10th Mountain Medical Battalion

The 10th Mountain Medical Battalion provided the majority of the medical support for the Division in combat.  Battalion Aid Stations and Regimental Aid Stations were where the wounded soldiers received their primary medical care, before being evacuated to Collecting Stations, Field Hospitals and possibly the long voyage home.  Medics were paid $10 less per month than the men they tried to save.  Many were pacifists, and conscientious objectors, unwilling to take lives but willing to risk their own lives to save others.  And like the men they tended, they learned to improvise in combat.  During the battles high above on the mountains, they kept morphine and plasma inside their shorts to keep them from freezing.  And everywhere they were forced to make terrible choices. 

"If you're in a firefight, and you see a party that is wounded in a way that you know that he cannot survive, you must pass him by, even though he may be calling to you for help.  And you must doctor somebody who's life you potentially might save.  And its a terrible decision you have to make, to pass somebody by who is in need of comfort but is not going to live.  Its never pleasant to do the work of a Medic, but it is one of the essentials of civilized behavior."........Leo Goldberg, Waterbury Connecticut

"To me, the real heroes of the war were those who seldom get medals, the medics.  Whenever a man gets injured he very, very seldom calls out for his sweetheart or his mother.   The first thing he calls out is the medic.  He always calls "medic"!  And whenever that word is heard, the medic rushes over.  And to rush over he is just dodging bullets.  That takes guts.......Senator Daniel Inouye, 442nd RCT

"Munitions are a terrible thing, it tears a person apart.  Its not a clean cut like a knife, it tears, it rips.  I can't imagine what the medics went through.  They were always right there, and they were patching people up who were bleeding to death.  So, my heart went out to those boys".........Leo Goldberg

If you are interested in joining our Medical Battalion,

please contact our C/O on the main page....