Hi folks. Im doctor moody. We are part of the second battalion first airborne. Im a physician. Im a doctor that plays a doctor. I am an internal medicine physician here in pennsylvania. This is my hobby. I love it. I love the guys out here. I love speaking to the public. I love the educational says. Or trying to keep all this alive. Enjoy. It i try to make it enjoyable. Let them know how important this is to understand with the history was. With this is is basically a mobile emergency room. Youve heard of mash . This is a mobile emergency room. Like an emergency rooms, what we do is assess, treat, stabilize and get them out. Get out of my yard. We are basically located as close to the front lines as possible. Weve got to be, because weve got troopers coming in in pretty bad shape. Italian eight station operates just behind the lines. Here at the train demonstrates the value. Taken over many jobs that the physician would not otherwise have to perform. This freeze the doctors time for more details to more serious cases. The medics where the real heroes of the war. They are out there triaging with gunshots, fire and mortar rounds going all over the place. They will triage in the field. They come to one guy thats got a cut on his shoulder. They say put a bandage on. You can get back to the rear. Second guys got both legs blown off. Half his chest is gone. This guy will die and there is nothing and gods green earth that will say this guy. Theyre going to get some lipstick that they got from their girlfriend and write f for fatal, and give him as much morphine as they could possibly spare. Let the guy die in peace and go safe somebody they can save. This is the first job of the medic. Man is hit and an aide man gets to his side. Stopping the first spurt of blood is always important. Once the training have gone into dressing a head wound, giving a shot of morphine to dull the pain. So theyve got another guy that they would come up to and hes got a bad wound. Hes bleeding. Hes got really clammy skin. He is not answering questions very well. This guys going into shock. It is not have much longer to go if we do not give him medical attention. He brings him in here. Then the Battalion Surgeon ive got to triage the triage. Ive got to decide which one is the most critical, and also which one i could save. Remember, these guys are coming in with shock. Blood pressure is low. If you dont get the Blood Pressure up they will die. Or they were going to reno failed failure. That is a death sentence because there was no dialysis in the second world war. The main reason i think we saved so many lives was because of the plasma. 80 oh blood bank. That held the plasma. The plasma is the fluid component of blood of red cells and white cells spun off. It is a volume expander. It increases enter vascular volume. We get the ivy started. We get that going and hopefully we get the Blood Pressure and stabilize them to the point where we could call transportation and get them out. The second part of the war, believe it or not, they actually came up with freeze dried plasma, which looked like corn starch. They would mix it with distilled water, and that reconstituted. Then you would have your expander. Thats what we would give. Somebody asked me today, do i do surgery . No, i dont do surgery. Number one, i dont have general anesthesia when. And number two, i cannot take time to do that. I spend an hour in their cutting off somebodys like and ive got five or six more troopers that are out here. The main thing that i have in hair. The main quality of this battalion aid station that is worth a wait and go is a seasoned medic. A seasoned medic they can start the ivy while i am working out here. They can advise the doctor. Remember, some of these doctors, how much combat experience to they have . Unless they did their residency and intercity detroit, not much. The season medics were great. Just like today in the hospital with the residents and interns. How much they relied on the seasoned nurses to help them out. We got the guys here. Weve got them assessed. We stabilize them, and then we call them on myself phone over here. This is an e8 phone. Its got a two diesel battery. Its got a generator that i can twist down here. This generates a charge. This can go to the phone on the opposite end. Then i will toggle to talk. I will untangled to listen. Then i will call for transportation. Say ive got somebody with a really bad chest wound that needs surgery, like two hours ago. I will call them up and say we need somebody here now. We need to get them into surgery, you better get a chest cutter. He does not have much longer. We could get transportation here to get him from here. They would go to what is called a collecting station. At that station, and they would reassess the patient and decide, this guy needs to go to the field hospital. This guy has got too much vascular issues. Lets get him back to england. We need to get this guy back to the rear. Get him to recover back there. Medical officers, expert and judging the condition of casualties sort of the patients and determine their disposition. Urgent cases needing certain specialized types of surgery are turned over to the field hospital, which is set up close by. The great majority of operations here are four per four reading abdominal wounds and sucking rooms of the chest, like this one. One thing about the battalion aid station, every italian aid station is different. Well have the same purpose, concept, but everything hell, you can have a piece of canvas over there and call that battalion a. But the main thing is to be as close to the front lines as possible and to be able to get these guys in and get them treated. 80 of the people that left this place survived, where it was 50 and world war i. I think the main reason was because of the plasma and also because of the penicillin. Lets see. You have time to go over all the antibiotics that we had back then . We had penicillin. If you had a penicillin allergy or a sulfur allergy you are out of luck. Penicillin as you know was discovered in england. The first guy who discovered it was like, what the heck is this . It shelved it. They rediscovered it back in 38. England was kind of concerned back in 1940, about one thing, and that was not getting taken over by the germans. They actually bought the penicillin over to the united states. They found a white mall to produce the best yield and they had a logarithmic curve developing for penicillin. That was used prophylactically. If i had patients that had a real dirty wound, id wash it out the best i could. Give him a slug of penicillin. Stabilize him. Call for transportation. Get out of my er. Also, no doctor in the right mind wants to be a Battalion Surgeon, all right . I dont want to be here. I want to be in an english hospital with a bunch of goodlooking nurses and a nice warm bed. I dont want to be 200 yards from the front lines were bullets are going overhead and people shooting short rounds at me from the rear. But this is my job. If i did not do my job, what would happen . People would die, all right . For the most part, the Battalion Surgeon did not jump into combat, all right . They would establish the front. We would be brought in by ship. However, the more i read, the more doctors did jump. There was one dock that was with the third battalion of the 5 06, namely dr. Stanley morgan. Captain morgan. He actually did jump in to normandy on june 5th. He immediately sprained his ankle. Was immediately captured by the germans. Where do you think they put him . Do you think they put him in a prison in war camp . Hell, no they put him to work. He worked right alongside the germans. He could not at understanding word they said, but it was the same technique. What did we learn most of our technique . From the germans. The first part of the war, we had a hard time getting surgical instruments, because where were they made . Germany. Okay . What is a Battalion Surgeon . Ive got four years of medical school. Ive got one year of general medical internship, then a licensed physician. There goes my deferment. I was differed from the draft all through that time, because they did not want a medical student. They wanted a doctor. Then i was eligible for the draft. I wouldnt list. I enlisted in the airborne. They pushed me out of the airplane five times. I was screaming all the way. I went on to be part of the 3 26 hospital corps. This was the hospital corps that was attached to the 101st. Anyway, a lot of the doctors were green when they came in here. They had season doctors, but some of the doctors were green, and thats why was so important to have their seasoned medics. That would help us out immensely. Come through and look around if you will. And medical cabinets that you see i try to have things that i am going to use. This is a Blood Pressure cup from world war ii. It works. It works with a column of mercury. It is accurate. Basically, you get the laws of gravity and density of mercury. However, how my gun here Blood Pressure in the heat of battle . Normally i would assess them clinically. The guy was sitting up and say hey doctor, how about some more morphine . I could feel his pulse. His Blood Pressure was fine. But if another guy was cold and clammy. I cant feel his pulse. He passes out. This is the guy that is going into shock. Also, remember it when we are not doing battle here. This is your doctor in the box. This is your doctor in the box. I will so him up. Somebody with a sore throat or somebody goes into town and meets some girl he should meet and come back with the dribbles. I give him a slug of penicillin. Anyway, everything is in boxes. Because remember, ive got to pack the stuff. There are times we have to retreat to the rear. If ive got people that are coming in that are in battle looms germans did honor our group. For the most part. Ss, different story. There was one story. I had a patient one time that was he said it was foggy. You could not see your hand in front of your face. He then said there were two germans. It looked like to germans were carrying something. They were getting ready to open fire. The germans said next season, dont shoot. They were two german medics that had found one of our troopers and really bad shape. The men said they brought the trooper in. They fixed the guy. Save his life. The germans provided they tried to scrounge out as much food that they could possibly spare. Everybody was starving. The germans scrounged up some american sitter cigarettes. They smuggled the germans back to their own lines. You hear stories like that. Good stories like that. There were stories on both sides. In this tent, as far as im concerned as a Battalion Surgeon, there is no nationality in this tent. Ive got six guys in front of me. Four of them are americans. Two of them are germans. I will treat the one that needs the most treatment first. I will treat the most critical. Im sure there are other Battalion Surgeons that have a different type of thought. Im a doctor first. What else do we have back here . You want to come back into the rear. It would be nice to have something we could get to improve the element. You would never see a stretcher here by itself. You would always see the stretchers in the field, obviously. We would have boxes, creates, something to get the trooper off the ground so the surgeon could assess and treat. Again, i dont do major surgery here. I dont have time. I dont have general in us these you. It guy comes in. Hes got a laceration that needs to be looked at. Ill clean it up. Get it out with some water. Put a loose dressing on. We wont close it. People the other day asked me where are my gloves . Here they are. Right here. We do not have disposable gloves back then. Yes, they had gloves for surgery, but after surgery, they had to put them on board and steam auto clay. I dont have room for that. I dont have electricity. I washed my hands the best i can. Put some alcohol on it and then go for it. Again, my hands are not inside somebodys guts. At least i hope not. Say somebodys got a major wound. Hes got a big chunk of shrapnel sticking out their belly. There is no way im going to pull that out. I will leave it there, because it could work as a way of preventing further leading. If i pull it out, ive got something squirting in my face. Then i am in a world of hurt. Say ive got a chest wound. A ban it wound to the chest. What im going to do is put compression on and stabilize him and get him out. I guess if the guy had a thorax tension i could relieve that. But the diagnostic skills that i have got here is remember, its whats between my ears. Theres no radiology. Regional ultrasound. Theres nothing like that. Sterilization, we talk about the hands. What about the instruments . Over there, that is the steam no not the Steam Sterilizer but boiling water. Then i would sterilize my instruments. The suture that i use, if, if, if i were to close something, but most of the time i wouldnt. It would be surgical cotton. If for some reason i could closeup a muscle or fashion, i would use this. What hes our eye, dont know if you could see it there. There you go. Look there. Its just plain. Plain zero. This is a a low glass file that has a little creep in it. It would break it off. This is still sterile after all these years. I dont think that the suture would be any good, but still, its amazing. They all came in little packages like this. They had the little vials in it. Nowadays, it comes in littleton foils. We put those in the field. This is a portable operating room table. When i get this up, all the troopers run. This is a monster to put together. Battalion a would usually see most of these in the surgical area. Its nice to have this here because hes stretchers were not here. They were in the field. Somebody comes in. They need work. I can put them on this thing and work on them. I. V. Fluids. We talked about i. V. Those are the bottles they would come in. We would reconstitute the plasma after we used bottles. What did we do with them . And we throw them away . No. We would reuse them. We would wash them. Watch the bottles. Watch the hoses. Nothing was thrown away around here. Except for second lieutenants. Just kidding. I didnt say that here. Anyway, sometimes you would see a medic coming from the field. What happens when he runs out of dressings . Necessity a turns off his uniform and starts to use that. Battalion surgeon this would be my quarters. Im here 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I dont have they cannot get me on the golf course. This would be my bunk. Again, we would try to make everything work here. We did not have the luxury of going out and getting resupplied. Where am i going to get more bandages . I have no idea. That is why we had we had some german bandages around here someplace. Where did i put them . A chairman prisoner of war, the first thing i would ask would be, do you have any bandages . Germans, the first thing they would ask us is, do you have any american cigarettes . But anyway, this is battalion aid. They did a remarkable job. We all love world war ii. We are all history in these eaststoney. Love the war. It helps to keep it alive. It helps to educate the young ones. You get a kid today and you ask the kid about pearl harbor. Their kids are going to say, was she a singer . It is important. It is also to pay tribute to the men and women that have died for our country, and the women men and women that are still serving our country. I would tell the kids, if you see a veteran. Go shake his hand. If it were not for those guys, we would be eating sauerkraut and nothing else. Its important to do this. Its important to keep this alive. This is why i do it. This is why i do it. I still dont understand how these guys they were making life and death decisions. All doctors do, but they were making life and death decisions on an hourly basis. Some of these guys, these Battalion Surgeons were the equivalent of a 30 year medical resident. To decide which one of these guys were going to live and die, i also had a guy, a Battalion Surgeon, he was a patient. He is gone now, but he said later on in life used to have nightmares of people he killed. I was like, what do you mean killed . You saved all these lives. He said yes, but if i had worked faster. If i had worked faster, maybe i could have gotten to some of these other people . I asked him. I said how did you do it . He said it was easy. I had to. If i did not do my job, people would die. That is one of the Amazing Things about these guys. Weeknights this month, we are featuring American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan three. Tonight, at eight eastern, a look at korean war oral histories. Veteran carl house recount his part in the Amphibious Landing at in sean. A victory for un forces which turned the tide early in the war. He also talks about the surprise chinese counterattack and intense combat at the battle of chosen reservoir where he was captured. Watch korean war oral histories tonight beginning at eight eastern on cspan three. And in American History tv this weekend every weekend on cspan three. The korean war began a 1915 ended with an armistice agreement in 1953. Up next, an oral history interview with veteran carl house, recorded in 2014 by the korean war legacy foundation. He talked about the battles