Medics are an odd bunch. We’re that strange mix of brains and Braun
that is required to work on the Line but also to reasonably diagnose and treat
a wide range of injuries and illnesses from food poisoning to traumatic
amputations. We’re trained to look for
the signs of combat stress and the good medics are always watching their
companies (batteries and troops) for anything that might affect them. It’s a very stressful job, and we tend to
blow steam off in very odd ways. We’re
also odd in that most of the things that make you say “aw sick dude” we tend to
say; “DUDE! That’s so freaking
sweet!” We get a damn good laugh at some
of the insanely stupid stories you come up with to explain the bizarre gambit
of injuries you somehow inflict upon yourselves (I have pictures so don’t try
to deny it).
We love our guys to death. Ask a good medic what he wouldn’t do for
their guys and you’d be hard pressed to find a limit to how far they’d go for
you. Usually this love is mutual. A good medic is worth his weight in gold to a
line company, and we pride ourselves on earning that title you bestow on us,
“Doc”. There is just one thing you all
should know when dealing with those good medics, that I ought to give you fair
warning. Don’t EVER piss them off. To explain exactly what I mean I will tell
you two little tales to explain just why it’s such a bad idea to piss off your
medic.
First comes from one of the NCOs
that instructed me way back when real men wore green and Iraq was just won (the
first time). You see my instructors
hated how terribly dull the Death by Powerpoint slides were and it would often
piss them off that some of the privates would fall asleep. So they would tell stories. So one day we’re going through a series of
slides describing some of the treatments of ingestion of poison, and one of the
slides mentions that you should never give syrup of ipecac to a person who’s
ingested an alkaline solution. This
seems to be a great time for an aside so he stops the slide show and proceeds
with his story.
“You’re probably never going to see
ipecac anymore, but it used to be something we carried all the time. It was supposed to be given in the event of
poisoning and certain other emergencies and would cause a person to vomit.” At this point I’m pretty sure some of us
sniggered about the possibilities to prank one another. At this point one of the trainees asked if he
had ever used it. He smiled and said “once”
He proceeded to explain that a few
duty stations ago, he had been a medic tasked to cover the pre-Ranger training his brigade did. While he never went through Ranger School
himself he pulled coverage on the candidates all the time. He didn’t have to stick to only two MREs a
day or less, but it was frowned on if he had a ton of POGie bait sitting around
so he would always have an orange and an apple in his FLA, and would eat one or
the other while following road marches or waiting for the candidates to move
from one area to another.
Well once he noticed a few days in
that both the apple and the orange would keep disappearing. He was getting annoyed, and knew it wasn’t
the other medic because he preferred bananas (which he’d have in a cargo
pocket). After a week of his oranges and
apples going MIA he decided he’d had just about enough of this shit. He took the syrup of ipecac, drew up 30 CCs
in a syringe, and injected both the apple and orange with this miracle drug of
super pranks.
Word of advice if you bite into
something and it tastes like it has maple syrup in it but it shouldn’t, spit it
out and do not swallow it. Turns out
there were two would be Rangers that suddenly came down with a violent case of
vomiting, and the FLA was called out to treat them. There were two sad sorry sacks who were on
their hands and knees vomiting their brains out and their squad hovering around
them completely clueless as to what might have caused them to up chuck till
they had no chuck left then keep going.
IVs were started, and as soon as they were in the back of the FLA away
from the cadre my instructor tapped the two on the shoulder.
“Now I know that you stole my fruit,”
he says. “I put something in it to make
you vomit, so I know it was you guys that did it. You’ll keep dry heaving for the next half hour
or so and will be pretty weak for the rest of the day but you’ll be fine by
dinner. I won’t say anything to anyone,
so long as you never ever steal my fruit again.”
Unfortunately for all those intrepid
pranksters out there, you really can’t find this wonder anymore. Apparently people would ingest it and the
vomiting would be so violent that it would cause other problems, among other
things dehydration, and apparently some people would do Family Guyesque moments
where idiots would chug it and see who vomited last.
The other situation was actually
something I did. This happened on my
first tour when I worked in the battalion aid station for the support
battalion. Well I happened to be OpCon’d
out to an infantry unit in my brigade.
Out at this Podunk little FOB, there was this guy who would always hang
out at the aid station, and always try to bum food off us (we had a little back
door deal with the cooks). He would sit
there watch our movies and complain about things we did. Really we couldn’t get rid of the SOB. Worst of all we did actually need him to
upload commo, and keep us apprised of MEDEVACs in our AO, so we couldn’t just
whack him upside the head. But slipping
him something in his food. . . that’s a whole other story.
So one day said offender just left
the aid station after cutting loose a truly atrocious fart, and I say something
to the effect of “What I wouldn’t give to get him back.” At which point my very big brained socially awkward
neurologist Doctor pipes up “well, you could always turn his urine blue”. Say what now?
Turn his urine BLUE? Yes in fact
there is a pill that is sued to turn one’s urine blue to aid in the diagnostic
of kidney functions (side note, eating a lot of beats will turn it red, and a
lot of asparagus will make your urine REALLY stink). The malicious grin that sprang to two young
specialist’s faces were enough to make him realize he probably shouldn’t have
said that. After two hours of pestering
him he told us the name, and told us that only the Aid Station back on the main
FOB would have it.
A week later, said pills came on a
LOGPAC, along with a few choice DVDs, and a month’s worth of mail. Needless to say we took the liberty of
consulting the Nurses Desk Reference to make sure we got the proper
dosing. Sure enough Sgt [name removed]
comes to the aid station intent on watching our Stargate SG-1 marathon all the
while complaining about the lack of good food, and consequently raiding our
food. When he got up to piss I delivered
the crushed up pills to his drink, a pop top coke then pretend nothing has
happened. Said coke was chugged, and I
began grinning like an idiot.
The aid station didn’t have to wait
long. Perhaps an hour and a half and two
episodes later we hear a scream from the bathroom. The high pitched girlish scream you expect
out of your little sister when she sees a spider. He comes tarring into the treatment room and
screams
“MY PISS IS BLUE!”
Most people would have bust up
laughing at this point. I managed to
keep my cool, but I couldn’t help a grin.
“Blue you say?”
“Did I F**KING STUTTER? MY PISS WAS F**KING BLUE!!!” he screams at
me.
“Gosh, that doesn’t sound good, let
me get the Doc.”
I didn’t have to go far. The screaming in conjunction with the
trampling in the aid station had alerted the NCOIC and the Doctor that
something’s up. My partner was off doing
something with our ambulance so he was a no-show. I intercepted my Doc in the hallway, while
the NCOIC went in to figure out what the hell all the screaming was about. I asked my Doc to play along.
I couldn’t stay in the treatment
room because I was laughing so hard, and my Doctor who had given me the idea,
and now had the responsibility for carrying the prank just a little bit further
was absolutely brilliant, in one stroke suggesting the hapless Sgt wasn’t
getting enough PT and was probably eating too much food. I’m not sure what he gave him but that Sgt
left the aid station with wide eyes, and he never broke wind in our aid station
again. I might have been literally rolling
on the floor laughing. I might also have
had to do a LOT of push-ups, and would have gotten an Article 15 if my NCOIC at
the time didn’t want that Sgt gone just as much as I did, and she thought
(after a day or so) that it WAS pretty funny.
The moral of the story is this boys
and girls; Medics are an odd bunch. We
love you to death, but that does not mean that we won’t embarrass the hell out
of you if you try to act up with us.
Laugh along with us, and don’t give us a reason to dislike you. Also it kind of helps to have us on your side
because we tend to have connections.
Love us or hate us, you can’t live without us.
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