These are the men and women who are the first line medical personnel in the Navy. They fill all of those little jobs you see people doing in Civilian hospital and provide the Marines with front line medical on the battlefield. There are all sorts of derogatory slang terms for corpsman, but we shall keep those out of here.

The Marine Corps does not have its own medical branch, they use the Navies. For their front line medical person they take along a Navy Corpsman. These corpsman actually take special training to become a marine medic. They then spend countless hours becoming a “Marine” so they can work with their assigned group and not be extra baggage. They are allowed to carry a side arm, but not carry any other weapon.

At Naval hospitals they fill just about every job from ambulance driver to administration. They make sure we are healthy and make sure the Navies paper work is done correctly. I spent time, while on medical hold, working at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital. It was amazing how a bunch of young kids could run the place and take care of so many people. They did it all and did a pretty good job. There were times when the military did get in they way, but for the most part things ran smoothly.

All Nurses and Doctors are officers in the Navy as are the Dentists. Almost all of these are USNR, not regular USN. Not sure why that is because they are on duty just like the regular Navy. Corpsman merged with the Dentalman rating back in 2005. So now a corpsman will clean your teeth as well.

There have been 20 ships named for corpsmen and 22 Medal of Honors awarded to corpsmen. One Navy Corpsman was even present at possibly the most famous event in World War II, the flag rising on Mount Suribachi.

One corpsman who took part in Desert Storm told me a story about walking into Kuwait City with the Marines. They had not fired a shot the entire war and were getting trigger happy. While passing by some burnt out trucks he heard something hit the metal. Then it happened again. All of the Marines started to shoot their weapons and run toward the direction of the gun fire. He told me he was scared and jumped under one of the trucks. Then he heard the call, “MEDIC!” He ran to the Marine who was hurt and helped him. The Marine had twisted his ankle. The corpsman told me he had never been more scared in all of his life when those bullets started to hit around him. But when that marine yelled out for him he jumped into action. He said mostly because he knew the Marines would kick his butt if he didn’t.