'Losing is dying'

In the bitter cold, Navy corpsmen find mix of pride, exhaustion

For a moment, the team of military medics was defeated. Humbled. Stopped.

Straining to climb a steep, snow-covered hill at 8,500 feet, their lungs and legs burned with exhaustion. A cold wind strafed the remote stretch of eastern Sierra Nevada.

It was no place to pause for long.

The medics -- part of the Navy's Hospital corpsmen, charged with protecting Marines in combat -- had lost traction on the slick white mountainside as they tried to lug a packed rescue sled uphill.

Two medics pulled the cumbersome sled from the front with ropes attached at their waists.

Two more pushed from behind.

"Come on, push that (sled)!" bellowed fellow corpsman Adam Rosendahl from the base of the hill, encouraging his military brothers.

"Come on, 'doc' -- give it everything you got!" he said, invoking the corps' nickname, referring to the group collectively.

"Come on, push that!"

Inspired, the team trudged up the hill, slowly. Surely. Defiantly.

Atop the steep section, they paused to catch their breath and praise from their comrade.

"Good job, doc," Rosendahl said proudly.

There would be more tests to come.

A place like no other

The corpsmen would spend two weeks training at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. It's in a rugged and isolated corner of the Sierra, outside the small town of Bridgeport, near the Nevada border.

It's where men and women come to prepare for the war in Afghanistan.

Roughly 10,000 U.S. and international troops -- from as far as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands -- train here each year. Many, like the Navy corpsmen, learn how to survive and save lives in a brutally cold environment.

Others, including the Marines, learn how to stalk and kill America's enemies among the high-altitude peaks and meadows that mirror those of Afghanistan.

Temperatures "on the hill," as the training area is called, can drop to 20 below zero. Those conditions have blackened fingers and toes with frostbite and turned stove fuel to gel, base instructors said.

Those at Bridgeport, as the base is known, endure an unforgiving wind that cracks your lips, and a sun that radiates off the snow, blinding your eyes and burning your skin.

Trainees push themselves to their limits amid a scene that is both harsh and breathtaking. Mountain peaks appear carved by a master sculptor, dotted with aspen and hearty pines above the frigid West Walker River.

As striking as the setting is the base's importance.

Since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the center has become one of the most crucial training grounds in the world.



"The relevancy (of the base) has gone through the roof," said Marine Corps 1st Lt. Patrick Kinser, stationed at the base.

The military announced in January it would send an additional 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan by spring, leading to the highest concentration of American troops ever in the country.

The Mountain Warfare Training Center has already seen the effects of that proposed surge, with more troops making their way through the base in recent months.

"Everything's ramped up here," Kinser noted.

Eighteen corpsmen, including one woman, enrolled in the center's Cold Weather Medicine course last month.

Most all volunteered for the course, and arrived from the temperate climes of Camp Pendleton north of San Diego.

Their drills included trudging for miles over thick snow-clad slopes wearing skis and snowshoes.

They rappelled down icy grades and searched for avalanche victims on wind-whipped mountainsides.

The corpsmen shoveled snow constantly, digging out space for their tents and clearing a circuitous campsite walkway.

They boiled snow day and night to make water for the group.

During their second week, instructors used simulated artillery blasts and bright flashes to model a combat zone.

The students came from across the country. They were men like Chris McNally, of Olympia, Wash., a good-natured, introspective corpsman with a quirky sense of humor.

Some, like Shaun Dezern, of Arlington, Texas, were tough-guy soldiers, unwilling to give in to the elements. And still others were like Robert England, of Sioux City, Iowa, a stoic lead-by-example Navy lieutenant.

Their course was more about survival than medicine.

It took them to a bone-jarringly cold world, miles from civilization, where warmth and shelter were rare commodities.

It showed them how to save themselves first so they can save the Marines in their care.

It revealed a group of braves souls, pushed further than they'd ever been before.

Shouldering the load

Because they're not Marines, the corpsmen feel a constant need to prove themselves to the elite warriors.

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Shaun Dezern fit that mold.

The strong-jawed Texan had never seen snow prior to the training, yet he considered the foreign conditions a personal challenge.

Making a slow march on skis down the mountain -- six miles into the unspoiled backcountry from the main base -- Dezern, 26, carried an awkward 70-pound "combat load" upon his broad back and shoulders.

One corpsman was required at all times to carry the heavy camouflaged pack, which included extra boots, stoves and emergency MREs -- military issued meals, ready-to-eat -- for the rest of the troops.

Beginning his descent atop a steep slope, Dezern stumbled forward and to the side. His pack, in an instant, crashed him down, off the side of the trail.

He slid several feet until coming to a stop in thick snow.

With his skis tangled and the pack burdening him, Dezern seemed helpless.

His face was flushed crimson. His lungs heaved.

Slowly, he shifted his skis parallel to the slope. Somehow, he muscled himself up, using his ski poles to steady himself.

Once back on the trail, Dezern inched forward cautiously, only to lose his balance again and tumble down in a violent spill.

Again he wrestled with the pack, gravity and his skis.

Slowly, he stood.

He maneuvered a switchback.

And tumbled again.

And again.

And again.

His fellow corpsmen -- taught to never leave a troop behind -- slowed to wait for their nearly broken brother, who lay on the ground cursing.

"Dezern, you want me to take it?" asked Rosendahl, a few feet down the trail.

He refused all offers.

"You're all pride, bro," Rosendahl said, as the two neared the end of the descent, under a canopy of pines.

Moments later, as Dezern crossed a wide meadow blanketed with snow, somebody offered that the tired corpsman "was almost there."

"Thank God," was all he replied, as the sun melted into the cold western sky.

Under a heavenly sky

Stars appeared to jump from the vast, clear sky at Bridgeport, illuminating the night like a Christmas parade passing through a small town's Main Street.

Under the heavenly show, the corpsmen cinched their jackets and packs, and ratcheted their ski bindings for one final drill following their first day on the hill.

Before they left -- for a ski hike without the use of headlamps -- they remarked on the stars above.

"Wow -- I haven't seen a sky like that in years," said one, his tan cap and neck gaiter covering him, as cold air spread across the campsite.

"Damn, dude. I haven't seen anything like this since Iraq," another commented. "It's probably clearer than Iraq."

Likely half the 18 corpsmen at Bridgeport last month will be sent to Afghanistan at some point, estimated Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Chris Cain, the group's lead instructor.

Many have already completed tours in the deserts of Iraq.

Afghanistan, however, will require them to tolerate extreme high altitudes. Peaks in the Hindu Kush range, which stretches across much of the country, vary from 11,000 feet to more than 19,000 feet high.

They'll need to know how to detect and treat illnesses specific to such a landscape. Severe forms of altitude sickness, like cerebral edema, show themselves in the form of headaches first, then a loss of coordination, sometimes ending in a loss of consciousness.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lt. England came to Bridgeport to learn more about those very conditions.

The tall, thin-faced medical officer (the only officer among the corpsmen) will likely head to the Central Asian country soon.

He won't be on the front lines, but he'll likely check the vital signs of Marines suffering from hypothermia. Perhaps he'll train other corpsmen how to use a Gammo bag -- an inflatable, tube-like bag used in the field to lower a victim's air pressure. Someone suffering from edema, for example, would be placed inside the bag, which would then be pumped up to begin treatment.

"Really, my function is to protect Marines' lives," said England, whose wife is a civilian physician. "All that money the Navy put into my (medical school) training, I've got to put it to use."

As the corpsmen crunched through the snow single-file, some falling, others gaining confidence on their skis, Hospital Corpsman First Class James Oglesby reminded them of details large and small.

"Keep good control of your gloves -- don't let them fall off," he said, helping 21-year-old Alton Guidry of San Diego, up from a faceplant in the night-darkened snow. "That's what's going to prevent frostbite and all that good stuff."

The troops stayed close during the hike. They checked every few seconds on the man or woman behind them, on their ski bindings, pack, gloves and jacket, as instructed. Such vigilance keeps bodies and minds active in cold conditions.

"Get that blood moving," Oglesby told Guidry, as the young corpsman prepared to step on.

Bright and disciplined, Lt. England seemed ready for the cold terrain. And while he spoke in detail about the ailments he might treat, he talked only generally about the prospect of going to war.

Few of the corpsmen spoke at length about such a possibility, though all acknowledged the need to be prepared.

"Obviously going to war is never exciting," England said at one point.

Reaching the end of the night hike, the lieutenant paused for a moment, soaking in the experience.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Civilian doctors don't get to do this," he remarked, before shoving off into the frozen night.

Back to the mountain

It was 8 below zero on the corpsmen's first night on the hill.

The mercury climbed to just 11 degrees by the next morning's first drill.

Instructors warned the corpsmen -- in the meadow for another hike -- to keep active, not to go into "zombie mode," as Oglesby called it.

When enduring extreme cold, your mind is put to the test along with your body. The conditions can lead people to stop talking, to stare off into the distance.

That, in turn, can become contagious and lead to "cocooning" or "group hibernation," Oglesby explained later. A group might stop working to collect snow, melt and drink it. They can stop eating, as well, preferring just to sleep.

Students at Bridgeport train until the temperature drops to 25 below zero or whiteout conditions make the landscape invisible, Senior Chief Cain said.

"If I was alone here, it would kill me," admitted McNally, the introspective corpsman from Olympia, as he shoveled the campsite's pathway later that morning. "I miss my family. We all do."

By mid-morning, a bright sun radiated off the mountainside, warming the troops and shaking off any lethargy.

They gathered around Cain for a lesson on rappelling -- using a rope to lead oneself down an incline.

The lesson, it turned out, was as much about ingenuity as technique.

Cain did not explain, at first, what he used to anchor his rope to the ground. The line disappeared inside the snowpack in front of the group.

"Would you feel safe rappelling on that?" Cain asked Chris Torres, a burly, confident corpsman.

Torres tested the line, clutching it as he leaned back a bit.

"Oh yeah, definitely," he responded.

Torres was joined by another corpsman, Nick Mounkes, and the two crept carefully down the hill, each grasping the line.

They safely rappelled 15 to 20 feet down, trusting the anchor -- whatever it was -- to stay lodged in the snow.

Moments later, the two pulled themselves back up, and drew close to the huddle to find out what was buried below.

Two corpsmen shoveled frantically to uncover the object. Once finished, Cain reached down to pull a small, plastic Marine-issued soap box wrapped in Duct tape from the hole.

"That's my survival kit," he said, holding the one-and-a-half ounce box in the air. "That just goes to show you how you have to think outside the box to potentially save your life, or the life of one of your Marines or sailors."

The corpsmen at Bridgeport were not rookie soldiers.

Many had served through squalls while stationed at Okinawa and sandstorms while in Iraq.

Their words and steady gazes told those stories.

But the thin, cold air at the Mountain Warfare Training Center forced them to trust themselves once again, to dig for courage in the midst of mental and physical struggle.

As the afternoon sun cast shadows across the idyllic training site, Shaun Dezern stood ready for the next drill -- an avalanche rescue mission.

Asked about his tumultuous trek down the mountain the day prior, he said he didn't know why he kept going, and didn't hand over the pack.

Pausing for just a second, he continued: "There's glory in it once it's done -- no matter how bad it sucks," he said. "You don't give in, because if you give in, you get used to giving in."

"Losing is dying," he added.

Contact reporter Chris Nichols at chrisn@lodinews.com.