On pins and needles

Issue Date: July 19, 2004

On pins and needles
Navy doctor uses acupuncture to help leathernecks in Ramadi deal with stress

By Gordon Lubold
Times staff writer

CAMP HURRICANE POINT, Iraq — Marines think they know what a “trigger release” is — until they talk to Navy Lt. Kenneth Son.
Son, the battalion surgeon for 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, is an acupuncturist and has treated hundreds of Marines for combat stress and other ailments since March, when the battalion arrived at this camp along the banks of the Euphrates River.

In the world of acupuncture, trigger release is the practice of using needles to release muscle tension. Son estimates he has used more than 2,000 needles on Marines here, including Lt. Col. Paul Kennedy, the battalion’s commanding officer, treating them for everything from aching backs and sprained ankles to combat stress.

The battalion is working in the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. The Marines here have paid a high price for the mission, suffering more than 210 casualties, including more than 30 leathernecks killed in action. Memorial services were beginning to become routine.

“Marines who go through a lot of stress, killing or shooting people, can feel a lot of guilt,” said Son, a Korean-American. A blast from improvised explosives can cause someone to tense up so tightly that they’re sore the next day, he said. “But for some of these kids, a lot of it comes back later.”

Son, a medical doctor with a degree from the University of Southern California, received his acupuncture training at the University of California, Los Angeles, last year. He is one of a handful of military doctors who practice acupuncture in addition to traditional medicine, and the only one he knows of doing so with Marines in Iraq.

“When I first did it, people were skeptical, they didn’t know it would work,” he said. “Once I did it, the entire battalion loved it.”

One Marine said he had his doubts about acupuncture. A Japanese woman once offered him acupuncture while he was serving in her country. He shrugged it off at the time, figuring it was nonsense.

“That and a shot of tequila will fix anything,” he remembers thinking.

But his job with the battalion headquarters is high-stress, and he’s been having trouble sleeping. So he decided to give Son’s alternative treatment a try.

The Marine, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of his job, lay on his rack one morning in early July and let Son gently place five thin needles into his midsection and legs while Randy Travis played on the stereo.

“He’s a guy who has a lot of internal stress,” Son explained as he placed the “noncutting” needles into his patient.

The needles didn’t hurt exactly, the staff sergeant said.

“It’s not pleasurable, it’s just interesting — that’s the only way to describe it,” he said. “It’s not pain, but initially when it happens, it’s not a good thing.”

Son was performing what he calls “internal and external dragons,” a form of acupuncture meant to loosen muscles and sap out stress.

He then lit small round sticks called “moxa” that smell — coincidentally, Son insists — like marijuana, and touched the sticks to each of the needles.

The moxa warms each needle, accentuating the muscle-loosening effect. The Marine looked as if he was being put under anesthesia as his eyelids fluttered all but shut.

Hours later, the Marine emerged from his room after one of the most worthwhile sleeps he’d had in weeks, he said.

2nd Lt. Bronson Makeeff, the battalion adjutant, had a similar experience. He’d suffered a nagging pain in his lower back after falling out of a window during urban training last year. After “popping Motrin” for months, he went to see Son.

Now, he’s a believer.

“I’m good,” he said. “I don’t have any more problems.”

Gordon Lubold is covering I Marine Expeditionary Force operations in Iraq.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/stor...ER-3073621.php

Ellie