It's official, after three surgeries and God only knows how many hours of physical therapy the Navy has finally decided that they can't fix my shoulder in the time they are alloted, and have decided to medically retire me... I tried to get them to let me stay in and serve as an instructor, no dice. I signed the papers two days ago from the med board that i will accept their findings, so now I am just waiting for them to approve or deny my requested retirement date and start my terminal leave. I may not have a fully functional left arm anymore, but at least I am still alive and can still build, just not as fast or as good...

All in all I like to think that I had a good run over the 16 plus years I put in. It will be my Marines that I will miss the most, I never really understood completely about how attached a corpsman gets to his Marines until they medevaced me from Fallujah in May of last year. When they told me in Germany that I was too broken for them to fix I asked them to send me back to Iraq and the doctor laughed at me, she told me all you Marines are alike, you only want to get back in the fight. I told her that she was right, except that I wasn't a Marine, I was one of their coprsmen. She told me that I should know better. I got to laugh at her then. Sure, I knew better but I wanted to be back there with my grunts. Which brings us to today... I was fortunate enough to spend a week out on a rifle range providing medical coverage after being asked to by my first Sea Daddy who was on terminal leave, and I am gald that I got that chance to wear my cammies one last time and end my career with the Devil Dogs on a high note with no one trying to kill anybody.

Good luck and Godspeed brother. I can only imagine your diappointment having to end your career before you are ready. I have 3 more years to go before I am eligible for retirement myself. I would like to personnally thank you for your service and sacrifice.

Thanks , Doc......for all you and the other corpsmen have done and will do for us.

Best of luck in your recovery and in your civilian life.

Semper Fi,
Dave (Whiskey6)