A Proud Future Navy Wife

 

The Military View Column, by Jerry Hogan, US Army Lt. Colonel (retired).

“He is a Navy Corpsman who is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan with his Marine reserve unit from Camp Mabry. Before we met, I had no idea what a Corpsman is, what they do, or even that I had been looking at one every time I see the memorial for Iwo Jima.”

This is what Shawnye Moss, a new teacher in Royse City this Fall, said to me in June about her finance, John Lincavage who lives in Fate, Texas, and is currently a medical corpsman with a Marine reserve unit stationed at Camp Mabry, Texas, that is scheduled for activation and deployment to Afghanistan the first part of next year.

John graduated from Texarkana High School in 1994, went to a community college in Texarkana for two and a half years and then joined the US Air Force in 1997. After serving for three years in the Security Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, he left the service to go back and finish his degree. Graduating with a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice in 2004 he went into the work force for two years, but like many former service members, as the International War on Terror continued, he enlisted in the Navy in 2006 primarily so he could go into the medical field.

First it was 14 weeks of Hospital Corpsman training to learn basic medical care followed by 7 weeks of Fleet Marine Corpsman training designed to teach the individual field medicine and how to operate and function with deployed Marines on the battlefield. While it might seem strange that a person in the Navy would be assigned to a Marine unit, all medical care for the Marine Corps is done by US Navy personnel including all Doctors and Nurses as well as Corpsmen. (In fact, as mentioned by Shawnye, one of the figures on the Iwo Jima memorial statue is a Navy Corpsman who was with his Marine unit during that terrible battle.)

In total, John now has 7 years on active duty and when I asked him about his reserve unit and being deployed to a combat zone, he said, “The reserves really are the best of both the civilian and the military world. It allows you to take back what you learn from the military training and apply it to your life in your civilian job. As far as being in the service today, it’s a great way to build upon self worth, strength, leadership, and self discipline that you need in life to succeed, and, of course, you get to give back to our country. I just think it’s a great way to be part of something bigger than yourself.”

And as his future wife said, “I am so proud of him and all the brave Corpsmen who have and are serving.” I hope you, too, get to tell a service member how proud you are of what they are doing for us.

Jerry Hogan is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel who volunteers to write these articles. He can be reached at jerryhogan@sbcglobal.net or 214-394-4033. His web site is www.themilitaryview.com