Medical Diver

I spent months with search teams in the jungles of Laos searching for the MIA and POW remains, dealing with tropical diseases like malaria, schistosomiasis, rabies, plague, bamboo viper snakes, 127-degree heat, leeches, Japanese encephalitis, unexploded ordnance, and more hazards than you would expect. Those missions were dangerous, but the R&R (rest and recovery / liberty) was where our soldiers and sailors would need more medical attention than when they were not working in the jungle.

Some cocky person would challenge a kickboxer in a ring or in some alley or get into bar fights. I quickly learned always to have a medical bag somewhere accessible whenever we went on liberty to treat the cuts, aches, and pains. Hangovers were frequent, food poisoning, getting run over by one of the jitney taxies or getting bitten and scratched by a street vendor’s monkey.