Thank You for My Service - Mat Best Page 0,36
to do.”
“You better put your fucking sleeves down and figure it out when we get back, otherwise they’re going to—”
“Ranger Best!” the instructor called out. “You trying to get a suntan?”
“Negative, Sergeant.”
“Then why the fuck are your sleeves up?!!” He gave me a look like I’d just arrived to pick up his daughter for prom and handed her a corsage made out of NuvaRings. “GODDAMMIT, BEST, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? GET YOUR FUCKING BLOUSE SQUARED AWAY!”
“I can’t right now. Look, Sergeant.”
I walked over to him and politely showed him the oozing sores all over my arms. I’ve seen less recoil from three-and-a-half-inch turkey loads. He looked at me and shook his head violently.
“BEST, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH THOSE GODDAMN THINGS? GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
“You betcha,” I said under my breath. Part of me was happy that someone else finally got to see the shit I had been dealing with. But most importantly, I took his fearful disgust as permission to go to Medical and get treated.
Getting medical treatment at an Army base during Ranger School is like going VIP to the Mayo Clinic if the Mayo Clinic used actual mayo to treat its patients. The “doctor” is typically a physician’s assistant in training who has about 30 percent of what he needs—in terms of both knowledge and supplies—to treat the injuries he sees most often. My case was no different. Not only was the guy I went to a total dipshit, but if you questioned his diagnosis, he got downright offended.
“So, what do we have here today, Ranger Best?”
“You might want to stand back,” I said, before taking off my shirt.
“JESUS FUCK! What is that?”
“Um, I was hoping you’d be able to tell me?”
This was not encouraging. When doctors in Florida are shocked to see something in or on your body and they don’t know what it is immediately, you know it must be bad. After a long, hard look from a safe distance, he announced his diagnosis.
“I think those are spider bites.”
“What? Spider bites? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Are you questioning my medical opinion?”
“I am if you’re trying to tell me that these wretched open sores are caused by spider bites. Come on, sir, this has to be something else.”
“No. It isn’t. It’s spider bites, nothing more. I know you’re probably not used to the conditions down here, but I can tell you straight away that those are most definitely spider bites.”
“Fine,” I said. I had no choice but to accept the confident verdict of my new friend Doctor Dumbass. “Give me something for the spider bites, and I’ll be on my way.”
At this point, I was willing to try anything he was willing to prescribe. You could have chopped up a Children’s Chewable Tylenol and I would have snorted it off a rusty nail if it promised to relieve one second of my agony. What he gave me were some tiny spider bite pills and a bullshit topical powder that was probably just baby powder with a fancy arachnid label taped on the bottle.
Two useless hours after I got there, off I went in a short-sleeved T-shirt, certain of only one thing: I didn’t have fucking spider bites. When I got back to the barracks, the rest of my platoon was getting their gear ready for another field exercise. It was the first time most of them had seen my sores, and they all looked at me like I was an extra on The Walking Dead. Trey walked over to me and sat down.
“Jesus, man, you all right?” he said
“No, I’m in a lot of fucking pain, and their diagnosis was just stellar.”
“What did they say it was?”
“Spider bites. Can you believe that shit?”
As luck would have it, one of my buddies who was a 3/75 Ranger medic—I’ll call him Jones—happened to walk by and overhear us. “Who the fuck told you those were spider bites?”
“The physician’s assistant.”
“Bullshit, spider bites,” Jones said. “That’s one of the most horrific cases of bullous impetigo I have ever seen. You better go back and see him before you lose a limb.”
“I fucking knew it wasn’t spider bites!” I said. “Motherfucker!”
If you don’t know what bullous impetigo is, congratulate yourself and never, ever Google it. Let me give you the WebMD synopsis instead: Bullous impetigo creates a bunch of pus-filled sores all over your arms, legs, and back that start in the moist areas of your body (which, during