Combat Corpsman by Jonathan P. Brazee

Author:Jonathan P. Brazee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: marines, military, war, Iraq, navy
Publisher: Jonathan P. Brazee
Published: 2018-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Ramadi

June 5, 2006

I was out with Third Squad and not particularly happy about it. Kilo had deployed with 11 corpsmen, but with Sean Gruber KIA and now HM2 Sylvester down hard with a respiratory infection, the company was down to nine effective corpsmen, and it was up to Buster and me to cover the platoon. Sylvester was the platoon corpsman, but he was also dual-hatted Third Squad’s. We had 21 corpsmen in the Aid Station Group, and while sometimes they would help out in the field, this time no one was supposedly available.

I had nothing against Third Squad, but that left Second Squad, my squad, uncovered. They were standing gate watch for the day, so they could get help from the aid station if someone got hit, but still, they were my Marines, and I wanted to be with them.

Sgt Castanza hadn’t blinked an eye, though, when he was told he would have me, a mere HA, with him instead of the more experienced Sylvester. I appreciated that, at least.

We really didn’t expect much to happen on this trip, anyway. We had escorted some Army major and a civilian to the government center, dropped them off, and were headed back to Hurricane Point. The stress level was much lower in the daylight. Attacks were not as common as at night, and we could see the signs of IEDs much easier. And in this case, we’d just come down Michigan only 30 minutes before, so we knew the way was clear, at least of IEDs.

As we made our way north, I looked out the window of the hummer. The place looked deserted. I wondered where all the people were, where they spent their time. This was a pretty big city, but we rarely saw many people when we were out there. I knew they saw us, though. There were probably multiple sets of eyes on us at that very moment.

Between Hurricane Point and the government center, on the west side of Michigan, was half of a small building. It looked like Godzilla had taken the missing half of the building out in one bite. I always wondered what had made that shape—a huge, fairly even crescent—it was just too geometrical. I thought Godzilla was just as logical as anything else. To me, though, the Godzilla building was my landmark that we were halfway back.

I turned to look at the building as we drove past when an explosion sounded in front of us. I spun around, thinking our lead vehicle had been hit. But the explosion was further forward, and the radio chatter confirmed that it was up ahead. Firing rang out, the deeper chatter of an M242 25mm chain gun mixing in with the M240 7.62 machine guns and small arms. The Marines were light on LAVs, so that meant it was probably an Army unit getting hit just ahead of us. Sgt Castanza would know who was on the route, but me sitting in the back of the fourth hummer in the convoy, well, no one was rushing to keep me informed as to what was happening.

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