Loblolly Boy

Untrained surgeon's assistant aboard age-of-sail warships — held men down for amputations, fed the wounded a thick gruel called "loblolly," and carried away the severed limbs.

The Story

Every modern Navy Hospital Corpsman's professional lineage runs in an unbroken chain back to the Loblolly Boy. A teenager whose job included emptying the bedpans of the men he'd just helped saw apart.