits and then complete paramedic school or go to nursing school. Now they have some bridge programs, but this TCCC, which is largely developed by the experience and outstanding work of Army Rangers and Special Operations medics, including Corman. But, you know, Rangers really have their name all over it, is a huge thing. And it's, you know, the Navy teaches it in a five-day class. TCCC is, I think, a two-and-a-half or three-day class now.

Or TECC is an evolution of that that's for first responders in the civilian world. And the gist of it is I covered on, on my, one of my earlier podcasts between the slides of the active shooters or active threats, right? It's stop the threat. Um, if you're a corpsman don't run out when there's a threat or now you'll be a patient. So it's relying on your folks with guns and stop the threat, get treatment as fast as possible. do that rapid triage treatment and transport casualty collection points do some quick care that decompression i mentioned you know open the lungs back up and then get folks out of there and get them to definitive care but the training itself is also with people shooting blanks at you and people screaming like they're real patients and it ups the ante big time. It gets your emotions going. I know when I went through it, I for sure got shaken up. It's a lot.

And if you have a scenario, even though you know it's fake, but blanks just went off, your buddy just went down, he's dead, you're behind cover so they don't know you're there, all your instinct is I want to run out there and get him. But what you have to fight is right now if I run out there and get them, I'm going to get shot, and now they have to come get me, and I'm their corpsman, right? And there's – I think it was in Iraq,

and it's a pretty horrible sequence of events. I'm a Marine down. Corpsman goes to get them. He's down. A Marine goes to get them, and they get hit, and it's the sniper that just waits and baits them, and pretty bad. So T-triple-C concepts talk about that, care under fire, and just how to make smarter decisions, and you get practice in doing it.

So huge evolution in the pipeline and the training of Hospital Corman throughout the decades of experience they've had from the establishment early on in our nation's history to now with the ongoing war and conflicts, particularly in the Middle East. Shout out to all you corpsmen doing all the work that have done the work before us, all their forefathers. That is a quick, I will say, even though we're coming up on an hour, overview of how did the positions change?

How did the titles change? How did the job of the corpsman change? How did the scope of medicine expand and contract and develop throughout history, throughout conflict, right? Conflict-based helped drive a lot of these changes. So no different than lessons learned from a project or incident management. And so now what?

So what? Cool history, neat lesson, Kevin. What progress, right? What kind of progress was made? Some of it was pretty obvious. We kind of talked about it. But we went from bone saws to intraosseous infusions. And intraosseous is something we use nowadays where you put needles directly into the bone.

If you can't get an IV or intravenous into the vein, you can put this right in the bone, in the sternum or the shin or just a big place and give fluids. And these are all from innovation. So we went from these barbaric practices and fighting off infection to dispelling myths about the tourniquet to now teaching folks to do medicine in one of the horrible, you're getting shot at, you're behind this wall, you're, you know, doing whatever that, you know, the progress of the skills and the training has increased the life-saving capability that corpsman can provide. It's increased the quality of life

for the folks that they save from, again, getting those tourniquets on, those kind of things. I think another progress for the corpsman position, for the lineage of corpsman, is that the position went from an untrained assistant, right? So we used to give porridge or lob lolly to people, to a high-level practitioner. There's several tracks, and you can look you can google hospital corpsman and you'll find all the stuff of specialties you can get into of you know seals or x-ray technician or diver all these other things in it so you're a corpsman and then you

can do all these other things and you can be an independent duty corpsman which is like a physician assistant it's a super high level training so if i was the only corpsman on a submarine or maybe on a smaller ship or on some ships and I went through IDC school or independent duty corpsman school, I can do, I can prescribe, I can give meds, give shots, I can do all these things. And so corpsman earned the right as an enlisted sailor through their outstanding actions through the, through the decades to go from giving people porridge to getting a tourniquet, securing an airway, starting an IV fluid, giving a nine-line report

for an air evacuation, getting someone on a helicopter and saving their life in minutes. That's a huge change. It's, you know, the technology of the world, but the progress and dedication of the people that have been a corpsman of the Navy to support them, to expand them, to realize that, you know, they realize that they need it and they spread it around the service. One of the other huge progress or, you know, some of the best progress I think that's been made, I guess I'll say, is the shame of shell shock to the openness of post-traumatic stress disorder, right? So PTSD, which most folks now know of, it's more openly spoken of, you're exposed to something horrible. It doesn't have to be combat. For corpsman, for sure, you know, with lineage, you've just heard a lot of it has been from there. So if you're a combat corpsman,

you're helping other folks deal with PTSD, but sure as heck, you're going to have some issues seeing what you see, right? And even if you're not a combat corpsman, I've talked about this, I was not ever in combat. Um, but I've been in rooms with some of the most horrible looking things of injuries or surgeries or, you know, people's parts out and blood, and they're looking at you at you like you know with the worst scare on their face and that stays with you and one of the evolutions of the biggest progress i think for military medicine and for corman being a part of that is is that the shame of ptsd or shell shock is is lessened or gone and interestingly ptsd has been labeled nostalgia, neurasthesia, shell shock, combat fatigue. It's had all these different names. So making progress in dressings, blood, IVs is one

thing. Making progress in a mental space and acceptance in a society and in the military, I think, is a whole nother and it it's huge, and it's outstanding, and it's horrible that it's had to happen through these decades of conflict, but it's happening, right? And it's happening not just for the military, but for public safety, but in particular for my brother and sister corpsmen that are serving, that have served. if you're still carrying around the pictures, the voices, the smells of the things that you have been exposed to, that you've been right in the middle of, I would suggest you talk to somebody, including your buddies, but someone professional. If you need the help, do it. There's no stigma. People aren't supposed to see some of the stuff that we've seen. Even though we volunteered to do it, we took that pledge and we did it well. Thank you to anyone that has ever served as United States Navy Hospital Corpsman. I found it to be a great privilege. I learned a lot. I had some

tough times, some great times. I wish you all nothing but the best with your people. I hope that through whatever processes you're going through in your life, you take away the strengths you learn from your areas for improvement. And I hope together with some of this information and with other things in your life, you can make great progress. Thanks again for listening and Godspeed.