When you think you might be sick, or just want to try and get a day off, you head to sick call in the morning. In port you simply head down to sick bay and see the corpsmen. Since we were on a small ship we only carried a corpsman, similar to a paramedic. You would tell him what was wrong and he would do a quick check. If you are lucky, it’s back to your rack or off to base medical. But 99% of the time you get a hand full of aspirin and back to work. So, unless you were running a high fever or puking your guts up, too bad so sad, back to work.

If you had something serious wrong he would either take you or have you taken to the base hospital so they could take care of you. He would give out some minor medication, mostly Motrin for pains and aspirin for everything else. On those rare occasions he would give out antibiotics and he could give you an IV if something serious was wrong.

At sea you were all alone and if problems arose, you had to rely on the corpsman to provide everything. At sea sick call had fewer people attending. Since even if you did get out of work you were still in the middle of the Atlantic, so there wasn’t much choice. So prior to taking off on a cruise everyone hits dental to get your teeth checked and medical to get you checked.

Sick call can be a short experience or it can take for ever. It is first come first serve onboard ship. On land they evaluate everyone and see them based on need. I went once during boot camp to sick call. I ended up getting back to my company around 12 hours later, that is another story, and totally true as well!