Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Chapter 8 Part 3 From the Halls of Carolina to the Shores of Tennessee

 BANG! We all knew what that sound meant. Someone had tripped a booby trap. Despite the automatic rifle fire coming from all directions in the jungle like marsh, this sound was unique and even more dreaded. It meant two corpsmen would have to go out with a stretcher and retrieve the wounded fool that had tripped it. Hopefully without tripping another booby trap or being selected by the angel of death for some other catastrophe. Ed and I were the unlucky selectees chosen to foray out into this melee. We had both been hoping the task would fall to someone else.  

Before you jump to the conclusion that I am the most callous person to ever describe a war zone, let me explain. This was not a war zone. This was a training exercise at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina's Field Medical School where (in their words) "the Navy Corpsman transforms into the Marine Corps Combat Medic." This transformation involved participation in a number of very realistic exercises simulating various combat situations.

For my foxhole buddy Ed and I these exercises were games where the object was to put forth the minimal effort while avoiding being mock killed or wounded by the "angel of death." The angel of death is what we called the Marine corps instructor who strode about the simulated melee handing out various injuries to corpsmen who he felt had made grievous mistakes while negotiating the mock battlefield. It was then up to other corpsmen to go out, find the injured, give the appropriate first aid, and bring the wounded back to the battalion aid stations without becoming victims themselves. The Marines providing the rifle fire were all firing blanks. The booby traps were basically fire crackers with trip strings deployed in copious numbers by Marines out to make fools of the Navy corpsmen. Those familiar with the jungle like woods around Camp Lejeune will know that although the boobytraps and gunfire were simulated, the hazards in the woods were very real, complete with ticks, poison oak, and poisonous snakes.

Ed was a high school physical education teacher from Detroit. Like me, he had enlisted in this program as a way to fulfill his military commitment while hopefully avoiding being sent to an actual war zone. The program involved a period of active duty training after which you were assigned to a stateside reserve unit. As long as your reserve unit was not called up, you stayed stateside. Ed and I were the only two college graduates in our platoon; so, we had a bit more life experience than the others and so teamed up despite our other differences.

Like me, Ed could also be a bit of an ass at times. At first, I don't think Ed thought very much of me, having stereotyped me as a typical Southern redneck. He called me Gomer once referring to my accent and its similarity to the character in the TV sitcom Gomer Pyle. I came back by saying at least I don't try to act and sound like Sidney Poitier. Ed did by the way look and sound like the famous black actor, complete with what verged on almost a British accent which I found really weird for an American of any race. Ed responded by saying, "Joe, that is just your way of calling me an 'uppity n****r." I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, but it really hurt my feelings that he might think that I might think like that. Ironically, it was he that was pre-judging me for my accent and the color of my skin.

Eventually, Ed and I got to know each other better and paired up as foxhole buddies. We were currently engaged in an exercise that required us to practice leap frogging battalion aid stations in support of advancing troops. The Battalion Aid Station is a medical section within a battalion's support company in the Marine Corps. As such, it is the forwardmost medically staffed treatment location. Leap frogging meant there were always two stations set up one ahead of the other. As the troops advanced, the station in back would jump ahead of the one in front so there would always be one as close as possible to the front line. The one in back was in case of a retreat. Thus, there would always be two stations, one as close as possible to the action and a second in case of a fallback.