{"id":11419,"date":"2009-06-09T08:38:12","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T13:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=11419"},"modified":"2009-06-09T15:04:14","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T20:04:14","slug":"of-grunts-and-medics-rip-major-wahlen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=11419","title":{"rendered":"Of Grunts and Medics; RIP Major Wahlen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dnews<\/a><\/p>\n

I had the distinct honor of sharing Guiness and bar room table with two of the paratroopers from the 173rd who had been wounded at Ranch House Outpost<\/a> last year. During the course of the conversation, I mentioned that my son was an Air Force surgical technician. In unison, the two battle-hardened troopers yelled “Oh, we love medics!” That’s been the consensus among most infantrymen I’ve known.<\/p>\n

It’s probably because of the heroic true life stories, like this one of the recently deceased George Wahlen (Washington Post<\/a> link);<\/p>\n

He was injured in the eye by mortar shell shrapnel, but he refused to be evacuated and remained to help the wounded. He “defied the continuous pounding of heavy mortars and deadly fire of enemy rifles to care for the wounded, working rapidly in an area swept by constant fire and treating 14 casualties before returning to his own platoon,” read his citation for the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award for valor.<\/p>\n

Less than a month later, after shrapnel broke one of his legs, Maj. Wahlen continued to provide medical aid on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

“I bandaged myself up, took a shot of morphine and crawled over and started helping a Marine that had both his legs blown off,” he later told the Salt Lake Tribune. He said of his decision to stay and help: “When you’ve been with these guys, they’re like family. You don’t want to let them down.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read his Medal of Honor citation at this link<\/a>. After World War II, and his discharge from the Navy, George Wahlen followed his “family” to the Korean War and the Vietnam War in the Army before he finally retired. Then he went to work for the Department of Veteran Affairs and continued to care for his “family”. After a lifetime of caring for the troops he loved so dearly, 84-year-old George Wahlen finally succumbed to cancer last week in the VA Medical Center that bears his name<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yeah, grunts love them some medics, or corpsmen, and it’s largely because of the type people who go into the profession…people like George Wahlen.<\/p>\n

Take it easy, now, Major Wahlen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the distinct honor of sharing Guiness and bar room table with two of the … Of Grunts and Medics; RIP Major Wahlen<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blue-skies","category-support-the-troops"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}