EP: 11 The Unsung Heroes of Military Medicine

Immerse yourself in a journey through history as we honor the pioneering military medical professionals focusing on the brave and innovative physicians, nurses, and medics who have served with valor.

Ready yourself for the tales of heroism, courage, resilience, and dedication under extreme circumstances. These incredible individuals' stories are a testament to the sacrifices made by military medical personnel and an inspiration to all.

Nurses and Medics: This is your platform! We want to hear your stories of the good, the bad and the ugly. Send us an email at cominghomewell@gmail.com

Do you know a health worker that needs a laugh?
B2B N.F.L.T.G. Certificate click here

Get the ammo you need to seize your day at Soldier Girl Coffee Use Code CHW10 for a 10% off at checkout!

Special Thanks to
Artwork: Joe Weber @joeweber_tattoos

Intro/Outro/Disclaimer Credits:
Pam Barragan Host of 2200TAPS Podcast
"Racer" by Infraction https://bit.ly/41HlWTk
Music promoted by Inaudio: ...

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

If somebody is still wounded and they can't function, it's either they're gonna die or you gotta do something to stop it, to get them out. We can't just always grab and go. It is treat, then get them and then go. They have to dodge enemy fire, they have to defend and they've gotta keep their head together enough to be able to look at a patient. You know how to treat, I know how to treat them under any attack ["MZ Here"].

Speaker 2: 0:36

Hey, what's going on? Everybody MZ here and coming to you with detox. Good morning, this is a very special week. We've got Veterans Day coming and, as you're gonna get loaded down with all sorts of free goodies, take advantage of it. Go get your free dinner, your oil change, your whatever Donut Starbucks, oh hello.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Yes, if you, we have friends that go out and like they it's like a thing so they like go through and they do it like out of fun and they make a list. Yeah, there's like a whole schedule and then they go okay, we'll get a donut and then we'll get a coffee, and then maybe they'll go to an event and then they'll go to dinner and live it up Look.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Veterans. If you are hungry at the end of Veterans Day, it's your own fault. Yeah, you didn't do it right. You did not plan accordingly your piss. Poor planning could have prevented that poor performance. Do not go to bed hungry that night. That's right. In addition to it being Veterans Day this week, we also have a special situation going on here on the home front. Detox, did you want to make a special introduction? My mommy's here.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Hi, mom. Hello, I didn't tell her that we were gonna bring her on just to say hi, but I said if I did, she would have got all worked up over it. So I was like I'll spring it on her in the morning.

Speaker 2: 1:57

She's sticking her tongue out at me now, mom, the myth, the legend, and really I'm pretty excited that you're here with us too, because you birthed a living legend, a veteran, right here.

Speaker 1: 2:08

What do you get that mom Living legend? Where's my brother? He needs to hear those. No comment.

Speaker 2: 2:18

This buddy Damn.

Speaker 1: 2:20

No props for detox.

Speaker 2: 2:22

I love you. Mark Hart, thank you. So you ready to get into this detox?

Speaker 1: 2:27

We are. I know we're being hams, but it's an important day and we want to honor people that did some pretty cool shit. And all veterans cross the board. We honor every single one of you, but since this is a bullet to bed pants, we are going to highlight people in the military medical community that are doing some pretty cool things and we're going to do a little tour through history, right.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Yeah, all right. So get you a hot cup of something, pull up a chair and let's do a little dive. Right, all right? As we know, veterans Day occurs each year on November 11th, and when we were prepping for the episode, I was wondering. I was like man. I wonder what the difference between Armistice Day and Veterans Day is. I've heard them used interchangeably. The way we view Veterans Day now is slightly different than how it used to be. So it's the 11th month on the 11th hour of every year, and that started in 1918, which was the signal of the end of World War I, and at that point it was known as Armistice Day. So in 1954, president Dwight Eisenhower officially changed the name of the holiday to what we know it now as Veterans Day and well before even Armistice Day.

Speaker 2: 3:44

In the early 1900s, medical personnel in the military have pretty much blazed trails that shaped how we do business even today, right? Yeah, absolutely so. One of the first we wanted to talk about was and we're gonna try and do this in chronological order and full disclaimer if something is a hair out of order or maybe slightly mispronounced, sorry in advance. Did the best we could and you can let us know if we got something out of order, but we did our best. We did so starting off with. Dr Benjamin. Rush Didn't know this. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and he also wrote the first American Preventative Medicine textbook for Army physicians. So we're talking late 1700s here, right around the time of the Revolutionary War, and his published work actually inspired George Washington to have the Continental Army inoculated with the smallpox vaccine, which is something we're still even doing now. I know probably every veteran listening to this right now has a tiny, dime-sized scar on their upper sleeve right.

Speaker 1: 4:52

I think mine just finally went away after decades.

Speaker 2: 4:55

Yeah, I used to have that little mark how much vitamin E and cream you have to put on that thing after the fact and things get gnarly.

Speaker 2: 5:04

And ever since then, right, countless people have been successfully immunized and it's a big part of our medical readiness across the board for military personnel, and we partially have Dr Benjamin Rush to thank for that. Up next we've got during the War of 1812, dr James Tilton, who was another American soldier, physician and surgeon general during the War of 1812. He was in command of some number of hospitals between Morristown, princeton, jersey, and his concern at the time was with the high death rate of contracted diseases in the hospitals, which is what inspired him to create well-ventilated ceilings, which at the time were known as Tilton huts, which were basically windowless huts and little buildings divided into sections, with the idea of getting better ventilation to help combat the spread of disease. So in 1790, congress passed Tilton's Code of Regulations for Army Medical Departments, which redefined how hospitals are built today and some of that blueprint is still in effect, which still is meeting the intention of what he had all those years ago in 1812. So totally a trailblazer ahead of his time.

Speaker 1: 6:19

So it's funny that you're talking about that, because then if you go back to, we're gonna go on the nursing side. Florence Nightingale Now was not a military officer, was not a technically, was not a military veteran, but she was a veteran, right she in the nursing community. She was credited with the founder of nursing. She did something similar to Dr Tilton, which was clean up the sanitation right and get ventilation going and all that. So she worked. I was doing the Crimean War 1853 to 56. She worked in British Military Hospital in Skutari, turkey, and this is where she started strict sanitation. She was organizing improved patient care and provide compassionate nursing and all of that reduced the death toll among the wounded soldiers and we all. When we think of Florence Nightingale I think of opening windows, airing things out, getting ventilation. So I can't help wonder if she took some notes from Dr James Tilton there Perhaps, and maybe moved forward with that. But because of those two we just have much better sanitation. It was the beginning for us.

Speaker 1: 7:24

It was the beginning of modern nursing and modernizing medicine right the big deal, that whole sanitation thing, right yeah yeah, all right, so that was the earlier up to the 1850s and continuing during that time, what you got over there, mz, all right.

Speaker 2: 7:39

It's another cool one. So here we are, in the time of the Civil War, and this particular person is. I like this story. I wasn't familiar with it up until recently, but I really like the story of Mary Edwards Walker. So she was a doctor who was the only woman in her medical school at the time, and she went to school in 1855. Her medical practice floundered, though, because people just didn't trust female doctors. It was new, it wasn't established like it is today, and people just were not on board, unfortunately.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Can you imagine the uphill battle of that You're going into now? At that time, an all-male profession, totally dominated. Yeah, and she got in there and got it done. She had no business, man. She did bad ass number one. Here we go.

Speaker 2: 8:30

So Mary Edwards Walker volunteered her service to the Union Army but wasn't allowed to enlist which is crazy in itself. A whole freaking doctor, whole degree behind her, and couldn't even enlist, forget being an officer.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Couldn't even enlist, couldn't do it nothing, yeah, but willing to volunteer, right, and which is why we're willing to mention it, because how crazy is that to go on front lines volunteering.

Speaker 2: 8:58

As a doc. Yeah, Yep, so that's what she did. She served as a volunteer, which then later worked her way up. She was honored as a nurse. Gee, thank you.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Take the higher right.

Speaker 2: 9:13

And she was later ministered to the wounded at the first battle of the bull run and worked her way into the position of a field surgeon's assistant. She, in her own way, worked her way up I don't wanna say the corporate ladder, cause that's not what this is but noble positions. Right, she was doing things that women of her time weren't allowed to do and she still found a way to make it happen.

Speaker 1: 9:38

How frustrating because she couldn't serve as a doctor. Nope, she couldn't even enlist. But then when she was volunteering, they're like, oh, it can't be a doctor.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Yeah, still look down upon, still watered down, Cause you're a girl a little stereotype here, cause you're a girl, you can be a nurse, right, and then she's fine, right? So here's this nurse that has a whole bunch more, a whole other level of knowledge, right, probably doing a lot more care than people realized, and then worked her way up to a field surgeon's assistant, still not even able to be an assistant.

Speaker 2: 10:10

But you can be the assistant.

Speaker 1: 10:12

But to douchebags okay.

Speaker 2: 10:15

So she was later awarded an Army commission in 1863. So she ended up getting a commission. Cool, We'll take it, but she was still technically designated as a civilian worker. Kind of odd verbiage there it's. We'll let you in, we'll let you be an officer, but you're still technically a civilian. Okay, Don't break up the boys' club. Yeah, so weird, right? Walker was taken at one point by the Confederacy as a prisoner of war for several months in 1864 because she was accused of being a spy, On top of all of the medical age she was rendering. She was later taken POW and she continued to serve until the end of the war. And in 1865, Walker became the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. Respect, oh, at the battle of the bull. Run right, that's right. And then, after the war, she went on to campaign for women's rights, temperance and at one point ran for political office. And all of this she had in the bag before women even had a right to vote. Seriously, kudos, Mary Edwards Walker, For another badass.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Yes, holy crap, that's a lot to go through. I need to thank we're talking about veterans and what they've done medical healthcare workers, military medicine I'll say it in a minute, military medicine but when this also has a lot to do with breaking glass ceilings for women and I don't know why this popped in my head, but it wasn't until 1980s before women could have their own credit card To sign, yeah, you had to before you could have your own. Oh my gosh, yeah, I didn't know that, I know. And 80s is not that long ago. I'm still here, right, and were you even born? I played the fifth. Ah, she was a young, young, young, young aunt. But to think about that and where she broke a ceiling and how far it's come, I don't know, it just always makes me stop and think and just mad respect for people that were willing to take these steps for future generations.

Speaker 2: 12:23

The work of Mary Edwards Walkers being enjoyed and appreciated by women of our time now.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yeah, all you women doctors out there, whether you're a military or you're civilian, mary Edwards Walker, she was breaking the glass ceiling for you, mad respect, all right. So then we go into American Civil War and we talk about Clara Barton, and in the nursing community you say Clara Barton and you say American Red Cross. Right, they go hand in hand. She was a pioneer in nursing during the American Civil War and then she did go on to establish the American Red Cross and again she was not in the military, she volunteered. She was not allowed to be in, but she volunteered for service and she provided medical care to the wounded soldiers on the battlefields and in the hospitals, which kind of makes me think, since if that's how the American Red Cross got started, was it one of those situations? Oh, you're not gonna let me in, then I'll figure out another way. And now here we are having the modern day American Red Cross that we all know works closely. You say emergency. You think I need to go.

Speaker 1: 13:30

I need to get a hold of somebody American Red Cross right During the Spanish Civil War. This is an interesting one. I pulled this because I just thought we need to give mad props for people that were breaking through and moving medicine along for the community and in the military medical field. There were, like these people that we've been talking about that were not in the military but they were on the front lines doing this work and I'm sorry, you gotta give respect to that and they were moving medicine forward because of it.

Speaker 1: 14:05

So Dr Norman Bethune he was a Canadian physician and he served as a surgeon during the Spanish Civil War and then the second Sino-Japanese War and he is actually credited for mobile blood transfusion units and then contributions to battlefield medicine. That's a game changer To now have mobile transfusion units. I have no idea what that looks like. It probably should have looked a little closer, but all I could think of is I'm like chasing down people like, hey, you come here, I need your blood. But however that looks right this mobile blood transfusion unit Now people have more of a chance at survival. We gotta give props to that guy.

Speaker 2: 14:49

Yeah, that does make one kind of curious, though I think about mobile blood units. Now you see the American Red Cross mobile blood banks all the time on the road doing drives. I am curious what that looked like in that era.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Yeah, really I don't know if they were doing. I mean you know they weren't filtering it. I mean you know they're passing on a lot of Crud. I mean I'm sure it's not the best blood, but hell, you know, it's better than nothing. It's volume. Volume is volume, better than a glass of water. Moving on, we're into World War II, we've gotten there.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So this is another story. I really a lot of folks are familiar with the story of PFC Desmond Doss. So in 1945, then private first class Desmond Doss had become the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor and the story of how he got it is pretty amazing. Doss was a devout seven day Adventist who was wanting to serve his country but he did not want to hold a weapon. He refused to kill. That went very much against him and his values, his upbringing, but he still had that willingness, that call on his heart to serve his country right. So he prayed constantly and wouldn't work on Saturdays and I think this was a source of contention between him, his superiors, his peers.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Because you okay, take today. Could you imagine one of us going? I'm sorry, I am not working on Saturdays.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Yeah, just wouldn't hold well, right, they needed people, yeah, and they needed people who were willing to do the good, bad and ugly, and that just wasn't in alignment with his faith base, right, yeah, so to a point I understand that, but it didn't gain him a big following. At first. It was definitely a source of frustration, so much so that his commander at the time had tried to expel him on a Section 8 discharge and he, just he, was not getting friends right. Wasn't until he was deployed to the Battle of Okinawa that he really got to prove himself, his worth and just how amazing he truly was? He proved his bravery.

Speaker 2: 17:03

He was a medic at the time and during the Battle of Okinawa like I said, in 1945, they were fighting for several weeks and during that time he saved approximately 75 lives. While they were under heavy munitions, heavy artillery, these guys were being murdered, they were under heavy machine gun fire and, according to the Medal of Honor citation that he received, doss was wounded himself by grenade while carrying out other individuals on his retrieval missions. So he had dressed his own injuries and while, I think, he was up on the hill for upwards of five hours waiting for somebody to come get him. He continued rendering aid to other people.

Speaker 1: 17:45

All without weapon. He couldn't defend himself for the weapon right.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Unarmed Nope so unarmed treating himself, treating others, waiting for probably what felt like forever for somebody to come render his aid. He continued just one more, and it's pretty amazing. Ultimately, a sniper ended up shooting him in the arm, breaking his bone, and even still, doss made a splint out of a rifle stock, crawled 300 yards to an aid station and I think the final number was close to 75 people that he was able to save during that battle. And his story is just particularly amazing to me. I was stationed in Okinawa for four and a half years and got to see where some of these things happened and visualize at the time. Wow, I'm standing on a field where amazing things happened and Kudos PFC, desmond Doss. His story is amazing.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Yeah, the first conscious objector is coined, the term coined yeah, that's pretty incredible and you have to give credit to knowing yourself standing for your beliefs in an environment that is constantly trying to change you, right? Yeah, that's, you're gonna give credit to that and it was just a bad ass saving all those people and yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:07

Proved all the naysayers wrong.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Yeah, I think you had said that too. I don't know if you had mentioned it, but I saw that they were trying to get him to cave to the idea that he was mentally unstable.

Speaker 2: 19:18

Yeah, Nope, sorry, just firm in his faith.

Speaker 1: 19:22

Yeah, this is where I stand take it or leave it.

Speaker 2: 19:24

And they took it right and thank God they did because he was able to save countless lives.

Speaker 1: 19:30

I'm curious We'll have to go research as they tried to sectionate him why it wasn't successful.

Speaker 2: 19:37

I saw the movie. I don't know the validity of that so I don't wanna speak on it too much, but I don't know we'll have to GTS Google that shit whenever we get done here, because now I'm curious.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, not funny. See this next here.

Speaker 2: 19:51

Captain Benjamin Lewis.

Speaker 1: 19:52

Salomon yeah, so this one I thought was really interesting. I didn't find a lot of info, but I just thought we need to include it. He was actually a dentist. It was during World War II. Again, he was a dentist, but he served as a combat medic in World War II and he was actually KIA. He was killed in action while he was defending a field hospital in the battle of Saipan and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. But here's a dentist that was like, yeah, I'm gonna serve, he goes in as a combat medic, he's got knowledge, but he stepped right up and gave it all life on the line. Everything that was pretty impressive.

Speaker 1: 20:34

So Dentist combat medic he needed to shout out for that one, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Whatever needed to be done. Yeah, who do you got All right. So still during the World War II era, we've got hospital apprentice first class Robert Bush. Like PFC Doss, robert Bush was also in Okinawa. He was a baby too he was 18 years old at the time and while finding a casualty with a gaping chest wound, Bush actually knew the soldier uh needed to get an immediate infusion of blood plasma. So he inserted the tube, held up the blood bag and started the process, which is what a medic does, right? Unfortunately, during that process, japanese soldiers then charged at them. So, while delivering this bag, bush pulls out his pistol, opens up fire while holding up that blood bag, and then, when the his gun ran out, he picked up a rifle that was sitting nearby. During the whole process, he was hit by shrapnel from three hand grenades, one of which hit him in the eyes, and even with all of that going on, bush continued to fight and defend his patient.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Damn, he needed Dr Bethune's mobile blood transfusion unit.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Totally, holy crap, totally, and maybe a little bit of PFC DOS's prayers, because that is a situation I can't imagine being in.

Speaker 1: 21:51

And he kept defi and kept defending his patient. Well done. I don't know if anybody's civilians are listening. There's very specific rules for the medical military medical community. We fall under the Geneva Convention and we cannot function as a combatant. We cannot pick up a gun, just go out there and start shooting people. That is not part of the rules. We can defend. We are armed to defend, we are not armed to attack. And so here are these people and if you really put your head around what's going on when you're coming under attack, we all know what comes first the safety of our patients. So we are putting ourselves in between the attacker and our patients and defending that at all costs and in the middle of that, rendering whatever care because it's not going to do any good if that patient dies. There's not much to defend at that point. If they need, like this gentleman, he's rendering aid and defending at the same time. If that's not an ultimate mindfuck, that's some serious. You are responding, and I say this because I want people to understand how well trained the military are to be able to respond like that, and that's at 18 years old. At 18 years old, they are trained to respond, not to flee, not to run. They are trained to fight. And there you are, 18, right? I don't know. It always impresses me when I read these stories just how well we perform. So here's another one. We'll go on the O side, captain Ramon El Lago. Now, this is during Vietnam, we're moving ahead a little bit and he was awarded a Medal of Honor during the Battle of Lo I'm going to say it properly Lo Gi-Han in 1968. And he was exposing himself to enemy fire to treat and evacuate wounded soldiers. Because, remember, you get out there and if somebody is still wounded and they can't function, it's either they're going to die or you're going to do something to stop it, to get them out. We can't just always grab and go. It is treat. Then get them and then go. They have to dodge enemy fire, they have to defend and they've got to keep their head together enough to be able to look at a patient and know how to treat them and know how to treat them under any attack. Come on now. If that's not badass, rhea, I don't know what is Now.

Speaker 1: 24:29

This one is very near and dear to most of the military nursing community and probably, I would say, a lot of the military medical community, but definitely the nursing community. We all learned this when we came in and this was actually a very neat story. So during Vietnam, there was an operation that went on to get the Vietnamese babies out of Vietnam. They were the parents. I can't even imagine doing this, but they've got to get them out of country. And so the US is doing Operation Baby Lift on C5 Galaxy aircraft, right, and there are multiple planes going out.

Speaker 1: 25:08

Now here's a cool fun fact I actually know one of those babies.

Speaker 1: 25:12

She actually became one of flight nurses when I was in the military as a flight nurse and she became a flight nurse Talk about coming full circle and yeah, she told me the story.

Speaker 1: 25:25

Now, she wasn't on the plane that crashed, but she was on one of those planes, right, and I believe she came out with her mom, if I'm not mistaken, but in April of 1975, these were the final days of the Vietnam War there were two nurses on the specific C5.

Speaker 1: 25:41

And the first one we were going to talk about is Mary Captain Teresa Clinker, and she was stationed in Philippines during Vietnam and her job was to help get these orphaned Vietnamese children out to safety and she was a senior flight nurse on this Operation Baby Lift flight and this plane crashed and it was a nasty crash so it literally I don't know what the malfunction was, but it crashed and it went like through a rice paddy, became airborne again for about a half mile, crashed again and then tore into about four pieces. Mary Clinker unfortunately did not survive but she was one of the nurses on Operation Baby Lift on that flight and she's actually got an air medal, a posturamist's air medal and a meritorious service medal, and you actually can find her name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She was also the last US service member to die in the Vietnam War because the war was wrapping up right. There was another nurse that was on that flight, lieutenant first, lieutenant Regina AU and I believe is how you pronounce her last name AU and E.

Speaker 2: 26:56

I love this story.

Speaker 1: 26:58

I know this one is very near and dear because, in all honesty, I've heard more about Clinker than I did about this story and this one is. It's unfortunate that Clinker did not make it, but what this woman did, she is a badass. So when the plane crashed she was throwing the entire length of the upper deck and I don't know if you guys know what a C5 looks like, but they're big planes and they look like they give birth to a 130. They're huge planes and there's this upper deck and when the plane first crashed she was throwing the entire length and then she survived that. And then it crashed again and, amazingly, survived it. That by itself is a shocker. She helped carry 80 babies to rescue helicopters 88 zero, not 18. 80.

Speaker 2: 27:50

And then, of course, it's all muddy.

Speaker 1: 27:52

There's a rice paddy field and it's all muddy and she's got to go through this muck, and so she's bringing these babies out. Just get the visual, one after another. You're not carrying 80 babies. You're not carrying 80 babies at once. So she might, if she jimmy raked something, got three or four right.

Speaker 2: 28:08

So she's bringing out screaming, crying, scared, just been shooken up Injured, everything right.

Speaker 1: 28:15

So you're bringing them out to the helicopters getting them out. When she was unable to continue, she asked the first officer she saw if she could be relieved of duty and then passed out. They found out later that she was saving these babies with a broken foot, a broken leg, a broken vertebrae and numerous other injuries. Hello adrenaline you saved 80 babies broken.

Speaker 2: 28:44

I was like holy crap and then kept it together long enough to say, hey, finally somebody's here, can I pass the torch, and then I'll pass out, and then I'll pass out. We can cry about it later, but it even gets more impressive, that she became a baby.

Speaker 1: 28:59

So she became the first woman to be awarded the Cheney Award. But the real impressive part is that she retired as an Air Force Colonel in 2007. So she came back and finished her time after all of that and she retired as an Air Force Colonel. So we were literally walking amongst a giant. I want to go find her. I do. I really hope she's still alive. So if anybody knows her, we want to talk to her Totally.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was mad. Respect, all right. Moving forward into some more modern things, we have a couple here and I just want to say right now that we picked out some because we could be doing this for days and we just thought going through time in history would be a fun way to do it. But we know there are so many people that are badasses and that should be honored, and if you know somebody and we get enough of them, heck, I'd do a whole second one and honor all of these guys and girls and everybody. But moving ahead to OIF, operation Iraqi freedom oh, my goodness, my brain just went sideways. Yeah, operation Iraqi freedom Sergeant First Class Alwyn Cash.

Speaker 1: 30:09

He was a combat medic in the army. He was awarded a silver star for his bravery and selfless actions. He rescued some fellow soldiers from a burning vehicle in Iraq in 2005. And if a lot of you guys that may not be military happen to be listening to this, everybody probably remembers the convoy to Baghdad, right? So and this just popped in my head, so I'm going to pull this in right now there is somebody that I want to honor because she is a badass and she was an army medic and she was one of the first medics out there on the convoy. She was up in the turrets, right On the tanks, in the turrets as they were convoying to Baghdad and she was amazing.

Speaker 1: 31:03

I know her personally. Is this somebody that you had worked with? It is somebody I had worked with, but just in, nicole, I'm talking about you girl. She's amazing. She was one handling business out there as one of the first convoys and she taught me a lot of stuff about some of what they had to go through, things like did I ever pull a gun on a nine year old? She's try that one. You have to determine if you're going to get shot or be shot or shoot.

Speaker 2: 31:36

How do you stay alive out there?

Speaker 1: 31:37

And you're a mom.

Speaker 2: 31:39

She had mom and three kids, which brings into play the moral injury attached to me or you.

Speaker 1: 31:49

Yeah, she, I was always impressed with her. She taught me one time we were doing a recon out in army camp and we were looking to do some exercises out there. And we went out there and we ended up in an area where they were training security forces and I don't know if I mentioned this on another podcast, but I might have. But she was saying we went up in the back and we saw this big oh, is this with the toys? Yeah, and I was like are you guys, do you like toys for toss or something? What is all these toys here? And they're like no, it's de-sensitization training. And that's when she said to me she goes until you have a nine year old pull a gun on you. She's you're not, nobody's prepared for that. And she's what he said. The gentleman given the tour was when you see a toy, it's a psychological trick that they do. So.

Speaker 1: 32:37

When they see a toy, they actually will put it out there and it triggers you thinking of your child, maybe your child had a toy innocence and all that stuff and that toy could be loaded with a bomb and so they use that and so we have to desensitize people from seeing all this stuff. Right, and that's. That was a. That was a deep breath when she was saying that to me. She goes, until you have a nine year old, pull a gun on your mom. She goes. That's invaluable training, right, there Is just in the still one. No, she is retired. I was happy that I went to her retirement. She retired as mass sergeant. She's phenomenal. I would have worked with her any day. I'd follow her into any battle Really good person and combat medic, yep. So I wanted to give a shout out because it popped in my head. I knew it would. I knew I was like I'm going to think of other people as we're doing this, because that's how my brain works.

Speaker 2: 33:30

All right, let's talk about another pretty amazing medic. So this was in Afghanistan and we're talking about Army specialist Monica Lim Brown, again 18 years old. We're not talking about people that have 20, 30 years of experience behind them. These are, these are relatively young people who were brave enough to raise their right hand and literally go into war and do amazing things. So Monica Lim Brown was part of the 82nd Airborne in Pakhtia province, afghanistan.

Speaker 2: 34:02

The year was 2007. So roadside bomb had gone off as her convoy was passing by, ultimately wounding five soldiers and setting their Humvee on fire. Brown ran through the gunfire and mortars to reach the soldiers who managed to leave the burning vehicle and then she shielded them with her body. Brown ultimately received a silver star for her bravery and was also pulled out because of regulations barring women from combat. So I don't know exactly what the situation with that was. How did she get in? First of all, yeah, I'm not too sure what happened with that or if maybe there was more to the story, but the important thing is that we're highlight, highlighting what she did while she was there. Oh, yeah, she was in the fire. That's live she saved, and the ripe old age of 18 to be brave enough to say that's okay, I'll shield you, take care of you. I got you, yeah, yeah, and got your six, and she was there, wow, that's impressive.

Speaker 1: 35:02

All right, so we have a couple more here. We want to talk about Sergeant First Class Petrie, lee Roy Petrie. He was an Army Ranger and a combat medic and he got the Medal of Honor because during a firefight in Afghanistan he was treating wounded soldiers, got injured. This is you hear this story right, they get injured themselves and then turned around and saved two other Rangers by picking up and throwing an enemy grenade. So the grenade comes in. It's an enemy grenade. He didn't have one on him. The grenade comes in and you're brave enough to grab that. You don't know how much time you've got before it's going to click off.

Speaker 2: 35:45

And it is a game of pot potato.

Speaker 1: 35:47

I don't want to play. And you're like, oh, it's like, take it back, it's yours. Yeah, damn Again. Young guy. I don't know how old he was, but if he's Sergeant First Class, he's still pretty young. I mean, he's got a little years underneath him. But yeah, another one. That jaw dropping, adrenaline and training you put those together and insane things happen. You didn't say things. And then Captain Jennifer Marino. She was an Army nurse and she was awarded a Bronze Star in Purple Heart for her actions in Afghanistan 2013. She lost her life while she was saving wounded soldiers during an IED explosion.

Speaker 2: 36:28

There's actually a building clinic, a whole clinic named after her.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Oh, that's right, Absolutely right, you're right. So that is the list we put together. Like I said, we could have gone on and on.

Speaker 2: 36:43

There's so many, but this is just the list of the medical folks. Oh yeah, oh my gosh, can you imagine if we even touched on a fraction of the everybody else stockpile? Yes, there's amazing things being done and I know we're usually over here gritty and grinning and full of dark humor, but this is one that just we're wrapping up and I've just got this sense of gratitude and just profound respect for each one of these people.

Speaker 1: 37:14

Yeah, absolutely, and we know there's a lot of you out there that are getting it done. There's a lot in military medicine that are the silent heroes and they're doing it every day and you're getting in there and either a or just working, and not just, but you're getting up every day pulling those shifts and anybody that's never been a hospital working. There's miracles happening every single day there and we're now at a time where we're post COVID and that medical community has been shredded. There's a lot of people that have left the medical community on all sides. This is a time where coming out and becoming a nurse and getting a job is Very easy right now, very easy. A lot of times in the medical community and combined with the military medical community, it's like a seesaw. Sometimes the civilian community can be full up and the military is okay, we want you, and other times it can be the opposite, and this is a time where everybody needs them across the board and it's not just nurses. They need medics, they need nurses.

Speaker 2: 38:21

PAs, RTAs, CRNAs, everybody.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Yeah, so they're tired. This community is tired on both sides, and I think it's just good to highlight a couple people that have given in the past. Some are still with us, some are not, but I think it's really good to honor all our veterans. For all you guys out there, you're bad asses. We love every single one of you guys and we appreciate you and we're just honored. We get to take the time to pull together a whole podcast to honor you guys.

Speaker 2: 38:57

Happy Veterans Day, guys. Truly it's a brotherhood, a sisterhood, a dysfunctional family, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. It's like a whole bunch of cousins.

Speaker 1: 39:10

Let's just get annoyed with each other, or siblings that are like, oh, I can beat on you, but nobody else can beat on you. Exactly that's who we are right. We still get up, get in there and we get it done, so got anything else. That's it detox. That's all she wrote. All right, my mom walked off. She didn't want to be on it anymore. She was sitting here listening and so she had enough. I guess, after you told her she had enough of our crap, after you told her I was a legend, she was done, she's. You're already full of crap. She's a happy Veterans Day. Be off, all right. Everybody, this is Bulls To Bed Pans and we're just happy to be with you guys and have some time to share all this with you. We hope you can like share comment. We want your comments, we want engagement. The more we talk, I think, the better it is for everybody. And from all of us here to all you happy Veterans Day and peace out.