Corpsmen at Work -Bravo One Five

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Lamonte Hammond and Petty Officer 3rd Class Simon Trujillo, Bravo Company, One Five, treat a Marine who was wounded during a firefight in the Nawa district, Helmand province, Aug. 14, 2009.
photo Cpl. Artur Shvartsberg

Two LAR Corpsman Benjamin P. Castiglione Killed Helmand

The DOD has announced that Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Benjamin P. Castiglione, 21, of Howell, Mich., died after being struck by an improvised explosive in Helmand province. He was assigned to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion out of Camp Lejeune.

Who's Got Your Six, America.

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Lamonte Hammond, attached to the onefive. A corpsman carrying a rifle? Whats all this, then? Different. Yes. Have we lost more WW1 rituals? What a difference 44 years makes. In Vietnam, our corpsman carried a 45. Learned something, have we? Our officers carried rifles. Why? As flage. To camouflage themselves as no account grunts. A grunt followed by a radio man. When shit hit fan. One of our own down and rapidly bleeding out. We did not scream CORPSMAN! We screamed TEXAS! Our corpsman was from Texas. We did not want to mark him as a valuable target for gook snipers who also understood English. Corpsman are my favorite people. Pinned down. By snipers or incoming gook mortars. Your face in the dirt. Sucking dirt for air. Corpsman would be up- charging down the jungle trail like pissed off linebackers searching for our wounded. In the dictionary- the definition for BALLS: see corpsman. TGFCorpsman.photo by Staff Sgt. William Greeson

Hanging Out with the 'chillruns'

Hospital Corpsman Samuel L. Blanco, with Iraqi children during a recent patrol in Husayba. He and the Marines of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, paused the patrol to chill with the kids. Blanco, is 25 and from Justin, Texas, a small town 40 miles outside Dallas. When Blanco left for duty the population dropped from 2938 to 2937. Town folk will be happy when he returns.