Tending a Fallen Marine, With Skill, Prayer and Fury
As a former Combat Medic in the US Army, I have a special affinity for military medics and corpsmen. In fact I have a higher respect and regard for combat medics and corpsmen than I do any other group of people.
And it’s because of men like Petty Officer Dustin E. Kirby:
He held up the helmet and flipped it, exposing the inside. It was lined with blood and splinters of bone.
“The round hit him,†he said, pausing to point at a tiny hole that aligned roughly with a man’s temple. “Right here.â€
Petty Officer Kirby, 22, is a Navy corpsman, the trauma medic assigned to Second Mobile Assault Platoon of Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines. Everyone calls him Doc. He had just finished treating a marine who had been shot by an Iraqi sniper.
“It was 7.62 millimeter,†he continued. “Armor piercing.â€
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the bullet, which he had found. “The impact with the Kevlar stopped most of it,†he said. “But it tore through, hit his head, went through and came out.â€
He put the bullet in his breast pocket, to give to an intelligence team later. Sweat kept rolling off his face, mixed with tears. His voice was almost cracking, but he managed to control it and keep it deep. “When I got there, there wasn’t much I could do,†he said.
Then he nodded. He seemed to be talking to himself. “I kept him breathing,†he said.
And then PO3 Kirby asked the imbedded reporter to pray as he continued to work on the Marine, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith.
Once they made it back to camp, their company commander gathered the group and told them that Lance Corporal Smith was alive and in surgery. He was critical, but stable.
And then they prayed again:
Doc had scrubbed himself clean. A big marine stepped forward with a small Bible, and the platoon huddled. He began with Psalm 91, verses 5 and 11.
“Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day,†said the big marine, Lance Cpl. Daniel B. Nicholson. “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. 
Doc stood in the corner, his arm looped over a marine. “Amen,†he said.
There are no shortages of brave heros nor devout Christians in the military.
_________________
But PO3 Kirby was well prepared for his job in Iraq:
Petty Officer Kirby began to list the schools he had attended to be ready for this moment. Some he had paid for himself, he said, to be extra-prepared.
In one course, an advanced trauma treatment program he had taken before deploying, he said, the instructors gave each corpsman an anesthetized pig.
“The idea is to work with live tissue,†he said. “You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature.â€
“My pig?†he said. “They shot him twice in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire.â€
“I kept him alive for 15 hours,†he said. “That was my pig.â€
“That was my pig,†he said.
Think about that. He kept that pig alive for 15 hours. Simply amazing.
If you’re going to get shot on the battlefield miles and hours from the nearest medical facility, you better pray that there’s a Petty Officer Kirby near by.
This isn’t the kind of job preparation and training that you’ll find on any college campus in America. Because, quite frankly, most college kids couldn’t handle it. But, thankfully, PO3 Kirby was more than up to the challenge
(I bet PETA just shat themselves when they read about the trauma training. But because of that training, PO3 Kirby was able to save the life of a Marine who had been shot in the temple by a terrorist sniper. I’d trade the life of a million such pigs for the life of a single Lance Corporal Smith)
h/t to Blackfive
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Great article.
Wow… that is amazing. Thanks for sharing that.
thanks for the article. im usually against torture on animals, but i do know that it is necessary to help save human life. pigs are slaughtered by the thousands every day, so we can eat bacon. i dont feel bad at all for what they did to the pig for the trauma training. reading the article makes me want to go into the medical field, so that maybe, i might have courage and strength to be able to be a good servant of God and help save a few lives.
I am Doc Kirby’s mom. Thank you for printing the article and the nice things you said about him. He has expressed to his father and I that he was only doing his job. He feels like the true recognition should go to Lance Cpl Smith. At the same time we, as his parents, are very proud of Dustin and the choices that he has made. Please continue to pray for our troops for their safe return. Also for Lance Cpl Smith’s speedy and full recovery and for his family.
Thank you,
Proud Navy Mom,
Gail Kirby
Mrs. Kirby — When I hear amazing stories of courage and bravey from our military, I often ask myself, “Where do you find such people?”.
Well, the answer almost always has to do with their families and how they were raised, and the values that they were taught to hold dear.
Thank you for raising a son like Doc; I pray he and his fellow soldiers get to come home soon.
Hello i am Dustin Kirbys wife. Even though i miss him so much if he wasnt there to help Colin then Colin would have died. For some reason god has blessed him to save lives and its a good thing. I love him with all my heart and so much more.
Lauren Kirby
I can’t tell you how thankful and humbled I am that you, Lauren and Gail, stopped here and left a brief message. My heart, my gratitude, and my prayers go out to your family…I am forever indebted to the bravery of men such as Dustin.
May God bless all of you, and may He bring Dustin home safely and soon.
I am a cousin to Colin Smith, and I wish to thank Dustin for his quick and thorough attention to caring for Colin. Colin is recovering and beginning to walk as I write this thanks to Dustin’s bravery in the field and quick action. Our prayers go out to Dustin’s family as he was injured in Iraq also. God certainly has worked through all of these circumstances. Colin said the morning prayer the day he was shot, one of the young men pictured above praying for Colin was injured by an IED, and then Dustin. May God bless your families, and all of the men and women serving our country.
Doc Kirby, Colin, and my boyfriend were all roommates back in the states…kirby and colin are one of the greatest people ever…travis (my boyfriend) never had a bad thing to say about these two…may colin get ovet this battle in his life and move on…kirby i also hope you recover well from what happened to on christmas eve………
pray…prayed….and still praying…..
brittany
I just finished reading articles about so called inhumane animal treatment aka: “live tissue training” brought about by corpsman Kirby’s big mouth! LTT is a must for medics, corpsmen and civilians
heading into harms way. Kirby preformed as he was trained to do, a job. His boasting about the “way” his human patinent simulator was wounded is uncalled for. If he thought his training was and is valuable he would keep his mouth shut about LTT. Animal rights activists could care less about our troops in this GWOT.God bless LCpl. Smith. May he recover fully to fight again one day! Semper Fi!
He did his job, and thats all that matters.Doc Kirby is all about saving lives, and the prevention of death period. LTT is unnecessary,working on a dying pig did not give him the intestinal fortitude and poise to save a dying comrade, and more importantly a friend. I am an animal rights activist and a soldier. So marine keep YOUR big mouth shut and do what you do best: Nothing. God Bless Doc Kirby, Scouts out…..
I wam a friend of “Doc” Kirby back in 2/8. Kirby was a good friend of mine, and someone I could always count on with who to talk to, and be able to give advice. I was hurt and in shock when I heard that he got wounded while we were in Iraq. But I wish him all the best. And I am praying for him always. Tell him I will never ever forget him and his laughter or smile. Or how embaraessed he made me in Greece our first deployment. If he wants to get in touch with me my email is [email protected]