OJT SF Vietnam Combat Medic

[Doc Russell]

I volunteered for and arrived in Vietnam on 28 March 72 from 2/504 82nd ABN DIV. I was assigned to 3rd Field Hospital as a Security Guard. In June of that year SF was looking for medics so I was recruited and sent to B-36. From 28 Jun to 30 Nov I was the Jr Medic on A-362 and A-364. Rotating between those two teams I spent 3 weeks out of each month in the field with Cambodian trainees. I was nineteen years old when I got in-country and turned twenty in the bush on 5 Sep 1972. When we turned Long Hai over to the ARVNs on 30 Nov I was the last enlisted medic there. Next I was assigned to B-51 and served as the Sr Medic on A-512 until the ceasefire. After coming out of the bush Saturday morning 27 Jan 73 we were greeted to the sight of the flag of the Republic of South Vietnam planted in the middle of the railroad track west of Highway 1. About ten minutes later when we raised camp and told them we were coming in we were told that the war was over effective at midnight. Later that day myself, SSG Andy Curry and 10 Cambodians were guarding a conex on the runway at Cam Rahn Bay. There were no people, no planes, no equipment nothing. I spent part of the day shooting parachute flares down the runway. Nature was starting to reclaim the place in some places sand was covering the roads. When the ceasefire went into effect that night, Andy and I were the only Americans on the ENTIRE peninsula. I left country on 7 Feb 73. fficeffice" />>>
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I am now a 57 year old professional student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.>>

[SuperScout]

You might want to consider posting your DD Form 214 as a way of proving yourself here. There are many veterans who have a serious vetting process for newbies.

[Margaret Diann]

You are the same age as my brother who served in the Korean war

I think being a medic is health hazardous
due to 2nd hand exposure to glycol ether

and that the primary harm to soldiers of several wars
is multiple exposures to glycol ether.
http://www.valdezlink.com/pages/discuss.htm

AO was there and may have done some harm,
but not all that they give it credit for

http://www.valdezlink.com/re/vets/aglycolether.htm

Unrealized is that the same chemicals are frequently used even in home cleaning products ... and you and those you love can continue to be exposed over and over and over again.
http://www.valdezlink.com/re/glycolb...iscloseall.htm

Unrealized also is that flu symptoms ... even many times just 'the sniffles' with flatulence and diarrhea ... are the signs of exposure. And what do we blame for that? a virus

Do you have FATIGUE? If from a glycol ether (2-butoxyethanol is the most frequently used glycol ether) ... the fatigue is AIHA or IMHA and that is the anemia of CFIDS, CFS, FM that doctors have not been able to find. Or if they do, they don't know what to attribute it to
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[SuperScout]

Wow! How impressive, going from a security guard to a medic, with no training. Must have been a miracle! How did you know how to open the medic's bag and to grab the appropriate instrument, packet of medicine, or everything else involved in being a medic? And what brain-dead Grunt would want to be treated by a wannabee medic? And what were Cambodians doing in Vietnam? The Khmer and the Annamese are bitter, long-time enemies. How did you communicate with them? Possibly in French, or do you speak Cambodge?

Methinks you did a copy and paste of some other wannabees story: note the little funny icon at the end of your baloney trail.....

The credibiity here is being strained to the breaking point.

[Doc Russell]

Have you asked Sydney G Herndon to post his DD-214?

[David]

Let's take care of this back channel.