The Corpsman

The ward had two wings. One with thirty beds for infectious hepatitis patients, and a wing for about thirty rheumatic fever and cardiac patients. There were three private rooms and a small medicine room.

Fresh out of school, I was given two days indoctrination on the medical ward. The Registered Nurse was a slender, stern, female lieutenant about forty five. I don't remember her smiling. She put me on night duty twelve hours a night for thirty nights in a row. I worked alone nursing the sixty patients, gave their medications, kept them supplied with water, clean linen, etc. Two or three terminal patients were incontinent of bowel and bladder. It was necessary to clean their bodies and change their linen several times each night. I did not know how to type, but was ordered to type each patient's name and diagnosis on a muster sheet every night for the morning nurse. I charted notes on each patient in separate charts, and the R.N. was angry when I failed to graph temperature, pulse and respiration figures that had been noted during the day shift.

Three small rooms had patients who were terminal. I recall one man who signed his cartoon strip VIP. Virgil I. Parch drew characters with big fat noses. I had seen many of his cartoons in magazines and national newspapers. I was with him when he died. I did not think a Navy hospital was a good place for him to die. Except for his son, he was alone. I felt a man of his stature deserved to die in a warm and friendly place with close friends attending him.

Usually there were several patients who needed their blood drawn for testing before breakfast. We were not taught in school but one of the heart patients was a Chief Pharmacist Mate who volunteered to be my patient to have his blood drawn. I learned as he gave me verbal instructions using his arm and veins to practice on. He was a real hero. Navy Corpsmen as a group are often called on to be heroic, and I met many who died or were wounded in action.

At times a brave soul asked me to take his blood while he stood. He would be the one who passed out that day, and I would try to catch him while blood squirted from the syringe onto our uniforms.

One morning a well muscled black sailor in his early twenties asked me if I was planning to draw his blood for testing. I sensed the boy was uneasy, so asked him to lie on his bed as I pierced his arm vein with the large needle. His eyes rolled back, and he stopped breathing for thirty seconds. Then he sat up gasping for breath and asked me to open the window. I made him lie flat to lower his head so he wouldn't faint again. I stood on his bed, and opened a high window. He panted for air and passed out again. It was almost seven A.M. and a young doctor arrived. I ran to his office and asked for his help. "Look" he said, "It sounds like he just hyperventilated from fear. As soon as he runs out of oxygen and builds up a little carbon dioxide, he will wake up and be fine. Go on back and stick him."

I told the young doctor I was new on the job, and he consented to look at the patient. Just as we arrived, the boy woke and sat up. I pushed him down flat again, and the doctor laughed at my concern. "If he faints again just stick him anyway and get the blood test done."

The young doctor was about to leave when the young man lost consciousness again. The doctor flicked him on the face with his finger but the man didn't breath. A stethoscope placed over the heart brought a look of attention to the doctor's face. He used his fist and pounded on the sailor's chest and listened with the stethoscope again. He said, "I want you to act like nothing has happened. Walk slowly to the nurses station. I think she just got here. Tell her to come here, I want to talk to her. This man is dead."

I was usually too late getting off the ward to make it for breakfast chow. In our sleeping quarters the windows were covered so we night people could sleep better in the daytime. I tossed and turned on my bunk bed all morning. I figured I had made a mistake making the man lie flat, causing his heart attack to kill him. The guilt I felt was overwhelming.

The roving night R.N. was a good looking young blond girl. I would have dated her if she had not been an officer. I could tell she was attracted to me. I saw her twice each night when she came to open the narcotics drawer with a key. She gave me white pills to stay awake at night and red capsules for sleeping in the daytime. The sleeping pills didn't work because several of my patients had died, and I felt guilty for being incompetent. I was nervous and upset emotionally. The day nurse supervisor was a female officer. She chewed me out every morning, and I would lie in bed thinking up ways to get even with her. One time I slept forty eight hours. I was arrested for being A.W.O.L. and stood at Captain's Mast. The captain restricted me to the base for a week.

NAVY BRIG

I sat alone at my desk in the Balboa Park Naval Hospital brig. Sometimes Henry would stand there behind the bars, and we would shoot the breeze all night long. Henry was thirty five, intelligent and black. I was twenty two. We often spent the night talking together listening to Moody's Mood For Love and records like that on his little radio.

When we had a shake down search, we found cigarettes and matches in Henry's possession. I never found out how stuff was smuggled into the brig. I was always surprised to see all the contraband the prisoners had hidden in their lockers and in their beds. Henry talked about good books he had read. We spoke of jazz and musicians like Stan Kenton, Les Brown, Dave Brubeck, Nat Cole, Billy Holiday, the Trenier Twins, Jo Stafford and other greats popular in those days.

One night I let Henry out of the jail cell to play chess with me at my desk. Just before dawn a brig officer came and put me on report for fraternizing with a prisoner. A full Navy Captain held captain's mast with no others present. He was like a general, and he was my judge. He was a medical doctor and treated me with kindness. He said it didn't look right for a guard to be playing games with a prisoner. My punishment lasted for a month. I lined up for muster with other prisoners outside in front of the brig every evening with everyone looking. Then I went to work inside the brig as night guard.

Later, I found an opportunity to serve the captain of the hospital. He enjoyed playing golf at the hospital base nine hole golf course. On several occasions, I helped him find golf balls he had punched into the rough.

One of our prisoners was kept in a private cell because he was a dangerous man. He spoke to me, "I stayed out of jail easy while fighting the war in Europe. I had my gun and did as I pleased. My gun was all the authority I needed to do whatever I wanted to. We marched through many small towns on our way up to Germany. I had my own way with women in those towns. This Korean conflict is not a real war for me. I enjoyed the power I had in the other war. I had the power of life or death over people. I liked it that way. Here in the United States I used my gun too. I took what I wanted until I got arrested. That's why they locked me up."