Miracle Medic

[Hobilar]

There can be few acts of gallantry that would equal those of William Richard Charette, Hospital Corpsman second class. Outnumbered and trapped by Chinese troops that were attacking towards the South Korean capital, Seoul, on the morning of 27 March 1953, his Marine rifle company were taking heavy casualties, which Charette, hastening from one casualty to another, was busily attempting to tend.

Whilst sprinkling sulpha powder into a gaping wound of one Marine, a grenade landed nearby. Without thinking the brave Medic threw himself over his comrade, and as the grenade exploded, he would receive the entire force of the concussion, with his body becoming peppered with the Grenade's fragments.

Despite his own intense shock, Charette continued to crawl and stumble around to the other wounded men. As he knelt beside a wounded marine, machine gun bullets chewed up the dirt and rocks nearby. Realising that another casualty had had his battle vest ripped apart by a blast, Charette used his own jacket to cover the wounded man. Another Marine had a serious leg wound. To reach him Charette had to expose himself to the enemy's fire, standing upright in the trench.

Finally when all the seriously wounded had been evacuated from the battlefield, Corpsman Charette reluctantly allowed his own painful wounds to be treated.

Many would later call him 'The Miracle Medic' because, facing almost certain death, he survived through such a fierce combat ordeal. Incidentally, out of the seven Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to the entire US Navy during the Korean War, no less than five were awarded to such non-combatant medics as Richard Charette.