What’s In The Bag Doc?

Dedicated to those who uphold the highest mission…to preserve the fighting strength. Dedicated to the medics of every generation who carried the bag.

What’s in the bag doc? The real answer is…it depends. This picture is a vintage bag from before my time, but a great starting visual. When we covered airborne drops, I carried extras for sprains and breaks. Going to the field, we kept a wide range of items. In combat, it was all we could carry, with a full range specifically suggested by our battalion surgeon.

A medic without his bag is absolutely useless. I would particularly discourage the inquisitive. Nobody messed with my bag. Nobody. If  a fellow medic wanted something…they better ask first. A medical NCO would always get you started, but you needed to know you bag.

I checked my bag frequently. We needed to reach in quick, daylight  or dark. It had to be right there…in its place. Always. There was no excuse possible when you really needed it. The bag was either on me or no more than arm’s length.

Our ‘patients’ were typically 18 to 22 year old healthy individuals, who ate a balanced diet, and regularly exercised. What an ideal population! But, they can run a fever, become infected, be stung by some unknown pest, break loose with a bad rash, cut themselves, and a host of other conditions.

A good medic learned their men as quickly as possible. They promoted healthy strategies, and always emphasized good foot care. Preventative strategies were best. Great squad leaders kept good visuals of their men to enforce common sense self-care.

A good medic listened with both ears and eyes for anything unusual. Field maneuvers were filthy by definition. The simplest infection could get nasty quickly. Everybody liked to gripe in the field. There were days when we all wanted a quick ride, in the field ambulance, toward a warm bed. A good medic could hear the difference.

We never had a ‘sugar pill’, but sometimes we went after what is called the placebo effect. After checking thoroughly, asking questions and things didn’t add up…I would reach for the horse pill and begin my spiel. We didn’t get this through official training,  it was that ‘conversation’ between medics. Army life gets to everyone occasionally. I’ll be darned if it didn’t work quite regularly, with a cure the next morning! The medical field argues about the ethics of the technique. We had the luxury of sleeping near our ‘patients.’ More than once, I asked to awakened, on the hour every hour, to check how things were going with a troop.

The best medic has a healthy respect of drugs. Winters were cold at Ft. Campbell. I carried two bottles of the army’s cure for the common cold, terpin hydrate with codeine elixir. One bottle of terp was for the troops; one bottle of terp was for me!

Settled deeply into my sleeping bag, with a couple of extra sips to cure my cough. The snow was fairly shallow, but the wind kicked up some drifts. Eased from my pain, I heard the faint spin of some jeep tires, off into the distance. My hope was in the morning light. The sun eventually glared brightly, stimulating me to full alert.

Things always look better in the morning. The cold is so much easier to bear with movement. However, I noticed some deep tires tracks about 12 inches from the indent, made by my head. From that day forward, I carried one bottle of terpin hydrate elixir with codeine… for the troops. It made for more room in the bag!

Nobody liked a sense of adventure better than I. There were times I relished the mischievous. But when it came down to the bag and the mission…it was all business. It was a very rare medic that felt otherwise. We had a passion for airborne; we had a passion to preserve the fighting strength. We cared.