Flight Surgeon, Corpsman Among First Casualties

Abstract

ONE of only a handful of US Air Force (USAF) physicians who also are active military pilots is among the first servicemen to be listed as missing in the Persian Gulf War. Thomas Flagg Koritz, MD, the 37-year-old pilot of an F-15E jet, failed to return from a mission flown by members of the 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron on the second day of the conflict. Pilot-Physician Program Koritz is a 1979 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Rockford and Chicago. After interning as a family practice physician at Mercy Hospital, Davenport, Iowa, he joined the USAF, where he received his pilot's wings and qualified for the flight surgeon rating by completing a residency at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Tex. He then was attached to the 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, NC, as