Twenty-seven years after Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, nearly 40 retired corpsmen held a special reunion in Oceanside on Saturday.
When the Gulf War started in 1991 and duty called, nearly 200 corpsmen doctors and nurses from Foxtrot Surgical Company were deployed to a field hospital in Saudi Arabia.
“It’s amazing what we went through together,” retired Corpsman Andy Ortega said, choking back tears. “To reconnect and see that we all made it home, we all came home and we picked up where we left off.”
The veterans say their company helped saved 500 lives. While only about 40 corpsmen were able to make it to the reunion, many of them said it’s important for vets to reunite years after the war to help each other through the process of healing.
Foxtrot Company is already planning their reunion next year.
