Friday, March 21, 2008

The Six Foot Swami From Savannah, GA.

That's me in 1969 in the front sick-call room of the Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital (AKA "Red Beach Childrens' Hospital") just inside of the front gate of the large, Marine Logistical Supply Base Camp Books, just north of DaNang. I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (HM2) atttached to Force Logistics Command, 3rd Marine Amphibious Force (3rdMAF) at the time.
The Vietnamese "nurse," with about the skill level of an American LPN of the time, was known as "Anna Nurse." All seven or eight were known as "Nancy Nurse," "Cathy Nurse", etc. Then there was Minh, who turned out to be VC nurse.
This is a posed photo for some Marine newspaper PR story. Normally, I spent 12 to 18 hours daily gowned, gloved and bellied up to the OR table in the next room performing minor surgery.
"The Six Foot Swami From Savannah, GA" was the title of a chapter and the name of a character in Lederer and Burdicks "The Ugly American." I always thought of myself as sort of the anti-ugly American.
Here's a link to where I stumbled across the photo on-line nearly 40 years later.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was also a Navy Corpsman at Hoa Khanh Childrens Hospital (1968-1969). In the link provided Dr. Margolis is on the left and I am to his right (Brian Barkey HM3). Many of us made an oath that when we left the hospital to return to the States we would not exchange addresses. That I regret to this day. I'm 65 now (I was 20 in the photo). I would consider it a life long dream come true to reunite with the guys I shared my year with at the hospital.

Jay Moreno said...

Come on now, Brian, surely you're not that old. Don't you remember me? We served at the Hoa Khanh Children's Hospital together from when we all arrived at FLC in October of 1968 until I was transferred to Dong Ha with FLSG-B on April 1, 1969.

Granted, I stayed cooped up in the OR most of the time but I remember all of you guys quite well.

I've had several phone conversations and e-mail exchanges with Steve Dolan recently. He said he's tried to contact you but had no luck.

I ran into Charlie Spear about 22 years ago. I was an HMC, USNR-R doing two weeks active duty at NavHosp Beaufort and Charlie was an assigned, active duty, Nurse Corps Commander.

I can remember everyone's name except the short guy who ran pharmacy and supplies. Wasn't it Terry something?

Jay Moreno said...

Oh, and of course, the Corpsman in the picture to the right of yours, Brian, is Buster Buttons. Do you have any idea what his given first name was? I know he was trained or in training to be a mortician when he joined the Navy.