The Infantryman, the MSC and the .45

He was an Air Force Medical Service Corps Officer, a Captain stationed at Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam in 1971. As chief of administration, one of his duties included customs inspections for departing hospital ship patients.

The Captain stood at the severely wounded infantryman's bedside. He was assisting with processing the patient for imminent evacuation on a ship the next day. With some time remaining, he asked the soldier how he was injured. The soldier was lucid and could see everything that had happened to him.

"I was on a recon when the soldier in front me hit a tripwire that killed him. I quickly looked around and saw a figure running away through the bush. I chased him down and killed him. I found a .45 on him and headed back to my unit carrying the .45 with me. As I was returning, I hit another trip wire that blew off my legs and arms.

Colonel Collins E. "Hugh" Smith Jr., USAF, MSC (Ret)
Cam Ranh Bay, Viet Nam, 1971

The Captain explained he was the customs inspector and asked the soldier if he had any weapons or narcotics with him. The soldier said; "Yes Captain. There's a .45 right in the middle of my back." The MSC said; "Will it be okay if I turn you a little and take a look at it?" The soldier agreed. The MSC said; "Please tell me it's unloaded." The soldier assured him it was not so he then gently lifted the soldier's shoulder revealing the .45 underneath.

The MSC removed the clip and inspected it and the chamber. Finding both empty, he then said; "You know you can legally go home with this as a war souvenir. I can run over to my friend the provost marshall, get it attested for you and be back within 5 minutes."

The soldier said; "No, you keep it.  I am not going to make it." The MSC noted the soldier's contact information. After a week or so, the MSC called the soldier's home. He offered to get the .45 shipped to the soldier but the parents told him to just keep it. Their son after all, did not make it.

After thirty-one years, the MSC retired as a Colonel having served as a Director of Base Medical Services at three facilities for his last 10+ years.  Today, more than 25 years post-retirement, the Colonel still softly tells the story with a deep, abiding sense of love and respect for the infantryman with the .45. 

 

Sweating Bullets

There is probably not a military health care administrator alive who hasn't had a "Staff Assistance Visit" or worse yet, Inspector General visit.  They may be known by different names these days but what they basically are is administrative 'strip search' inspections by higher headquarters staff.  They (meaning a team of functional and management experts) come to take a close look at your programs and make suggestions on how to improve them...or so they say.  While that is mostly the truth, it also true that they will send you packing if you are not doing a good overall job.  

"Not a problem," a Medical Service Corps officer might say to him or her self; "I am doing fine."  But then, you can never be completely sure as you probably carry a half dozen or more hats including some you may not even be schooled in.  Then again, if you are the head administrator, you have four or more MSCs working for you and that drives the number of "hats" into the dozens so you don't know exactly how you are doing either.  Plus, that person inspecting you may have a totally different take on whether you are doing fine or not right?!

So there we were, in the mid-70's at Mountain Home.  A handful of MSC's and a couple hundred health care workers preparing for a Tactical Air Command Staff Assistance Visit headed by none other than the late (RIP) Colonel Emmett Thornell (the Alligator" as he was sometimes called).  Charlie Brown, then a Major, was our Administrator and we were mostly shavetail lieutenants trying to figure out how to do our jobs correctly.  Charlie was a "below the primary zone" administrative whiz who had a lot of written and verbal program advice for us and we were hauling a__ to get ready for the visit as a previous one with a different crew had not gone well.  As his nickname suggested, Colonel Thornell had a tough reputation. As a brown bar I'll confess that I (and maybe some of the others) was pretty intimidated.  

Lt. Charlie Brown
Viet Nam

The visit hit, we did well and I think everyone up to and including the wing commander breathed a sigh of relief.  Charlie set up our next objective for the following weekend...four of us, the "Riders of the Purple Sage" agreed to participate.  There were others invited but I suspect they didn't relish the idea of camping with us reprobates.  Charlie the hospital administrator, Jack Ohl the box kicker, Jerry Salsberry, technical box kicker and I, the resident bean counter headed out for Idaho's Strike Dam for the weekend.  Accompanying us were a recent model Winnebago RV (Charlie's), a Crestliner ski boat (mine), a bunch of easy-to-prepare food including some venison tenderloins and an abundance of beer. 

The trip was just for a day and night but "Oh, what an night" as the song goes.  We had a blast skiing that day and didn't hurt anyone including ourselves. That night we played music, sang at the top of our lungs, arm wrestled and laughed at anything that had the slightest resemblance to a joke.  Far into the night, as the four of us attempted to sleep, one or more would break out in laughter over a comment by another.  Quite a few times, we would begin laughing with absolutely no prompt.  I had never laughed so hard or so often in my life until then and have not laughed like that since...not even for my own subsequent IG and Staff Assistance visits when it was my turn to serve as hospital administrator.

You've "been there and done that" haven't you!? Great memories eh?!