It takes a special person to be a Medic or Corpsman, as the Navy calls them. When the bullets pierce the air ahead of their own sounds, lives are changed in the instant, and it is the Medic who tries to mitigate the changes when the bullets hit their mark. It is a Medic who must decide who he might be able to save, who must overcome the Human instinct to fight back, to fight for life, and must live with the decisions.
Picture: Courtesy SSG Robert Brian Cowdrey
Often, the Medic walks the same trails as the Infantry, but he's a different breed. He is revered by those that do the fighting. And fiercely protected. He is loved by his men, and trusted. He is not expected to do the fighting. He may harass you for being a crybaby while he treats your blister, but he'll do his best to keep you ready for the fight. The Medic will know more about his men than will the Platoon Sergeant.
And with the introduction of the Helicopter came a new breed of men: DustOff. These Medics rush into the Gates of Hell, with one purpose: to save as many lives as the combination of man and machine makes possible. These men fight to get to the battle, to make decisions no one wants to make, to save as many men as possible, to preserve lives within that "Golden Hour." It is DustOff, heli-borne medical evacuation, that is more responsible than any other factor, for the very low fatality rate in modern war. It is DustOff, along with advanced medical facilities far forward on the battlefield, that save lives. It is DustOff, along with those medics on the ground, with their men, that begin treatment as soon as the wound occurs.
Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss these missions with one of their own. He had planned to recount some of his real-world missions, but today, we should look at what goes into what it takes to be a Medic and what it takes to be on a Dustoff bird. It didn't take long, before I recalled the words of CW2 Michael Durant in "In The Company of Heroes," where he recalls his own battles with checking on the survival of patients he had carried as a DustOff pilot in Korea. CW2 Durant is known for his time as a hostage in Somalia, but his time as a DustOff pilot was important to his development as a Helicopter pilot.
To help with this, Dominique Jean Larrey, developed a system of "Triage" as far back as the Napoleonic Wars. It is used in various levels of developed complexity at a variety of levels of care by many medical personnel. But Medics, both on the Ground, and from the Air, must assess quickly who they can and who they cannot help survive. There are some people you just can't help and there others that will survive without your help. The Medic tries to identify those in between, to treat those that with their help will survive. And sometimes must decide which to treat first, even amongst those.
Though, I can sit back and state in confidence, that every life saved is a Victory, I have little doubt that Medics are sometimes haunted with the decisions they had to make, the ones they chose they couldn't help, and the doubts that creep into their minds about those decisions. No matter, how true my words ring, no matter how solid the logic, no matter how well they understand this truth, I know some medics will be haunted by those thoughts. As much as they care, they must also steel their minds, to defend their sanity from what they could not change.
And more specifically, Dustoff came to us with the Helicopter. It came into it's own in the Korean War, and got it's name in Viet Nam, but its forebears may have began in the last days of World War II. DustOff got its name from the callsign of Major Lloyd E Spencer of the 57th Medical Detachment in Viet Nam. During that war, Dustoff helicopters were shot down at a rate 3.3x greater than all other helicopters and Dustoff personnell were 3x more likely to be wounded than those of the other crews. The enemies we've fought in the last 50 years have increasingly cared less about the Geneva Conventions than those we fought before the Korean War.
"There were many problems that had not been worked out on any one individual helicopter. Then on November 13, 1907, the French pioneer Paul Cornu lifted a twin- rotored helicopter into the air entirely without assistance from the ground for a few seconds. After that, several models were produced by many designs but there were no more great advances until another French pioneer, Etienne Oehmichen, became the first to fly a helicopter a kilometer in a closed circuit in 1924. It was a historic flight taking 7 minutes and 40 seconds. Advances began to come fast and furious. One of the more important advances in the development of vertical flight was made by the Spaniard Juan de la Cierva. His design, called the autogyro, was not a true helicopter but his contribution was very important. By 1936, many of the problems had solutions and with the introduction of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter was a reality. Vertical flight was not a dream anymore. " Helis.com
" By 1940, Igor Sikorsky's successful VS-300 had become the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters. He also designed and built the first military helicopter, XR-4, which he delivered to Colonel Franklin Gregory of the U.S. Army." Inventors.about.com
"The first practical rotary wing aircraft developed in the United States was the Sikorsky Model VS-300, designed by Russian-born Igor Sikorsky in the late 1930s. In 1941, the Army ordered a similar model of the Sikorsky helicopter for use in observation, communication, and rescue work. Having proved their worth during World War II, rotary wing aircraft continued to develop at an accelerated pace throughout the 1940s and 1950s." Global Security.org
From its earliest military moments, the helicopter was seen for its future in rescue operations. And it didn't take long for it to be used as such, as portrayed in "M*A*S*H."
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