House of MacLyn Mark

“Hey Doc…”

Many years ago, when I was in the U.S. Navy, I was a Hospital Corpsman. This is like an Army medic, but we back then, did much more than a mere medic. We did almost everything short of being an actual doctor. Injections, diagnosis, treatments, minor surgery, we did a lot. When we had a real doctor on board, we were the nurse and assisted, or did the procedure under his supervision. The ‘John Wayne’ movies I used to watch about the Marines you would hear the call for “Corpsman…corpsman!” In real life, however, we were known simply as “Doc”. When serving with Marines, being their “Doc” was special. You were almost a God. (The real God was the Marines Sgt Major, the highest enlisted in the Corps, or Chesty Puller. It depends on who you talk to. Anyway, I’ve seen lots of stupid shit in the 10 years I was in, I will share as many of these true stories as I remember them. Yes, they are true. At least they are how I remember them.

One day, while at sea…

I was in charge of medical supply in our department on the U.S.S. Mobile (LKA-115). Our department consisted of a Chief Corpsman, a ‘Senior Corpsman” (me) and three others. Sickbay was on the main deck and ran from one side of the ship to the other. We also had two other ‘Battle Dressing Stations’, one forward and one aft that we had to man during ‘General Quarters’, but these were good locations to go and hide to avoid anyone who might be looking for you to give you a job, as if we didn’t have enough to do already. Any operation on the ship that had the potential to be dangerous always had a Corpsman as a part of the detail. We got to do a lot of exciting things. (In reality, mostly boring for hours on end, but the stories make ship-board life sound really fun.) Something that ALWAYS needed to be done was inventory. We were always counting and checking something. My job, (one of many) was to make sure we always had enough medical supplies for any given situation.

So, one day, I was actually doing some work, inventory, in a small store-room at the top of the ladder going down into ‘Deck Division” berthing compartment. I was working, sort of, when ensign B goes down the ladder. A minute later I hear “Hey Doc, why is it so dark down here?” I look…

“Sir, because the light’s off…”

light comes on…

“Oh, okay, thanks Doc!”

And this was one of the men in charge of steering the ship while we slept…

“Hey Doc, I got a live one!”

This is a love story. Not your typical boy-meets-girl-in-high-school love story where the couple dates for years, finally decides to get married and have a bunch of kids. This is different. This one is about a couple that met and fell in love at first sight. At least for me anyway. There are a few hitches along the way, but after 40 years, we are still madly, deeply in love. We have grown together, had many adventures together, and we can’t live without each other. Not happily anyway.

So, let me tell you a love story…