The Mormon Corpsman

George Whalen was a Mormon kid from Utah. Shortly after the outbreak of WWII, he enlisted in the United States Navy and was trained as a corpsman. For the benefit of life-long civilians, a Navy corpsman is a vital part of a Marine combat unit. Any time a Marine is wounded, he was scream, “Corpsman!” at the top of his lungs. He will expect a corpsman to come running. A retired Marine Corps Sergeant Major once explained to me that the last person in the world you want to get in a fight with is a Navy corpsman attached to a Marine platoon. If you mess with the corpsman, there are going to be a whole bunch of thoroughly ticked off Marines looking for you. Years later, he said that he feared he would spend the entire war cleaning bedpans. He was assigned to a Marine infantry platoon. On the 19th of February, 1945, Whalen’s unit hit the beach at Iwo Jima. On Iwo Jima, Japanese soldiers were told that corpsmen were especially desirable targets because of the services they provide. From the first day on, casualties were horrendous. Whalen, a few days after the landing, while treating a wounded comrade, was wounded himself. A piece of shrapnel temporarily cost him his sight in one eye. Whalen patched up the Marine, then patched himself up, and refused evacuation.

A few days later, Whalen was wounded a second time. Again, he stayed with his buddies and refused evacuation. A few days later, still, his platoon got the word that the corpsman in the platoon beside theirs had been so badly wounded that he had to be removed and that they had about a dozen wounded Marines in need of immediate care. Whalen crawled over a hundred yards under enemy fire, treated a dozen wounded Marines and then crawled a hundred yards back, again, under enemy fire, to return to his buddies. Toward the end of the battle, Whalen was wounded a third time, so seriously that over Petty Officer Whalen’s objections, his buddies evacuated him to the rear.

Whalen survived Iwo Jima and was shipped home to the States to recuperate. About a month later, when he’d fully recovered, he got an order to get on a train to Washington, D.C. That day, he was ushered into the Oval Office, where President Harry Truman presented him with three Purple Hearts, two Navy Crosses and the Congressional Medal of Honor. After the war, Whalen had no use for people calling him a hero. Indeed, rather than live off of his laurels, he enlisted in the US Army and retired twenty years later as a major.

As of this writing, George Whalen is still alive and in his late eighties. There are people who argue that the federal government cannot provide quality health care. HA!!!

Try telling that garbage to George Whalen’s shipmates.