Part of the team

CAMP HABBANIYAH, IRAQ (March 20, 2008) – Hospital Corpsman 1^st Class Casey Wheeler, 25, wants to tell you about Gunnery Sergeant Jerome Murkerson Jr.

080320-M-2658B-CMAP1

          On a day that by all rights should belong to Wheeler, when he alone among his peers is being promoted for his heroism and devotion to duty, Wheeler is thinking about GySgt Murkerson and the other members of his team.

         “He was a lion,” remembers Wheeler, now the 1st Battalion, 29^th Brigade, 7^th Iraqi Army Division military transition team corpsman. “He was fearless. He loved this stuff.”

Murkerson was killed during an ambush in Baghdad while his team was on patrol with the Iraqi Army. He was coming to the aid of other members of the team who had been separated during the attack when he was hit and died instantly.

“He always had a smile that looked like he was trying to hide it,” said Wheeler about Murkerson. “This was his third deployment and he fought like hell to get it. He was always having fun.”

Twenty-four hours after the ambush where they lost GySgt Murkerson, Wheeler and the rest of the team were out on another patrol. How do they do it after losing a friend and teammate? “Because Gunny would have kicked our ass,” said Wheeler.

Casey Wheeler doesn’t want to talk about himself. He doesn’t want to talk about how he was the only corpsman in the U.S. Navy this period to be selected for combat meritorious advancement to the rank of Hospital Corpsman 1^st Class.

080320-M-2658B-CMAP2

 He won’t tell you that he spent five months in Baghdad patrolling the streets of some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. He won’t tell you about working as the only corpsman for 24 Marines and soldiers with the 2^nd Battalion, 4^th Brigade, 1^st Iraqi Army Division military transition team. He won’t tell you about how he helped his Iraqi counterparts improve the battalion’s medical capabilities. He won’t talk about the 65 patrols in 75 days, averaging eight a week, he conducted after arriving in Baghdad.

           Wheeler may not want to talk about himself, but the other members of his team know what an asset he has been. “I have met a lot of 2nd class corpsmen in my three years in the Marine Corps, and I wouldn’t pick any of them for this [promotion] over Doc,” said Marine 1^stLt Matthew C. Adleta, 1/29^th MiTT operations officer. “He is the epitome of what corpsmen do for the Marines.”

           Marine Capt. Pablo J. Cabrera, the team leader for 2-4/1 MiTT, and now team leader for 1/29^th MiTT, will tell you about how Wheeler not only served the medical needs of the MiTT team, but how he also volunteered on his own time to assist the medical aid station at FOB Shield, seeing over 360 patients, so that he could improve his performance.

           “I wouldn’t want anyone other than him to be my corpsman,” said Cabrera. “He did everything above and beyond what was expected. I’m glad he could be recognized for his efforts.”

            In the citation Cabrera submitted for the combat meritorious advancement program, he writes about how Wheeler mentored, advised and trained a team of twelve Iraqi medics and one doctor on sick-call procedures, medical logistics and battlefield medicine. And he describes how Wheeler proved himself under fire.

           Wheeler won’t tell you that during the ambush he provided immediate aid to an Iraqi soldier and a U.S. Army lieutenant, both of whom had been shot in the leg, or how he rallied Iraqi soldiers to continue through the six-hour firefight.

080320-M-2658B-CMAP4

           Wheeler will tell you about 1^st Lieutenant Adleta and how he coordinated medevac and fought the insurgents in that alley. He’ll tell you about Marine 1^st Lt Michael S. Leach and how he was “engaging the insurgents like it was cool.” He’ll tell you about Army 1^st Lt. Derrick Osen from the 1^st Battalion 504^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, who he calls a “true god of war”, and how he stayed in the fight despite being shot in the leg.

           “He ran by me and said ‘Doc, I’ve been shot,” said Wheeler. “I asked if he was alright and he said, ‘----ing great!’”

           In the end, Hospital Corpsman 1^st Class Casey Wheeler’s story is only one chapter in the larger story of the 2-4/1 MiTT. No team member is more important, more valuable or more appreciated than another. Each and every one of them deserves all the recognition and respect we can give them. Each one deserves to have their story told; March 20, 2008 belongs to HM1 Wheeler.