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Well, you certainly bring up an interesting question, it deserves an answer. I’ll give an example.
When I was in the military and serving overseas in a Third-World country (which will remain unnamed here), my unit was in the field for an exercise that lasted about two weeks. Malaria was rampant there, so we had been on malaria pills for weeks before our arrival and had to continue taking them for a specified period after we left. We all went through medical evaluation protocols for a myriad of things specific to that area long before our arrival. Anyone in the unit who was susceptible to malaria yet could not take the pills for whatever medical reason was not sent in. Our malaria pills were considered a “controlled item”, meaning they were issued daily to each man individually and logged in to keep a record of it. If any man contracted malaria, the first action was to check the logbooks to see his track record of taking or not taking pills. Each unit was issued an exact of pills-per-man-per-day.
The local villagers often traded with the Marines in my unit, and one thing they wanted from us was medications. We were on strict orders not to give, sell, trade or in any other way provide any medications to them because not being medical professionals, we were in no position to do so.
Many of the villagers didn’t understand why we, individual Marines, didn’t just give them malaria pills willy-nilly. They reasoned that the US government was strong and rich (financially), and that we were just being stingy and mean. Malaria ravaged the native people in larger numbers than it did we Americans, but there was also a deeper problem, colloquially called The Smallpox Blanket Syndrome. We could not introduce anything that might unknowingly backfire on them, so even if we had extra pills, no one wanted to be a Typhoid Mary.
Our Battalion Aid Station set up a clinic where the Corpsmen (medics, to laymen) under the supervision of the Battalion Surgeon would hold cursory medical exams to assist villagers with minor medical problems.
Those villagers would have gladly taken medication that would help slow down, treat, or stop the disease that was knocking them down left and right.
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Thanks, that makes perfect sense.
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(Navy life Marine life)
GRRRRRRRRRRR! Of course, you have no way of knowing it, but one of the worst things a person can do is call a Marine a Sailor or call a Sailor a Marine. Well, calling a Marine a Soldier is up there pretty far too.
Marines — US Marine Corps
Sailors — US Navy
Soldiers — US Army
Airmen* — US Air Force
Coastguardsmen* — US Coast Guard
*Caveat: under new “political correctness” and “progressivenism“ (sic), the use of the suffix -man or -men is considered a crime, I believe.
Yes, I agree that Coasties is one of the many slang terms and/or nicknames attributed to members of the Coast Guard (just as each service has numerous slang terms and nicknames for its members too), but it’s not an official designation.
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Wow, I’m sorry you went through all of that.
SavvyAnsley 