A Path To Peace: How A Former Navy Corpsman Honors His Fallen Friends On Memorial Day
Ralph "AK" Angkiangco enlisted in the Navy in April 2008 one year after graduating high school. He was an 18-year-old kid uncertain about what he wanted in life, apart from fleeing his parent's place in San Diego. He had initially considered joining the Marine Corps, but with America's Global War on Terror in full swing, his father persuaded him to become a hospital corpsman in the Navy instead.
A medical career, his father argued, would provide him the opportunity to get an education while serving alongside Marines in combat. And AK didn't fantasize about firefights or a chest weighted down by medals, ribbons and awards—each complete with a story of grandeur and heroism—so he took his father's advice.
The Navy trains its corpsmen at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in Texas. It was there that AK learned the basics of combat medicine. Instructors taught him how to treat and prevent infections in the field, splint a broken bone and how to stop an arterial bleed.
But there are some things that cannot be learned in a classroom.
"We were told that as a corpsman you will save lives. There's no ifs, ands or buts," AK said. "But the fact that obviously you can't save all lives, they don't really go over that or explain that. I had to figure that out on my own."
Each year,
