I am a Navy Corpsman, By: HMC(SS) Wright 2003

I Am a Navy Corpsman

I AM A NAVY CORPSMAN. I POSSESS THE STAMINA AND ENTHUSIAM OF YOUTH AND THE WISDOM AND EXPERINCE OF AN OLD MAN.

I AM 3 PARTS DOCTOR, 1 PART NURSE, 2 PARTS MARINE, 1 PART YEOMAN AND 3 PARTS MOM, YET I AM 100% SAILOR.

I AM UNEMPLOYABLE TO THE CIVILIAN WORLD IN MY GIVEN PROFESSION YET HAVE BEEN THE VERY LIFE LINE FOR COUNTLESS MARINES, SOLDIERS AND SAILORS SINCE 1778.

I HAVE CARRIED MARINES FROM THE BATTLE FIELD … AND HAVE BEN CARRIED REVERENTLY MYSELF BY MARINES WHO MORNED MY PASSING LIKE THAT OF A BROTHER OR SISTER.

I AM YOUNG. I AM OLD. BRAVE, SCARED AND SCARRED. MY TITLE HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS: LOBLOLLY BOY, SURGENS STEWART, PHARMICIST MATE, HOSPITAL CORPSMAN, IDC, YET WITH ALL THE CHANGES I AM STILL SIMPLY KNOW AS “DOC”.

I HAVE CELEBRATED PEACE; YET FELT THE STING OF WAR ON THE SEAS, IN JUNGLES, IN FOREIGN CITIES, IN WASHINGTON D.C. AND ON BEACHES OF EVERY SHADE OF SAND… WHITE, TAN, CORAL AND BLACK.

I HAVE RAISED HELL ON LIBERTY; HOPE IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE …. AND OLD GLORY ON IWO JIMA.

I HAVE REMOVED APPENDIXES ON SUBMARINES AND LIMBS IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE AND MANY OTHER PROCEDURES FAR ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT I AM EXPECTED TO DO BY THE NORMAL PRACTICE OF MEDICINE BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE DONE IN ORDER TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A MARINE OR SAILOR IN BATTLE OR UNDER THE ICE, FAR FROM A DOCTORS CARE.

I HAVE IGNORED MY OWN WOUNDS TO THE POINT OF DEATH IN ORDER TO STAY AT MY STATION TREATING THE WOUNDED OF MY NATIONS NAVY, MARINE CORP, ARMY AND AIRFORCE.

I HAVE THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF MEDAL OF HONORS OF ANY CORP IN THE NAVY ….. MOST OF THEM PRESENTED TO MY WIFE, CHILD OR MOTHER BECAUSE I WAS ALREADY IN HEAVEN AT THE TIME.

I AM PROUD TO KNOW IN MY HEART THAT EVERY MARINE WHO HAS EVER FOUGHT AND EVERY SAILOR WHO HAS GONE TO SEA ON SHIPS OWE THEIR VERY LIVES TO THOSE THEY SIMPLY, YET RESPECTFULLY KNOW AS “DOC”

MARK A. WRIGHT

HMC(SS), USN

14 FEBRUARY 2003

YOU DID IT!!!!! The GI bill passes the House!

You did it. Just a few minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed the new GI Bill by a vote of 256-166, as an attachment to the emergency supplemental. Click here to view the full list of who voted for it and who voted against it.

Earlier this week, we told you that the new GI Bill was facing opposition from a small group of Representatives in the House, who were threatening the bill despite its deep bi-partisan support.

We asked for your help, and you stepped up to the plate. Thousands of you took action by calling your Representatives, signing the petition at www.GIBill2008.org, and spreading the word to your friends and neighbors. Today, your dedication paid off and together, we made history.

There’s no question that your efforts had an impact. Referring specifically to the group of Representatives that were standing in the way of the bill, known as the Blue Dogs, the Politico, a Washington-insider newspaper, said that “there had been erosion among Blue Dogs in the face of pressure from veterans groups.”¹ The leadership you demonstrated in fighting for this bill shows that IAVA is a force to be reckoned with.

The new GI Bill has widespread support among Democrats, Republicans, and all of the major veterans organizations. But the legislative process is a long one, and it’s your dedication that keeps it going during these crucial stages.

Next week, the Senate will have to vote on the bill as well. After that, it will go to the President’s desk for his signature.

We’ll keep you updated via email, but for the latest news, just visit www.GIBill2008.org.

Thank you again for standing with us. The support we’re getting in this fight has been truly inspiring.

Sincerely,

Patrick Campbell
Iraq Veteran
Legislative Director
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

1. Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10331.html

More GI Bill info. House Nixes Tax increase on Millionaires.

Well I know we have plenty of Millionaire kids out there serving in the military. (HAH!).
They won’t support the military and they won’t pay for more taxes to support the military or the new GI Bill. Folks please call your rep’s about this. Look at the email I sent out earlier this week about the New GI Bill trying to be stopped by some Democrats out there.
Here is the story by the AP and Military.com.

Senate Dems Nix Taxes for New GI Bill

May 15, 2008

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Senate leaders are rejecting a plan by Democrats in the House of Representatives to add a surcharge on upper-income taxpayers to a bill providing $163 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next year.The half-percentage point surcharge on income exceeding $500,000 for individuals and income above $1 million for couples was added to the House war funding bill on Tuesday. The tax increase would be used to finance a $52 billion increase in college aid for post-Sept. 11, 2001, veterans that has been added to the war funding measure.

The tax increase on wealthier people was inserted to mollify moderate House Democrats upset with Democratic leaders’ original plan to simply add the big increase in benefits under the GI Bill to the near-record budget deficit. That would violate so-called pay-as-you-go budget rules that require new benefit programs to be “paid for” with accompanying revenue increases or spending cuts.

But Democratic Sen. Patty Murray - a member of the party’s leadership team - rejected the idea Wednesday, telling reporters that the additional veterans money is a cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new college aid bill would essentially guarantee a full-ride scholarship to any in-state public university, along with a monthly housing stipend, for individuals who serve the military for at least three years. It’s aimed at replicating the GI Bill benefits awarded veterans of World War II.

The House is slated to vote on the war funding bill Thursday. The measure also includes foreign aid funding, money for military construction projects, flood protection around New Orleans and a variety of smaller items, bringing the total appropriated spending to $183.7 billion.

In addition to the benefits, Democrats have tacked on a plan to give 13 more weeks of unemployment checks to people whose benefits have run out and 13 weeks beyond that in states with especially high unemployment rates. That provision would not comply with the budget rules requiring deficit neutrality, so its $15.6 billion cost through 2009 would simply be added to the budget deficit.

President Goerge W. Bush has promised to veto any supplemental spending bill exceeding his requests of $108 billion for the remainder of the 2008 budget year ending Sept. 30 and a $70 billion downpayment to fund the war effort for several months into 2009, which would give the next president some breathing space to set war policy.

Bush has also threatened to veto any bill that ties his hands on Iraq. The House measure would require Bush to begin pulling out troops from Iraq within 30 days with a nonbinding goal of a complete withdrawal of combat troops by December, 2009. The provision is expected to be blocked by Senate Republicans.

Appropriations Committee Democrats made some small cuts to Bush’s Pentagon request and added Bush’s $5.8 billion request for New Orleans area flood control projects.

Taken together, the changes to Bush’s requests probably are not big enough to provoke a veto, but the same cannot be said of Democrats’ plans to extend unemployment benefits or improve the GI Bill.

The measure also contains a provision to prohibit using U.S. aid to rebuild towns or equip security forces in Iraq unless Baghdad matches every dollar spent, lawmakers said Tuesday.

Microsoft Worldwide Telescope, Look at the Stars on your PC!

I am a Astronomy junkie, have been since I was a kid who lived in Twain Harte, Ca who on summer nights would go to the “ROCK” at the Twain Harte lake with Andy Rake armed with a Telescope to see the moon and the stars. Twain Harte was in the Sierra’s and I lived there for 10 years of my young life. No City lights to obscure the heavens wonders.

I can’t do that up here near Chicago, to many city lights to see the nights arial display. Now I can do it from the comfort of my office..

On May 12′th Microsoft released the “Microsoft Worldwide Telescope” Project.

Shipmates “WOW” I mean “WOWW!”

Take a look, if you have kids and want to help them learn about the heavens above, check to see if your machine can run this. It is really slick.

Let us know what you think in our forums.

Enjoy!

Nano-Tech helps stop bleeding

A synthetic peptide as discovered by researchers at MIT in the early 90’s. A few years ago they realized this technology could assist with bleeding.. Awesome article, from Technology Review .

Nanohealing Material Heads to Market

A startup is planning human trials for a nanostructured material that quickly stops bleeding.
By Kevin Bullis

A startup based in Cambridge, MA, says that it plans to soon begin clinical trials of a nanostructured material that stops bleeding almost instantly. A startup called Arch Therapeutics has licensed the technology from MIT and is developing manufacturing processes for making it in large amounts.

The new material can be poured over a site and will stop the bleeding almost at once.

The first application, pending Food and Drug Administration approval, will be for use during surgery to quickly stop bleeding and even prevent it in the first place. Floyd Loop, currently an advisor to Arch Therapeutics, and formerly a cardiovascular surgeon and the head of Cleveland Clinic, says that it could be useful in a wide variety of surgeries, including brain, heart, and prostate. For example, he says that when large tumors are removed, “there’s a lot of diffuse bleeding around the site, and you have to spend a lot of time with sponges and cautery stopping it.”

Loops says that in addition to saving time, which can improve the outcome of a surgery, the material could decrease the need for transfusions and reoperations to control bleeding. What’s more, it could reduce the risk of infection. It could be used, for instance, to prevent leakage after bowel-repair surgery. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Loop says.

Eventually, the material could be used by first responders to stop bleeding at accident sites and on the battlefield. It has a long shelf life, which makes it attractive for use in first-aid kits. It’s also easily broken down by the body, so it doesn’t have to be removed, unlike other agents for stopping blood flow. However, Loop cautions that further tests are needed to confirm that the material will work in nonsurgical applications.

The material, a synthetic peptide, was discovered at MIT in the early 1990s. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that its potential for stopping bleeding was discovered. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, a researcher at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, was exploring its potential use to promote the healing of brain injuries. When he applied a liquid containing the synthetic peptides to a wound site in animal experiments, bleeding in the area stopped within a few seconds. Arch Therapeutics was founded in mid-2006 to develop the material for commercial use. The company made its first public appearance late last month when it announced a finalized licensing agreement for the new technology.

Several other compounds have recently been developed to stop bleeding. Fibrin-based products are used in emergency rooms and dental applications, for example, but the new material is faster and more effective, says Steve Yerid, an emergency-room physician at St. Vincent Hospital, in Worcester, MA. Other approaches to stopping bleeding are too slow, can lead to tissue damage, or must be removed from the wound because they don’t readily break down. Conversely, the new material is easy to apply, doesn’t cause damage, and can be left on the wound, even if it’s a deep wound that’s eventually sewn up.

The material consists of naturally occurring amino acids that have been engineered to form peptides that spontaneously cluster together to create long fibers when exposed to salty, aqueous environments, such as those found in the body. The fibers form a mesh that serves as a physical barrier to blood and other fluids.

So far, Arch Therapeutics has been focused on developing new processes for making the materials in large amounts and on developing a better understanding of the mechanisms at work in stopping blood flow. It is preparing to do clinical trials, but is first doing further animal tests. Based on the fact that the material works as a physical barrier, the founders expect that it will qualify as a medical device rather than a drug, which could speed the approval process

MARINES having success in Afghanistan, but being spread thin

This is from MSNBC. The Marines have suffered no casualties since they took on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Unfortunately no one from NATO wants to setup to secure the areas the Marines take. What a mess. Would someone please tell me when Iraq struck the US??? Why are over 85% of our combat forces there rather in Afghanistan?

Anyways. here is the video.

Master Sergeant Brendon O’Connor receives Distinguished Service Cross

Medic gets Distinguished Service Cross

Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor on Wednesday received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest valor award, for his actions during a 17-hour battle in Afghanistan.

The 47-year-old Special Forces medical sergeant spoke with humor and humility after the medal was pinned on his uniform in a ceremony at Bank Hall on Fort Bragg.

“My word!” O’Connor said, reacting to praise by a three-star Army general and a four-star Navy admiral. “My name is Brendan O’Connor, and I didn’t fully approve that message.”

In his self-effacing remarks, O’Connor apologized to his children for missing birthdays and thanked his wife, Margaret, for what she has done in raising their family in his absence.

Margaret O’Connor writes a Home Front column for The Fayetteville Observer.

Master Sgt. O’Connor, who resigned his commission as an officer and then took the rigorous training to become a Special Forces medical sergeant, said his “momentary courage” pales in comparison to people who cope courageously with difficult situations daily, such as Capt. Ivan Castro, who is blind, and Harry Hubbard, a friend who suffered a stroke in his mid-30s.

The audience included former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, a friend of the O’Connor family, and former 7th Group commanders.

The heroism of O’Connor and his team in the face of an attack by 300 Taliban fighters received national attention April 20 in a segment on the CBS news show “60 Minutes.”

Adm. Eric Olson, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command at Tampa, Fla., pinned the award on O’Connor’s uniform.

Olson hailed the contributions of the Green Berets and said the demand for Special Forces may grow as conventional forces are reduced overseas.

“Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor exemplifies the spirit of these warriors,” Olson said.

The admiral wore his white Navy dress uniform. O’Connor was in his green Army dress uniform.

O’Connor led a quick reaction force June 24, 2006, in Kandahar province’s Panjwai District, described by Special Forces as one of the most hotly contested areas of southern Afghanistan.

He maneuvered his force through Taliban positions and crawled alone through enemy machine-gun fire to reach two wounded soldiers, the citation said. He tied a signal cloth to his back to identify himself to aircraft overhead. While under fire, he provided medical care and carried a wounded soldier more than 150 yards across open ground. He climbed over a wall three times under enemy fire to help wounded soldiers seek cover. Then he took over as the operations sergeant and rallied, motivated and led his team.

“Thank God for men like Master Sgt. O’Connor,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Wagner, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.

Maj. Sheffield Ford said after the ceremony that O’Connor picked up Sgt. Joseph Fuerst and carried him over his shoulder and ran while under fire.

“Knowing that bullets were coming in all around him, he didn’t hesitate,” Ford said. “He continued to get up and move because he knew he had to get Joe back if he was going to have a chance to try to save him.” Fuerst died, and Staff Sgt. Matthew Binney survived, Ford said.

Former Sgt. 1st Class Abram Hernandez received the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest award for valor, on April 17 on Fort Bragg for his actions in the same battle. Master Sgt. Thomas Maholic was killed in the fighting and received the Silver Star posthumously Nov. 15.

During training, Special Forces medics, who have extensive training and upon whom the entire team depends, are told to wait for others to bring the wounded to them, but O’Connor realized the soldiers needed immediate help and the battle was not going to stop, Ford said.

Staff Sgt. Charles Lyles said O’Connor paused before going out on the mission to make sure he was taking everything he would need.

“The seconds he took to make sure he had everything ready, I believe, made the difference,” Lyles said.

Staff Sgt. Brandon Pechette remembers O’Connor being “calm and cool and very intelligently funny while we were there, keeping the morale high, which is very important because we were such a small force against overwhelming odds.”

The award came 40 years after O’Connor’s father was killed in Vietnam.

The last time soldiers of the 7th Special Forces Group received Distinguished Service Crosses was in July 1964, Wagner said. Capt. Roger Donlon received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest valor award, for his actions in the same battle, he said. He was the first Medal of Honor recipient of the Vietnam War.

Care Costs Rise as Veterans Population Declines.

All of our heroes from WWII and Korea are dying due to age. The VA is not receiving the savings they thought they would due to the Injured Vets from IRAQ & Afghanistan.

Care costs rise as veteran population declines

WASHINGTON — Increasing numbers of U.S. troops have left the military with damaged bodies and minds, an ever-larger pool of disabled veterans that will cost the country billions of dollars for decades to come — even as the total population of America’s veterans has begun to shrink.

Despite the decline in the total number of veterans — as soldiers from World War II and Korea die — the government expects to be spending $59 billion a year to compensate injured warriors in 25 years, up from today’s $29 billion, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press. And the Veterans Affairs Department concedes the bill could be much higher.

Why?

Worse wounds. More disabilities. More vets aware of the benefits and quicker to file for them.

Also, ironically, advanced medical care. Troops come home with devastating injuries that might well have killed them in earlier wars.

Time is also a factor when it comes to disability compensation costs. Payments tend to go up as veterans age, and an increasing number of soldiers from the Vietnam War will be getting bigger payments as they get older and are less able to work around their disabilities.

The number of disabled veterans has jumped by 25 percent since 2001 — to 2.9 million — and the cause really is no mystery.

“This is a cost of war,” says Steve Smithson, a deputy director at the American Legion. “We’re still producing veterans. We’ve been in a war in Iraq for five years now, and the war on terror since 9/11.”

VA and Census Bureau figures show the previous six-year period, before hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw a more modest increase of 4 percent in the number of disabled vets. Veterans can make claims for disability benefits long after their military service has ended.

Today’s veterans — disabled or not — number nearly 24 million. That population is projected by the VA to fall under 15 million by 2033, mostly because of dying World War II and Korean War vets. But costs are expected to rise.

Inflation accounts for a big chunk of the increase. But even when the VA factors out inflation, the compensation for disabled veterans would still grow from $29 billion to $33 billion in today’s dollars — a more than 10 percent increase. And the department acknowledges the estimate could rise by 30 percent.

VA officials were not eager to talk about reasons for the increases. They declined several requests for interviews. In a written response to a handful of questions, the agency noted a few factors at play in the rising costs, such as the aging veterans population, an increase in the number of disabilities claimed and the severity of injuries sustained.

Outside experts provided more insight.

The American Legion’s Smithson says the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are resulting in more severe injuries — amputations and traumatic burns — the kind of injuries that troops in Vietnam and earlier wars would not have survived.

Smithson says today’s veterans also are filing claims for more disabilities.

“People are more aware of the benefits they are able to file for (because of) better outreach,” Smithson said. “It’s not like the WWII generation and Korean war generation where they weren’t aware of what they could file for, and they were also reluctant to file if they didn’t think they needed it.”

Iraq veteran Christopher Bain filed for about 10 disabilities after his tour in 2004. Bain came under mortar fire outside Baghdad and was hit several times. He successfully fought doctors who wanted to amputate his left arm. But 10 operations later, he still needs help getting dressed each day. An electrical stimulator implanted in his upper buttocks helps dull the pain from his injuries.

“It’s hard, you go through certain periods of remorse,” said Bain. “I am never going to be the man I once was.”

Bain suffers from tinnitus, post-traumatic stress disorder and serious injuries to his arms. He receives a check each month for $2,618 that helps the former Army staff sergeant pay the mortgage, food and clothing costs for his family of five in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Bain is one of about 755,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of that group, the VA says more than 181,000 are collecting disability benefits.

Another factor driving up costs and the overall number of disabled veterans is Vietnam. Veterans from that era make up the biggest group of vets today receiving disability compensation. At the end of 2006, more than 947,000 Vietnam vets were getting monthly checks.

“You see an awful lot of Vietnam veterans over the course of the years have gone from a 30 percent to 40 percent disability rating up to 100 percent when their employment years start to wane a little bit,” said David Gorman, a Vietnam War veteran who is executive director at the Washington headquarters of Disabled American Veterans.

Conditions, such as a bad back or knee, can worsen with age and draw higher payments. A big concern for Vietnam vets is diabetes. Last year, more than 271,000 veterans were receiving disability benefits for diabetes. Most of the disabilities — 236,000 of them — were linked to Agent Orange exposure.

Veterans who are approved for disability receive monthly checks for injuries or illnesses sustained or aggravated while on active duty. Ratings are scaled from 0 to 100 percent in 10 percent increments. A rating of 10 percent, for example, is given to tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, which is increasingly common for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan because of roadside bombings. Ratings for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury can range from 0-to-100 percent, and 10-to-100 percent, respectively.

Former Army Sgt. Michelle Saunders was rated at 70 percent by the VA after being shot at during a 2004 convoy mission in Iraq. The bullet was caught in her flak jacket, but she sustained painful injuries, including two ruptured disks in her lower back and nerve damage to her right leg.

“It’s turned me from a really alive, pretty happy person into somebody who is numb. I don’t know how to feel anymore,” she said.

Saunders gets a disability check each month from the VA for just under $800.

Annual benefits run from $1,404 for a veteran rated at 10 percent to about $30,324 for those at 100 percent. Severe disabilities, such as the loss of a limb, draw additional compensation.

IRAQ: A girl, a soldier, a dream

IRAQ: A girl, a soldier, a dream

For months, Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon patrolled the downtrodden neighborhoods of Baqubah, where Sunni Muslim extremists had tried to create an Islamic caliphate. One day, he came upon a young girl sitting in an old, oversize wheelchair, blood crusting on the stumps where her legs had been.

Her name was Shahad Abbas Aziz, and on Friday, she sat patiently in a clinic in Baghdad’s Green Zone while doctors measured what remains of her legs. Later, they would make prosthetic limbs to replace the ones blown off seven months ago by a bomb.

As she perched on the edge of the examination table, wearing a denim jumper and lime-green earrings, Falcon stood behind her and related the extraordinary events that brought them to this point and that have changed both of their lives.

BlackBerry, Apple IPhone, AT&T BlackJack????

So my wifes phone is up for renewal in Feb. (Yeah it seems like a long time but..) and I am looking to get her a new phone probably sooner then later. We have AT&T and have had great service with them here in the Chicagoland area. She has a 1st gen Samsung Blackjack, which has served her well. I have the same phone but with some upgrades as I got mine later. It runs windows mobile 5 out of the box and can be upgraded to 6.0.

To /do to her job, connectivity is a must. While the IPhone looks sleek etc, I know it can not multi-task if your doing a function and a call comes in you lose your work etc.

The Blackberry seems to be the way most corporate go. The Blackberry 8310 is what AT&T offers but there is no Wi-fi. You have to use the 8330 which other Wireless providers use. (One thing about AT&T, they try to get every penny from you, they don’t want you to use Wireless if you can. They make more money if you use the dataplan.) Problem with Blackberry, it does not use “3G” technology yet. This is not AT&T’s fault, but Blackberry’s. Most don’t know it but Blackberry comes out of Canada. If you don’t know about the Internet up there.. (ROGERS GOUGES EVERYONE) Then you would not understand.

Samsung is out with the BlackJack 2. It is running the most current version of Windows Mobile. The thing I don’t like about Windows Mobile, it tries to be regular windows but on a mobile platform. While I “LOVE” Microsoft Window “VISTA”, I don’t think this type of setup is right for a phone.

Are any of you using these phones? If so are you able to get data for Meds etc for them? Nursing modules?

What do you think??

Give me feedback in the Scuttlebutt Forums

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