In My Own Words

Hospitalman Third Class Nermin Tepic, Navy Corpsman, 2nd Marine Division, Camp LeJeune, N.C.

I was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia. My father was a general-select in the Bosnian Army, and he also worked as a dean at the Philosophical University of Sarajevo.

When the war started, I was 12 and the house we lived in was on the front lines. When the Serbian offensive began, we had to leave — my mother, my brothers and I. We left our dad behind to serve in the Army, and didn’t see him until two years later.

I was helping out in the Bosnian Army, running information, acting as a courier up to the front lines. I did it because they gave me food. I didn’t really understand the conflict; I just knew the Serbs were the bad guys, and they were killing all of us. There were concentration camps — two of my uncles died there — it was a mass genocide.

When I was 14, my mom was killed by a 120mm mortar. After that, my dad started making plans for me to leave. He knew about the underground passage that was dug beneath the Sarajevo airport; we passed through, and when we got to the other side, there was a Jeep waiting for us. My younger brother and I were taken to Croatia, and I started working on our papers to go to the U.S. I was 16 when I came to the U.S. to live with my uncle. My dad died in Bosnia.

After most of my family died, I didn’t feel any kind of connection to Bosnia. This is my new home, and it’s given me everything. When 9/11 happened, I decided joining the military would be the right thing to do. I had lost everything in my old country, and basically had everything in America. I would have a chance to do something exciting, and at the same time do something for my new home.

I went to the Marine Corps recruiting office, but they told me if I wanted to be a medic, I had to go across the street to the Navy. Now I think of myself as a Marine with a knowledge of medicine. I want to go to medical school, and I’d like to stay in the Navy as a doctor.

It’s a very, very close relationship between a corpsman and his Marines. You’re like their mother and father and big brother all in one. Somebody is sick, you help them; somebody’s wounded, you help them. Even if you don’t succeed, you know you did your best for that Marine.

I believe the corpsman should be the most fit person in any unit, because if a Marine goes down, the corpsman should be able to carry him and still be able to keep up with the others. The corpsman has to be able to run back and forth to all the Marines and make sure they’re doing all right. We’re paid to think; we have to understand what the mission is and know that if a Marine goes down we have to run to get him, treat him and get him back on the line to complete the mission.

I’ve been deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was deployed twice to Afghanistan and I’ve extended my tour to go back to Iraq again. The war there is totally different from what I went through as a child. Bosnia was a dirty war. In the war we’re in now, the people have the full support of American troops. We’re trying to help them as much as we can.