The Burnt and the Brave

It was a temporary assignment to learn how to deal with life-threatening burns in a clinical setting. I was familiar with the place as I had been assigned to Brooks Air Force Base for technical school a couple of years earlier, which borders the fort.

The school was one of the most unpleasant courses I ever attended. The smell of burnt and rotting flesh seemed to follow me back to my barracks every evening and there wasn’t enough beer on the post to help drown the memories from what I’d seen.

One morning I arrived to class only to be redirected to a ward. I was told a group of Marines had arrived from Okinawa, severely burned and that I’d be part of their treatment team.

Evidently, they had been sheltered in a Quonset hut that also stored JP-4 jet fuel. One of the Jarheads forgot about the flammable materials and lit up a cigarette, which in turn engulfed the building and left 25 men fighting for their lives due to the fire.

The first thing that needed to be done for these men was to scrub the burnt, dead skin from their bodies. This is extremely painful as no one is given medication to deal the pain – after all living skin will hurt while the dead skin has no sensation – and all the dead skin has to go or infection will set in.

It’s also a slow process, one that takes a toll on both the patient and the technician doing the cleaning. I was amazed to see I wasn’t the only man in the group crying as I intentionally inflicted more and more pain to the Marine I was scrubbing.

Amid all of this horror was the bravery of these burned men. Yes, they cried and yes they cried out – but the most remarkable thing was the unity and strength they proved each other as well as us.

As we scrubbed and picked and scrubbed some more, their voices grew louder and louder as they sang over and over again the words to the Marine Corps hymn, “From the Halls of Montezuma; To the Shores of Tripoli…”