And when we look at the ones who go above and beyond, well, we get crazy stories like ...

If you could throw G.I. Joe and Dr. House in a blender together, the military medic is the delicious human smoothie you'd get as a result. While most of us require headphones to block out the slightest distractions during work, combat medics heal fellow humans while bullets and bombs try to kill them. So at the very baseline of the profession, we're talking about men and women with proverbial balls so big that their fatigues are shaped like Hammer pants.

5 The Medic Who Delivered Plasma (While Delivering Bullets)

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You might be picturing these combat medics pulling off the very basics while on the battlefield -- applying bandages, giving CPR, the stuff you've seen in movies. But way back in 1945, 18-year-old medic Robert Bush wasn't just giving basic care at the Battle of Okinawa, he was doing the tough stuff -- like administering blood transfusions on the battlefield. If you have a hard time imagining what a blood transfusion looks like outside a sterile hospital setting, start with this picture of another World War II medic delivering plasma to a wounded private:

National Archives via Wikipedia

Civilian entertainment was notoriously difficult to come by during World War II.

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But instead of barefoot Sicilian peasants, imagine the medic is surrounded by screaming Marines fighting off Japanese combatants. And picture a gaping chest and shoulder wound in the victim, one that required an immediate plasma delivery to aid in blood coagulation. Go ahead and just picture the fiery pits of the deepest hell while you're at it, because that's the scene we're trying to paint Bush in here.

Now, if you were a Japanese soldier fighting for the empire, maybe you'd give pause when coming upon a guy so almost-dead that he's getting a blood transfusion. Maybe you'd step over him and move on to the next American. If so, good for you, but that's not how things worked at Okinawa. Hospital Apprentice First Class Bush held his blood bag with one hand, drew his pistol with the other, and, after presumably snapping off some cool one-liner like, "The doctor will see you NOW, BITCHES!" began mowing down the charging Japanese.

U.S. Navy via Wikipedia

Rarely do things ever work out for soldiers who fight for any "empire."

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Bush maintained his position, emptying his pistol into the horde before scooping up the wounded officer's rifle to continue fighting against the onslaught. He continued protecting his "patient" even after a grenade blew up near him, destroying his right eye with shrapnel.