Combat Medic Poetry

By Patrick Thibeault

Combat Poetry inspired by a combat medic who experienced war both as a teenager and again as a seasoned combat veteran

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483517445

Patrick Thibeault

Patrick Thibeault was raised as an Army brat. Upon graduation from high school, he enlisted in the Army, becoming a paratrooper medic. The first unit that he was assigned to was 3rd Battalion / 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). Patrick deployed to Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm back in 1990. He then joined the Kentucky Army National Guard. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in nursing in May 2003 from Marian University in Indianapolis, Indiana and started on his master's degree to become a Family Nurse Practitioner upon returning from combat in 2005. He currently works part time in a medical intensive care unit and full time in an urgent and primary care clinic as a nurse practitioner. His awards and decorations include the Combat Medical Badge, second award from both Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom, the Meritorious Service Medical from Afghanistan, and the Air Medal from Desert Storm. Patrick has also earned the Expert Field Medical Badge and the enlisted crewmember aviation wings.

Book preview

Valor

The Loss

Engaging the enemy at zero dark thirty

A warrior screaming for his life

His bloodied body on the desert floor

Tourniquet applied, a large bore IV inserted

The amputation was just too traumatic

The medic toiled in a furbish manner

But to no avail

The agonal breathing started

He will miss his family never more

His sacred blood fertilizes Mother Earth

Vials of morphine scattered across the desert floor

The pain no more

The screaming stopped

The heart stops beating

This warrior served his brothers with honor

No more sacrifice and no more pain

Their brother is gone

Warriors bow their heads

Tears of anguish shared

Remembrance

This soldier fought with all his will

To win a war

That he never really understood

A mother and father at home are waiting

The Teenager

A teen aged boy with no goal in sight

Barely graduated, lower part of the class

Working a dead end job all through the night

Decides to join

He will go to war

It will be a blast

They teach him to fight

They teach him to kill

He learns his new cry of battle

And he easily makes new friends

He knows not yet of sacrifice

Or of the pain, no, not just yet

He is sent to a war

A desert place

To go and Fight

He masters his new skill

And learns of sacrifice and dying

He watches his new friends perish

His heart becomes cold from all of the killing

A distant stare that he cannot shake

He comes home an old man

Bitter from war and all the death that surrounds him

Not yet legal to drink

But legal to kill another man

Yet still a teenager

Barely graduated, lower part of the class

The Plan

The shrink asks me if I have a plan

I bet that she thinks I’m crazy

As I do myself

I tell her yes

I have plan

It is well thought out