Sergeant Majors run the show. I had a great one while permanent party 86’-88’ as a combat medic. I was fortunate as it was peace time. I also did my Basic training at Ft. Dix. Ft. Lewis I forgot to mention,trained/cross trained with the Air Force at the Yakima firing range. Got to meet older guys who had seen live fire ...you learn a lot.
I neglected to mention that he suffered horribly from PTSD until the last 5 years of his life & recovered. But, he never recovered completely from the frostbite damage to his feet.
He lied about his age to enlist at 16.
I just keep remembering things. After he passed when we were sorting out his things, we found his Medic bag that he brought home.
It still had a number of Morphine syrettes in it & among gauze bandages & other first aid items, there were about 30 large safety pins strung along one one safety pin to hold them together.
He had told me at one time that he used safety pins stuck through ripped wounds to close them as well as possible till the wounded could reach more advanced treatment.
Also, the Red Crosses they were required to wear on their arms & helmets were perfect targets. You know unyielding regulations back then. So,they somehow stuffed socks under the helmets to raise them higher on their heads
& moved the red crosses on the arms to the wrist.
I have a picture of one of his Medic friends with two buddies on each side of him pointing up to him in the middle & the raised helmet he was wearing with an obvious bullet hole in the middle of the red cross.
I just can’t imagine.