Reply #10: Not on the front lines

[nadinbrzezinski]

even among docs, I mean folks like Hawkeye... yes they are non combatants, but they can carry a side arm, whatever is the standard side arm for their military, to protect themselves and the wounded. But even docs in first aid stations have a terrible casualty rate. The modern system used by the US Military lowers that some, since Aid stations are near the front lines, but with the help of choppers not so close anymore. It is the medic who busts his or her balls...

Now where I served, with a National Red Cross Society, I could tell you stories... even of Docs going out on calls with me, and me ordering the doc to get the hell out without raising the concern of customers... never good when you have somebody already dead, and people drunk and with guns in the place.

Oh and when you have a civil war things get far more iffy... for instance, not that many know this, the first casualties of the shooting in Mexico when the revolt happened in the South in 1995 was a Red Cross crew. They received a mortar on top of their ambulance... we think they were killed instantly... now the army claims it was the rebels, the rebels claim it was the army... but three crew members were dead and the Mexican Red Cross pulled out of the area until some form of safety could be ensured for the crews... oh that morning I also remember telling a Colonel where to stuff it when he gave illegal mobilization orders...