Dropping The Helicopter <dgajdgsj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Ares, God of War wrote:
> > I'm wathcing moonlight. What is the difference between a doctor and
> > a medic?
> >
> > (Mick St. John was a medic in World War 2, Leo in Charmed was a doctor
> > in World War 2.)
>
> A doctor is a doctor. A medic is an infantryman that's taken a combat
> first aid course or two, wears an armband with a red cross on it, and
> carries extra bandages instead of a rifle (at least in WWII (the big
> one)). Due to the Geneva Conventions he's not allowed to be a
> combatant. Nowadays my understanding is that there are no real "medics"
> in the Geneva Convention sense (because the "no rifle" rule simply made
> them well-marked targets for Nazi and Jap snipers in The Big One), and
> one of the regular infantrymen is a sort of "designated combat first aid
> guy", but he carries weapons just like the rest of them.
I knew a guy who was a Quaker. When he was called to serve in Vietnam,
he was declared a CO. So he was drafted into the Navy, where he became
a corpsman. Then he spent a year walking around in the jungle with the
Marines wearing a red cross and completely unarmed. When I knew him, he
was trying to get into med school.
My GP was a premed when Uncle Sam wanted him, so the Army paid him to
finish med school in 1949. Then he only had to work for them a couple
of years, and I don't think he went to Korea.
Lastly, I think that in Europe the Geneva Convention was respected, in
that medics were not targeted and weren't armed. In the Pacific, they
were packing - there were no non-combatants there.
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