YOU
MIGHT BE A CORPSMAN IF...
your peers call you and
"old salt" but you've never been to sea.
you've
ever searched the supply room for fallopian tubes.
you pull out a 16-gauge needle,
and some Marine passes out.
you head to the Golden Corral
after an autopsy.
you can do the job of any rate
in the Navy; and do it better.
someone
says, "I have IBM." And you ask "What are they treating you
with?"
you haven't seen your 782 gear
since you checked in.
you get CHT and CHCS confused.
sea duty consists of buildings
in foreign lands out of sight of any ocean.
you think it's against the
Geneva Convention for you to have to chip paint.
you think an "all hands
working party" means everyone but you.
people
trust you with their life but not with their car.
your dinner conversations would
chase away a cannibal.
the pattern on your pajama's
reads PROPERTY OF USNH.
you use sutures to fix your
uniform.
you use hemostats to hold a
vacuum hose on your car.
you have more medical equipment
in your trunk than in your clinic.
your neighbors call you at
you use the threat of a lost
shot record as a way to get your supplies first.
you think the 3M system is a
tape dispenser.
you make marks on each of your
hands to differentiate port from starboard.
you think a red cross makes you
impervious to injury.
you think inspecting the mess
deck means you get free food.
after
a sailor's third visit to sickcall in a liberty port,
you no longer
warm his procaine penicillin.
there
is a thermometer behind your ear and you cannot find your pen.
gifts
and household items are made from tongue depressors.
while
making love, you are counting your partner's pulse and respirations.
you walk all day long and then
have to treat everyone else's blisters.
you use tongue blades as
silverware.
you don't need a license to
practice medicine.
you watch ER and Chicago Hope
with your friends just to point out the
discrepancies.
You drain a pilondial
cyst and then eat lunch with your wife and talk about
the procedure.