Shock Medicine: By Luis Fonseca Jr., Hospitalman Second Class, U.S. Navy

Luis Fonseca Jr. received the Navy Cross – second only to the Medal of Honor – for heroism serving with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade during the Battle of An Nasiriyah in Iraq on March 23, 2003. He was the first Navy corpsman to receive the Navy Cross in 32 years.

Marine Company A, First Platoon, to which Fonseca was assigned, was charged with the capture of the northernmost bridge in An Nasiriyah. After embarking on their mission, they began to take heavy RPG, mortar, machine-gun, and small arms fire. A direct mortar hit knocked out a vehicle, leaving several Marines wounded. He evacuated them from the burning vehicle and administered aid, then loaded them into his amtrac. When the amtrac was hit, he evacuated them again, carrying one of the Marines across open ground despite being under intense enemy fire. The valor he displayed was reminiscent of the corpsmen who served on Iwo Jima and in Hue City.

HM2 Fonsenca will join the American Veterans Center’s 11th Annual Conference from November 6-8, 2008. In this issue of American Valor Quarterly, we share his first-hand account of the Battle of An Nasiriyah.

When I was in high school, I was into a little bit of everything. I played soccer from the ninth grade to my senior year. I was in band. I was part of a Hispanic Club that put on shows in traditional Latin-style dances. I think I always had a girlfriend.

But I was just kind of stuck. I was eighteen years old and I felt I needed a change in my life. I didn’t want to be at my ten-year high school class reunion and have my friends ask me what I was doing and have to answer, “I’m not really doing anything.” I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to feel some sense of accomplishment.

I’ve always been intrigued with medicine. I have always liked helping people even as a little kid. In fact, I was CPR and first-aid-certified at the age of thirteen. When I went to talk with the Marine Corps, I found out that they didn’t have a medical section. They use the Navy’s. I didn’t want to join the army because my dad had already done it, and I wanted to create my own path.

When I decided to join the Navy, I thought to myself, what is the hardest thing someone can do in life that everyone always talks about? Of course I thought of the medical services. Since I had dropped out of high school I wanted to prove to people I could still do what I really wanted to do in life. Just like any enlisted guy, I went to basic training. Then I went into what’s called the Navy A School, where I learned my primary job. I am a general-duty corpsman, so I learned the basics of what a corpsman does every day dealing with medical records, dealing with drugs, everything from Tylenol to morphine. I learned the basics of IV punctures, how to start an IV line, draw blood and give immunizations.

After that training, I got what’s called a “dream sheet,” where I listed my top three priorities that I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to be a field medical corpsman. I always knew I wanted to be with a Marine Corps unit. I wanted to do trauma medicine and shock medicine.

I had been trained well, but the question remained: How well can you train to go to war and prepare to die? It’s just something you have to accept. I tell junior corpsmen when they’re getting ready to go over to Iraq or Afghanistan for the first time, “You know, you could die in your sleep tonight or you could die a hundred years from now. You don’t know. Because you know that you might die doesn’t mean you should stop living life.”

Everything you do in combat has to be second nature. You do not have time to stop and think about what’s next in the process. You can’t pull out a book and look up the answer or ask a buddy what to do next. The one second that you stop to think about what’s going on could cost someone their life. In the heat of battle, that one split second decision could cost a life or save a life.