Happy 109th Birthday Hospital Corps

The Hospital Corps was founded with the approval of President William McKinley and by act of congress on 17 June 1898. This is referred to as the birthday of the US Navy’s Hospital Corps, though the actual name of the servicemen under that rating would change several times (being known as "Pharmacist's Mates" throughout the World Wars) before ultimately becoming simply "Hospital Corpsman". The modern rating abbreviation is HM.

The Hospital Corps is the single most decorated rating of all branches of the U.S. military. Twenty-three Hospital Corpsmen have received the Medal of Honor, the most of any single group in the U.S. Navy. Fourteen ships have been named after Hospital Corpsmen.

A common description of the Corpsmen during the late 60's and early 70's was, "A long haired, bearded sailor who would go through the very gates of Hell to tend to a wounded Marine." The look of the sailor has changed but the mission of the corpsman remains the same.

Ceremony recognizing the HM held in our aerobics tent at 1400 (2pm for those people who don't know by now). In case you didn't catch it in my earlier blog post, 1400 is very, very hot.

Two of our corpsman pass the flag while one of our Chief Hospital Corpsman reads the Medal of Honor names.

Tribute to the fallen corpsman.

Cake cutting by oldest and youngest corpsman.
(You thought we only did that in scouts, didn't you?)

Well by now you know my fascination with cakes and celebrations. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good shot of the top of the cake because the heat had already started to melt the icing. So I wanted you to notice it from the side. See I told you it was hot here.

Happy Birthday Hospital Corpsman! We are only as good as those we lead and you make us look real good.

Our corpsman here in Al Taqaddum, Iraq were honored in an article published by the Marine Corps News. To read the full article follow the link below.

http://www.marines.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/EB42C02F55E301E5852572FF001B115A?opendocument