36 years ago, as a long Navy Hospital Corpsman I met a slightly older Navy nurse by the name of Pat. No, this isn’t a love story. It was the beginning of a professional relationship and friendship that lasted all these years. We both stayed in the Navy. She retired to Florida. I retired to Oregon.
Email has allowed us to stay in touch. Pat emailed me last night to alert me to a CNN special, hosted by Paul Zahn.
The piece was produced by Alex Quade and reported on the medical care our troop receive from the battlefield in Iraq when they are wounded, through various levels of care in Iraq to the hospitals in Germany and the states.
Pat and I served for a year off the Coast of South Vietnam, support Marine and Army operations. I was assigned to the Urology ward and to the triage area, where at times we received causalities direct from the battlefield. Pat was one of the nurses I worked with every day.
Watching the show, I was impressed by the care being provided to our young men and women and how the different medical services are working together.
The medical personnel looked so young. Pat called them babies. That got me thinking and I found my cruise book (a year book for sailors) and looked through our pictures. There’s Pat, holding one of our young Vietnamese patients. I can hardly recognize myself. We were kids too.
Some of the tools are new. Military medicine has always taken advantage of the latest technology. I operated a kidney dialysis machine on board the Sanctuary before the manufacturer had even printed the manual for it. We had one of the three banks using frozen blood.
One thing hasn’t changed, the tender loving care that we gave our patients, is the same care being given today. I had tears in my eyes while watching the strength of the wounded troops and the strength, expertise and kindness of the Army, Navy, and Air Force medical personnel. It also brought back memories of the young men we treated so many years ago.
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