Showing posts with label Navy Corpsman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Navy Corpsman. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Navy Corpsman Remembers Vietnam and Bounty on His Life

Veteran recalls Vietnam tour as a Navy corpsman
Killeen Daily Herald
JC Jones
Herald staff writer
August 5, 2015

In the Army-dominated city of Killeen, retired Petty Officer 2nd Class James Henry said it’s rare to meet many Navy corpsmen.

Henry joined the Navy out of high school, in 1965, and when given the option in boot camp of what route to go, he chose hospital corpsman, equivalent to an Army medic, and prepared to go overseas to be part of the war in Vietnam.

He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, from 1966 to 1968 in Vietnam. Before he began his tour, Henry was given 30 days of leave to go home. That would be the last time, he said, for many corpsmen to see their families.

“Hospital corpsmen over there in the Marines had a very low chance of survival because we were the only ones without a very noticeable weapon. ... The prime targets in Vietnam were the officers, the radiomen and then the corpsmen. The North Vietnamese had a bounty on corpsmen. My life was worth, I think it was 700 piastres, which is about $70,” he said.

Very quickly after his arrival in-country, Henry was confronted with his first casualty, when he saw a young Marine die just a week before the Marine’s tour was complete.

The incident stuck with him, and he later wrote about the event in an essay titled “Helplessness.”
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Saturday, December 13, 2014

Camp Pendleton Corpsman Memorial Rededicated

Corpsman monument rededicated
OC Register
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE
STAFF WRITER
Published: Dec. 12, 2014

Original memorial was installed at old Naval Hospital in 1983 but was damaged when it was moved.

JOSHUA SUDOCK , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Raul Avina created a corpsmen monument in 1983. The monument was in front of the Naval Regional Medical Center Camp Pendleton for 31 years. Last year a new Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton opened on the base.

Attempts to move Avina's sculpture didn't go well and a new monument was created from Avina's original.

An unveiling was held Friday at the base. Many of Avina's family members were on hand for the event.

Corpsman are the Marines "docs" in combat and have saved countless lives over the decades.

"They will do this because each and every one of them know that their Marines will protect them with their very lives as well, he added."
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Friday, November 21, 2014

Camp Pendleton Navy Corpsman To Be Awarded Navy Cross

Camp Pendleton Navy Corpsman To Be Awarded Navy Cross
KPBS News
By Beth Ford Roth
November 20, 2014

Navy Chief Petty Officer Justin Wilson
U.S. NAVY

The commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) will award Navy Chief Petty Officer Justin Wilson the Navy Cross at a Camp Pendleton ceremony on Nov. 25.

The Military Times reports Wilson, 36, works as a special amphibious reconnaissance corpsman assigned to MARSOC's 1st Marine Special Operation Battalion, which is based at Camp Pendleton.

Wilson was on his third deployment to Afghanistan, according to the Navy Cross citation, when, along with several members of Marine Special Operations Team 8113, he was injured by an explosion on Sept. 28, 2011.
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Saturday, September 20, 2014

Silver Star for Navy Corpsman After Battle in Sangin

Silver Star for Doc who fought to save Marine
Navy hospital corpsman repelled machine gun fire in Sangin, Afghanistan
UT San Diego
By Gretel C. Kovach
SEPT. 19, 2014

During a ceremony at 5th Marines in Camp Pendleton, Jonathan Kong is awarded the Silver Star from Maj. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson. Kong was a Hospital Corpsman Second Class while serving in the U.S. Navy and assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marines when he was deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan.
Nelvin C. Cepeda / UT San Diego/Twitter

CAMP PENDLETON — When “Doc” Kong saw a Marine drop from a shot to the chest, he didn’t hesitate.

While shooting his rifle to suppress the enemy attack, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Kong rushed into the open under heavy machine gun fire to retrieve the Marine and administer life-saving medical care.

The former Navy hospital corpsman “courageously fought through an enemy ambush to save the life of a wounded Marine,” on June 13, 2011 in Sangin, Afghanistan, the Marine Corps announced.

For his heroic achievement, Kong was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest medal for valor in combat, during a ceremony Friday afternoon at Camp Pendleton.

In brief remarks on the 5th Marine Regiment parade deck, Kong told guests he didn’t feel he deserved the award.

“Honestly, these other corpsmen out here… I was with them in Afghanistan and I know for a fact if they were in my shoes they would have done the same thing. If I was the one laying on my back, someone else would be dragging me behind the wall,” he said.
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Saturday, September 6, 2014

Vietnam Veterans Taking Care of Brothers

Veterans on cycles help bring 'brother' home
Meadville Tribune
Earl Corp
September 5, 2014
Brother
Veterans gather for a prayer in the parking lot of Mizner’s Funeral Home prior to saddling up for Pittsburgh to escort Marine Sgt. Brandon Bizzarro on his last ride home Friday night.

There are several words that can describe Brandon Bizzarro — Marine sergeant, biker, Meadville Area Senior High School graduate and son. But Friday night the word that kept coming up over and over was brother. This was the main theme of the approximately 25 veterans on motorcycles who came to Mizner Funeral Home in Meadville to escort Brandon’s family to Pittsburgh to pick up the 22-year-old’s remains and bring him back for his last ride to Meadville.

Bizzarro, an active duty Marine from the Meadville-Saegertown area, was the victim of on a hit-and-run accident while riding his prized GSXR Suzuki 750 motorcycle, Carmen, in California last Thursday.

Cochranton’s Rob Preston was a Marine dog handler in Vietnam, and serves as commander of the Veterans of the Vietnam War Post 52. There was no doubt why he was there for the late-night round trip.

“It’s a brother, we’ve got to take care of our brothers,” Preston said. “If we don’t take care of our brothers we’re not worth anything.”

Greg Hardy was an Army veteran with the 82nd Airborne Division and was riding to Pittsburgh because, “If it was me I’d want the same,” he said.

Navy Corpsman and Iraq veteran Brian Byers helped organize the motorcade which included a police escort, the bikes, a limousine with the immediate family, a hearse and other family and friends in assorted vehicles for the trip to Pittsburgh International Airport. The convoy left Mizner’s with a Meadville police escort, and Vernon Township police picked up the duties at Smock Bridge to the Interstate 79 exit. In Grove City, the convoy would be joined by more veterans on bikes paying their respects.
“This is what we do for fallen comrades,” Byers said. “And I know the family.”

read more here

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Vietnam Veteran "redefined gratitude" for Corpsman

Semper fi: Vietnam veteran salutes corpsman who saved his life
High Point Enterprise
Jimmy Tomlin
Aug. 02, 2014
ARCHDALE
For Welch, though he may not have realized it at the time, a new journey was just beginning. The day he was injured — Jan. 25, 1968 — redefined his life.

And that newspaper photo, which ran the next day, redefined his sense of gratitude.
One day in late January 1968, the High Point Enterprise published a somewhat grisly, front-page photograph of a wounded U.S. Marine, lying flat on his back at a first-aid station in South Vietnam.

The young soldier’s gritty face reflected the anguish he was in as a medical corpsman tended to his left ear, which had nearly been ripped from the Marine’s face by enemy rocket and mortar rounds.

“Shocked And Wounded,” the caption read, explaining that the corpsman was talking quietly to the injured Marine to calm him.

For most readers, it was just another grainy, black-and-white war photo — an Associated Press dispatch from a divisive conflict being staged some 9,000 miles from North Carolina.

For one High Point family, though, the photo hit close to home. The injured soldier, though not identified in the caption, was their son — Lance Cpl. William Michael “Mike” Welch.

LAURA GREENE | HPE
Marine Corps veteran Mike Welch, of Archdale, tracked down the corpsman who saved his life in Vietnam more than 45 years ago.

“Yeah, my dad saw it in the paper and recognized me, but he didn’t show it to my mother until about a week after I got wounded,” says Welch, now 65 and living in Archdale. “He was afraid my mom would flip out and have a heart attack or something.”

Joseph Grayson Welch tried desperately to find out what had happened to his son — and whether he was even still alive — all the while keeping the newspaper from his wife, Mildred, and hoping nobody else would recognize their son in the photo and call it to her attention.

One day, finally, a cab pulled into the Welches’ driveway on Brentwood Street — a universally understood sign that they were about to receive a telegram from the military about their son. To their great relief, Welch had not died, but the telegram reported he had sustained “fragmentation wounds to the left ear, neck, both hands, back and both buttocks, with an open fracture of the left arm.” Hostile mortar fire, the telegram said. His condition was listed as “serious,” his prognosis “guarded.”

Subsequent telegrams provided medical updates — and some measure of comfort — for Welch’s parents, who are now deceased.
read more here

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Navy Corpsman Receives Silver Star in Florida

Navy Corpsman Receives Silver Star
DVIDS
by Jason Bortz
Mar 19, 2014

PENSACOLA, Fla. - “I didn’t think, I just reacted,” said HM3 Zackery Penner, a corpsman with Naval Hospital Pensacola, when recalling the events of June 22 and 23, 2012, while serving with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines in Afghanistan.

For his actions on those two days, Penner was awarded the Silver Star, the third highest military decoration for valor, on March 19 at a ceremony here.

On June 22, 2012, with approximately 30 days left in country, Penner’s platoon encountered Afghan insurgents on the first day of a seven-day operation, and a Marine was severely wounded on a nearby rooftop. Without hesitation, Penner ran to the Marine while exposing himself to enemy fire that was only 50 meters away.

With rounds impacting all around him, he treated and evacuated the Marine. Though the Marine did not survive from the wounds he sustained, Penner’s actions reflected the relationship and camaraderie shared between Marines and corpsmen.

“Marines love their corpsmen, and I love being with Marines,” said Penner, who enlisted in the Navy immediately after graduating high school in Sacramento, Calif. “I wanted to be a corpsman because I wanted to help Marines.”
read more here

Monday, March 17, 2014

Navy Corpsman accused of setting off grenade to avoid duties

Navy: Corpsman Set Off Grenade to Avoid Duties
The Virginian-Pilot
by Dianna Cahn
Mar 17, 2014

NORFOLK -- In the moments before the grenade exploded, two Afghan men sat in the back of a medical clinic on a small military base, waiting to see an American medic.

Petty Officer 1st Class Omar Pescador-Montanez, a Navy corpsman, was the only other person in the building.

It was Aug. 2, 2013, and the summer heat was oppressive at the base housing Navy SEALs and Afghan Special Forces.

One of the men waiting worked for U.S. forces at the compound in southeastern Afghanistan. He escorted the other man -- thought to be an Afghan soldier -- complaining of leg pain.

In actions at the heart of a criminal case against him, Pescador-Montanez suddenly ran into the room and told the men to take cover; he thought someone had thrown something into the building.

Nothing happened. All three ran outside and didn't see anything. Then Pescador-Montanez ran back into the building. There was an explosion.

Pescador-Montanez, who deployed to Afghanistan with SEAL Team 10, has maintained that he came under a grenade attack that injured him.

The government isn't buying it.

The Navy accuses the corpsman of creating the entire scene, exploding the grenade to get out of his duties, and then lying about it.
read more here

Monday, March 10, 2014

Summit for Soldiers mountain climbing to break silence of suicide

Veteran, climber elevates battle against suicide with Everest ascent
Clintonville man hopes to climb seven giant peaks to help veterans with PTSD
ThisWeek Community News
By KEVIN PARKS
Monday March 10, 2014
There, the retired Navy corpsman with the U.S. Marines Corps planted a Summit for Soldiers flag bearing the names of "some of the warriors we have lost to suicide and the Silent Wounds of War," Fairman wrote in an email.

Next up: Everest, the holy grail for mountain climbers.

Clintonville resident C. Michael Fairman hopes to scale the northeast ridge, the "mountaineer's route," of Mount Everest in about five weeks.

"It's a huge challenge," Fairman said last week. "This is a huge, huge mountain. I'm excited, terrified and just happy to be able to take on this challenge."

Fairman isn't doing it just to say he did -- although he will be proud of his accomplishment, as he will be if his dream of climbing the Seven Summits, the highest mountain in each continent, is realized.

What motivates Fairman is the knowledge that every 60 to 80 minutes in the United States, a veteran commits suicide -- almost 8,000 a year. Fairman hopes by attracting followers to his Summit for Soldiers page on Facebook, he will increase awareness of the issue and convince lawmakers to take steps to prevent soldiers, sailors, Marines and other ex-service members from taking their own lives as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder or mild brain injury suffered while on duty.

"That will be the motivation to get to the top of Everest," he said.
read more here

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Navy Corpsman wounded in Afghanistan now running on tennis court

Navy corpsman Anderson shot in Afghanistan, now a U.S. Open ball person
New York Post
By HOWIE KUSSOY
August 31, 2013

The date is embedded in Angelo Anderson’s skin, embedded in his being.

The Navy corpsman sees the date — July 2, 2010 — every day, carved in ink in Roman numerals in his right thigh, marking the day that everything changed, the day that everything almost ended.

“It’s so significant that I just wanted to have it around forever,” said Anderson told The Post. “The story, the date itself, is really when the story became mine.”

The story opened in Afghanistan with the sound of a three-round burst from out of sight, leaving Anderson on the ground, struck by two bullets, which broke the femur in his right leg and the humerus in his right arm.

Today, just over three years later, the 24-year-old will sprint past some of the best tennis players in the world across the asphalt of Flushing Meadows as one of the oldest — and most remarkable — of all the ball persons at the U.S. Open.

“It definitely made me never take anything for granted,” Anderson said. “If that day would’ve been fatal, I wouldn’t have had today.”

The Georgia native joined the Navy after high school and reported to Afghanistan in December 2009, working as a field medical surgeon’s technician who was integrated with the Marines.

For more than six months, Anderson enjoyed the experience and education, speaking with local villagers and helping fellow service members. Then came the sound, on a day of normal patrol, which left Anderson bleeding on the ground, waiting for the firefight to end.
read more here

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Wife of Marine Gunnery Sgt. killed in propane gas explosion

Marine wife killed in Ca. explosion was Iowan, 31
(AP) – 4 hours ago
COLEVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A woman killed in a propane gas explosion outside a remote Northern California training base was the 31-year-old wife of a U.S. Marine, and a mother of two from Hudson, Iowa, military officials said late Saturday.

The woman, Lori Hardin, was the wife of Gunnery Sgt. Greg G. Hardin of Tuolumne, Calif., a public works planner for the Marines, according to a statement from the Marine Corps.

Greg Hardin and the couple's two children were not hurt in the Friday night explosion at a housing unit in the Mono County town of Coleville that serves the U.S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, where Marines train for mountain operations.

Two other blast victims, a Navy corpsman and his wife, were flown to hospitals with serious injuries including third-degree burns.

One of them was treated at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nev. and was released Saturday. The other remained in critical condition at the University of California, Davis Medical Center.

The Marines did not say whether it was the corpsman or his wife who remained in the hospital, and authorities have not released their names.
read more here

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Marines use shaving cream to save lives in Afghanistan

'Shaving cream' effort helps save lives in Afghanistan
Low-tech tool is best way to mark location of bombs
By Jeff Gill


Through a common, everyday household item, not a high-tech device with a big Pentagon price tag, area residents can help save military lives in one of Afghanistan's deadliest regions.

U.S. Marines in the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines' Cherokee Company, are using shaving cream for more than just facial hair in the Sangin district in the Helmand Province.

The white, foamy stuff has come in handy for marking suspected sites of roadside bombs, which have killed or seriously injured many U.S.-led coalition troops in the war-torn country.

It is "hands down the best marking tool available," said Casey M. Brock, commanding officer of C Company, which has some 200-plus Marines and U.S. Navy corpsmen.
read more here
Shaving cream effort helps save lives in Afghanistan

Thursday, April 14, 2011

"Our welcome home was whoever came to pick us up at the airport"

Medics return from serving in Afghanistan
Eleven Navy corpsmen back in Akron

By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Thursday, Apr 14, 2011

Eleven Navy corpsmen who were deployed to Afghanistan with an Akron-based Marine Reserve unit and other area Marine reservists finished their paperwork Wednesday, completing their overseas tour of duty.

The Navy reservists spent part of Wednesday at the Navy Operational Support Center on Dan Street in Akron, winding up their war time service a few weeks after Marines they served with came home.

While more than 100 Marine reservists attached to 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, 4th Division, Weapons Company arrived to publicized homecoming ceremonies in late March, the sailors arrived home with little fanfare.

''Our welcome home was whoever came to pick us up at the airport,'' said Hospital Corps
man 1st Class Mark Albert Sr., 40, of Jackson Township, who works for UPS as a driver in his civilian job.

Albert, a former Lakemore reserve police officer, said he and some other Weapons Company corpsmen, who work as medics, were attached to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, in southern Afghanistan. The unit suffered numerous combat casualties — Marines killed or wounded.
read more here
Medics return from serving in Afghanistan

Thursday, November 13, 2008

PTSD:Wounded Corpsman Trades Alcohol, Pills for Marathons

Wounded Corpsman Fights PTSD
Army.com - Huntsville,Al,USA

Wounded Corpsman Trades Alcohol, Pills for Marathons
Nov. 12, 2008
By Fred W. Baker III

WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service) – Navy Corpsman Daniel “Doc” Jacobs didn’t know he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. But he knew he had a problem.

“I actually almost ended up killing myself because of it,” Jacobs said.

He woke up one morning in late 2006 in a pool of his own urine and sweat after mixing his prescription medications with alcohol. He had blacked out and remembered nothing after the first couple of beers, Jacobs said.

Jacobs turned 21 that year and was recovering from the blast of a roadside bomb in Iraq and still was using a wheelchair. After his left leg was amputated, Jacobs said he started having a lot of pain. He had problems sleeping for several months, and when he did sleep, it was fitful and he had nightmares.

“I fell into a stage of depression. I turned to alcohol,” he said. “I figured if the pain meds weren’t going to (make the pain go away), then alcohol would. So I self-medicated and one morning I woke up and I had no idea how I woke up out of that.”

While Jacobs hadn’t intentionally tried to kill himself, it served as a wake-up call, and marked the end of the pill-popping and boozing for him. He flushed his medication down the toilet.
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Saturday, April 19, 2008

PTSD on trial again

Lane County jury finds ex-Navy medic guilty in wife's death
Posted by The Associated Press April 19, 2008 13:55PM
Categories: Breaking News
EUGENE -- An ex-Navy medic who claimed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder has been convicted of aggravated murder in the shotgun slaying of his estranged wife three years ago.

A Lane County jury deliberated 45 minutes on Friday before convicting 30-year-old Tyke Thomas Supanchick for the death of 25-year-old Kelly Supanchick in December 2005.

The jury rejected Supanchick's claim that intensive military training and post-traumatic stress suffered while serving at the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack led to the killing.

His wife was shot four times with a shotgun as she sat on a bed in her home with her hands bound in front of her.

The same jury will begin hearing evidence Tuesday to decide whether to impose a death sentence.

-- The Associated Press
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/04/lane_county_jury_finds_exnavy.html

Thursday, February 21, 2008

PTSD:Returning Home Homeless

Matt Renner: Returning Home Homeless
Friday, 22 February 2008, 2:14 pm
Article: Matt Renner



Returning Home Homeless

By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t Report
Thursday 21 February 2008
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022108R.shtml


Former Hospital Corpsman Kevin Bartolata spent four years and eight months in the military. When he decided to leave, he found himself alone and with few options. He soon became hopeless and homeless, sleeping in a park in San Francisco. Through sheer persistence and help from veterans organizations, he was able to pull himself out of his desperate situation and find his way.




Around July 2004, Bartolata was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety ailment common to military veterans that can manifest in different ways. Bartolata's condition resulted in insomnia and depression. However, the "military mentality" kept him from seeking treatment for nearly three years.

"It was like being labeled a shit bag in the military. If you went to the psychiatric ward, people said 'oh wow ... why couldn't I think of that? That would have gotten me out of work too.' It was viewed as a cop out."

Bartolata returned from Iraq in October 2004. After one month of leave, he was assigned to a medical surgical ward at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, a placement usually reserved for inexperienced corpsmen and those in training. Bartolata said the assignment felt like a "slap in the face," after his assignment in Iraq. He felt prepared for the responsibility of a leadership position where he could better share his experience and help train fellow corpsmen for deployment.

While he grew to value working with the Vietnam veterans he attended to at the facility, he was somewhat demoralized by the bad placement. "It was a step backwards. I didn't enjoy my time like I thought I would. I had clashes with the leadership." Bartolata began to look forward to leaving the Navy and rejoining the civilian world. He began moonlighting at a private hospital, working twelve-hour shifts on his days off from the naval hospital to save money and to prepare himself for his transition.

During his service, Bartolata earned enough money to put a down payment on a new Acura sports car. He had solid credit and his military paycheck covered the monthly payments.

He officially left the Navy on August 25, 2005. Six years after joining at the age of eighteen, Bartolata was excited about celebrating his upcoming twenty-fourth birthday with friends in Los Angeles. However, this celebration was tainted by the beginning of what would become a downward spiral.
click above for the rest


What is the new rule going to do for veterans like Bartolata? Yesterday I posted the story about Spc. Benjamin Stewart, who must have PTSD based on what he was going through. Stewart is going to spend six months locked up for not wanting to go back to Iraq. This is what he was told when he said he couldn't go back. He will receive a dishonorable discharge.

Lt. Col. Thomas Rickard told Stewart that: "Twenty years ago in Panama we would have stripped a soldier naked, beat him up, thrown him in a van and dumped him for not deploying."


The new rule of not having to prove a traumatic event happened, will not help him because the DOD did not diagnose him and sought to punish him instead. What will happen to him and what kind of justice is he getting?

More and more they go to risk their lives, have their minds traumatized in the process and then are abused by their commanders who still refuse to acknowledge PTSD is a wound. More and more they are treated like a "shit bag" because ignorance overrules facts. Shouldn't it matter that these men and women were willing to serve the nation, lay down their lives for the nation, served the nation and then were wounded for doing it?

I take great pleasure in posting the advances the DOD and the VA are making but stories like these prove they both have a lot more work ahead of them. The people of this nation cannot abandon them thinking all is well because it isn't. If we don't keep the pressure on the Congress to take action and enforce the rules of conduct, more will end up homeless, hopeless and more will take their own lives.