Doc

(Source)

The Fleet Marine Force (FMF) Enlisted Warfare Specialist Device is a qualification insignia of the United States Navy earned by Navy enlisted members assigned to the Fleet Marine Force of the U.S. Marine Corps who have successfully completed the necessary requirements of the Enlisted Fleet Marine Force Warfare Specialist (EFMFWS) Program per OPNAV Instruction 1414.4B. This involves serving one year with a Marine Corps Unit (two years for reserves), passing the Marine Physical Fitness Test (PFT), a written test, demonstrating skills used in service with the Marines such as weapon breakdown and familiarization, land navigation, combat communications and an oral examination by senior enlisted sailors who are FMF qualified. The Enlisted Fleet Marine Force Warfare Specialist designation is most commonly awarded to the Hospital Corpsman (HM) and Religious Programs Specialist (RP) ratings, although it is also awarded to other sailors who support Marine Corps Commands.

An enlisted person who has qualified as a EFMFWS may place the designator (FMF) after his/rate and rating; for example, HM2 Radabaugh, having qualified for his FMF pin, is identified as HM2(FMF) Radabaugh.

Although this is a qualification is for Navy enlisted personnel, it is unique in that only Commanding Generals or Commanding Officers of qualifying U.S. Marine Corps commands, Division, Group, or Wing; can approve awarding of the designation.

The insignia is a silver metal device depicting the eagle, globe and anchor atop two crossed rifles on a background of ocean swells breaking on a sandy beach. (Source)

The Marines moved forward, passing first through a ravine then moving into open fields beyond, the sergeants were doing their best to keep the men from clumping up and keep them moving forward towards the German lines. As they moved into the open, German machine gun fire began to lash the skirmish line.

Over the stuttering chatter of the Maxim guns, the hiss of bullets tearing through the air, the cry went up...

"Corpsman!!"

 

While they make up only about 3 percent of Navy personnel, the all-enlisted Hospital Corpsman rating is the most decorated in the service over the years, with 23 Medals of Honor, 174 Navy Crosses, 31 Distinguished Service Medals, 946 Silver Stars and 1,582 Bronze Stars, with combat "V" for valor. At least 13 Corpsmen have been killed in Afghanistan, and 29 in the Iraq war. (Source)

In the Civil War, in the Spanish-American War, from the mists of the Argonne Forest in World War I, to the heat-drenched islands of the Pacific, to the frozen Hell of the Chosin Reservoir, through the jungles and highlands of Vietnam, to the latter day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps has been there. Fighting and dying, upholding the highest traditions of that premier fighting force.

What many people don't know, is that alongside those Marines there are sailors. Not to land them on the beaches, not to provide supplies and air support (though the Navy does that too), these sailors are slogging through the same conditions as the Marine riflemen in their care. The men who will do their best, often desperately, often at the cost of their own lives, to keep wounded Marines alive.

The Navy's Hospital Corpsmen, "Doc" to the Marines if he/she is a good one, share the same chow, the same uniforms, and the same danger as the Marines they support.

At least twenty ships have been named in honor of corpsmen:

• USS Benfold (DDG-65)
• USS Caron (DD-970)
• USS De Wert (FFG-45)
• USS Durant (DER-389)
• USS Frament (APD-77)
• USS Halyburton (FFG-40)
• USS Francis Hammond (FF-1067)
• USS Jobb (DE-707)
• USS Daniel A. Joy (DE-585)
• USS Lester (DE-1022)
• USS Liddle (DE-206)
• USS Litchfield (AG-95)
• USS Thaddeus Parker (DE-369)
• USS David R. Ray (DD-971)
• USS Henry W. Tucker (DD-875)
• USS Valdez (FF-1096)
• USS Walter C. Wann (DE-412)
• USS Jack Williams (FFG-24)
• USS John Willis (DE-1027)
• USS Don O. Woods (APD-118)

2,012 Navy enlisted medical personnel have been killed in action since 1861 -

• American Civil War (1861–1865), 6
• Spanish–American War (1898), 3
• World War I (1917–1918), 20
• Nicaragua (1932), 1
• World War II (1941–1945), 1,170
• Korean War (1950–1953), 109
• Dominican Republic (1965), 1
• Vietnam War (1962–1975), 639
• Beirut, (1983), 15
• Gulf War (1990–1991), 0
• Afghanistan (2001–14), 13
• Iraq War (2003–2010), 29

Two hospital corpsmen assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, treat a Marine wounded in Afghanistan in 2009.
The corpsman on the right would later be awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V".
(Source)

Looking for people you can rely on, need a hero?

Look no further.

(Source)

For my buddy Dylan, and all the men and women he served with.