My War - Installment 36

"Two bucks it’s our men GW. Want to bet on it? Two-to-one. If it’s the NVA, I'll owe you four bucks. OK?"

"C'mon, Sah. Doan kid like dat."

We waited; GW did most of the watching. My eyes cleared a little. The noise was getting closer and GW's tension was evident, and it appeared to be mounting. Finally we could distinguish voices, we could not tell just then, but we hoped that they were speaking English. GW and I were both happy when we could tell that the words were clearly English.

Our rescuers seemed to be more concerned about the NVA than we had been, from the sound of their talk as they approached.

There was a squad or almost a squad of men, my vision was still quite fuzzy. GW told me they had two stretchers with them. They moved up on the east side of the crash site. I, with GW's aid, got up and stood on my right leg. Under my own power I held my left pant leg and hopped over the rubble to the waiting stretcher. I lowered myself down onto the canvas. As soon as I was down they lifted it and almost started to run up the mountain, apparently fearing for their own safety.

My leg was very limp and I had no control over it at all other than to move it by hand and I still had no feeling in it. It kept bouncing off of the stretcher and dragging on the ground. I ordered the men to stop, put the stretcher down and take my boot laces to tie my feet together. This would keep the leg from bouncing off and causing more damage. Then they took off running again. That worked fine and there were no further incidents while moving to the evacuation helicopter, a "D" model Huey, located somewhere up the mountain.

Not only the rescue squad, but the pilots to were anxious to get out of the area. I was quickly slid into the helicopter and off we went, headed for our infirmary at LZ Hammond.

"You want any morphine, Sir?" the corpsman asked me once we were in the air.

"No!! I'm doing fine just now, maybe later. Thanks anyway."

During the flight to the med-evac (Evacuation) pad at LZ Hammond the corpsman kept asking me if I wanted any morphine. I continually assured him that I did not need it, that I felt pretty good. We landed at the med evac pad at LZ Hammond within thirty minutes of our take off. Alpha Troop had been notified and I was met at the infirmary by our Executive Officer and Captain White.

Everything started to move quickly at the med-evac. Medics were working on me, splinting my left leg, jerking and twisting, and giving me a number of unknown shots. Concurrently I was being questioned and debriefed. I found it hard to keep my mind on what I was talking about with all the manipulations that were going on, happily for me; I continued to keep my cool. I turned over my SOI during my debriefing.

In my mind I figured within two or three months as best I'd be back with A Troop, flying Scouts again. How long could a broken leg possibly take to heal?

I was told that my personal effects would be shipped to me after I was set up in a hospital. I was becoming drowsy from one of the many shots that had been given to me. Dumbly and numbly I apologized for losing one of our ships. I then bid farewell to Dave and the EO.

"See you later," I mumbled.

I was flown to the hospital at Qui Nhon and became one of the people stuck, waiting in the hallways. I was not even sure what I was waiting for. I waited in the hallway for what seemed an eternity. Time dragged on and on, images of the day whirled through my drugged consciousness, as I lay on the gurney. I was finally taken into the OR. I kind of expected, since I was headed to the OR, that they were going to operate and either pin my femur, running a rod into the center of the bone from the hip down, or they would put a plate on it, using screws and metal plat to align the break for healing. Heck I'd be back with Alpha sooner that I expected. All these thoughts swirled around in my drowsy mind.

When I awoke in the recovery room I found that I was in plaster from my upper chest to my toes. I was going to be shipped to an Army hospital in Japan early the next morning, or perhaps the following day.

The evening seemed to pass by slowly. I couldn't sleep. Someone came by with books and I selected a science fiction novel, but couldn't get interested enough, just then, to read it. I got some smokes from somebody and lay there most of the night occasionally trying to have a smoke to calm the nervousness I had acquired due to my inactivity. I was a bit depressed, to say the least. My dream had been at least temporarily, I thought, plucked away from me. Well, this kind of thing was just one of the consequences of war, of shooting and being shot at. I'd make the best of it, however it would come out.

The next day passed uneventfully. I picked at my food finding that none of what they had at the hospital came close to what I had been used to getting from Buzz. I would be shipped out in the morning to Japan by way of Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. That seemed like a round about way to get to Japan, but then I was in no hurry since I was not going under my own steam.

We were stacked in a C-141 transport, layer upon layer. From my vantage point on the bottom of the stack and with the limited movement I had, due to the large cast, I couldn't see how many layers there were, but it had to be quite a few. There was very little distance between me and the bottom of the next stretcher, perhaps eight to ten inches at best. I had been awake for over two days straight, except for the time in the OR, and was glad for having not slept because, right at that moment, there was absolutely nothing to do but sleep, so I did. I didn't wake up, not even to take a leak, until they were unloading us at Clark Air Force Base to drive us to the hospital.

We were carried in as if we were so much meat to push around. I was rolled, like a log, onto a bed, one in a long line that was holding the wounded that were in transit. The only items, personal effects, which I had with me, were my wallet, my ID card, and a few pieces of script money, the book which I had picked up at the hospital in Qui Nhon and the almost empty package of Pall Malls. I had stuffed all of the articles into the top of my cast.

I like the others lay lost in my private thoughts all during the afternoon hours. Hardly anyone stirred on the ward, very few medical staff was seen, because in transit patients had all been stabilized before shipment, so there were few chances of any emergency.

The few smokes I had, dwindled and were gone quickly, being bummed by people around me that were also bored. Supper came and I ate for something to do. After supper I noticed a Red Cross Lady moving through the ward with a basket on her arm. When she came close enough I could see that her basket was full of little complimentary packets of four smokes, the type that used to be, standard fare in “C” rations, and given with meals on board the airlines and were also given out as free samples. My unit in Vietnam had been receiving free packages of cigarettes with regularity.

The Red Cross Lady came up to my bed and asked.

"Would you like some cigarettes young fellow?"

Yes, please, why not."

"What kind would you like?"

I knew nothing of brands nor did I really care, this was something free, I thought.

"Anything."

"Here you are. That will be twenty-five cents."

"That will be what?"

"Twenty-five cents, please."

"You can have your smokes lady. I don't need them anyway."

I spent the entire night reading my science fiction book, finishing it as dawn was breaking sending slivers of golden tropical sunlight into the dingy ward.

I was anxious to get moving and get to where ever I was going to end up in Japan. That was the second time the Red Cross had left a bad taste in my mouth that was really lousy.

Breakfast and most of the morning passed by before we were once again loaded into, jeep type, ambulances and trucked, like so much cargo, to an awaiting C-141.

We landed at Tachekawa Air Force Base, right outside of Tokyo, where we were unceremoniously transported to the Base hospital to await our further disposition to individually assigned hospitals. No one had any idea about what hospital they would go to. We would each find out when we got there. There were no choices, but then again it was the only game in town that I was allowed to play just then.

Another sleepless night, in a strange bed; unable to move, or even take a piss unaided. This definitely was not my style, having to call someone so I could take a leak.

The following day I was flown via Huey over the congestion of Tokyo, then the largest city in the world, to the 249th General Hospital. Ah, home at last. I was unloaded and taken to the third floor and placed on a post operative ward. I had been in route, since I was shot down, a total of five days or there about.

My first hospital trauma came shortly after my arrival. A young nurse, cute thing, came up to me with some paper work and started asking questions; the usual stuff, name, rank and serial number. When she asked my rank I told her I was a Warrant Officer, I then immediately started to recite my serial number. She interrupted me.

"Oh, come on private, stop it. This will be part of your permanent medical records."

"I am a Warrant Officer, helicopter pilot."

"I told you to stop fooling around. Now what are you a private or a private first class?"

I was becoming pissed off, but I kept my cool.

"I am a Warrant Officer, and I do not appreciate your questioning me, and doubting my word, in front of these enlisted men.”

I reached into the top of my cast for my wallet. I pulled it out and extracted my Identification Card from its leather pocket. I wiped off the dirt and dust before handing it to the nurse. She looked it over, handed it back, and then turned a bright crimson before quickly leaving. I never saw her again during my months at the 249th General Hospital.

A DUMP IN TIME SAVES NINE

With the five days on the road, plus the day's flying when I got shot down, it had been six days since I had taken a dump. I rang for a corpsman. When he arrived I asked for a bed pan, by this time someone had marked my chart and hung it on the end of the bed, so everyone knew I was an officer.

"Yes, Sir, I’ll be right back."

He came back with a bed pan and some help to maneuver me and my cast onto the stainless steel fixture. I was tilted onto one side so that they would be able to place the pan.

"Sir, I'm afraid they didn't cut the back of your cast out. We'll have to get a plaster saw and make an opening."

"Great, could you do it fast? It has been about six days, and I feel like I am about to explode."

One corpsman went and quickly returned with the oscillating plaster cutting saw. I was unceremoniously rolled over onto my stomach; one man went to work immediately with the saw. In a few minutes I was told that all was well, an adequate opening had been fashioned into the cast. I was ready for action.

The bed pan was lined up with the newly cut passage and I was rolled back over and on top of it. I was no sooner in position than I let loose with a brown torrent that had been under great pressure. There was only one problem. I was or rather the cast was not lined up properly with the bed pan. The hole that they had cut was not lined up with my anus. To top it off the corpsman admitted that the opening appeared to be too narrow.

There was crap everywhere, on the bed, in the cast, in the bed pan and some even managed to find its way on to the floor. I felt extremely embarrasses, as well as sorry for the corpsman that would get stuck with having to clean all this up including me. I was helpless to be of any aid to him. Talk about a shitty job. Anyway, the pressure was off and I slept well that night for a change.

The following morning I felt pretty good. I was getting use to not being able to move anything, but my head, neck, and arms. I ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and jelly. It wasn't bad, other than the hair in the eggs, it was really a good breakfast.

The ward that I was on was not really the post operative ward that I had been told I was going to be placed in. Everyone looked too healthy for it to be a post OP ward. I learned, when my breakfast tray was collected, that, later that morning, I would be moved to the proper ward, across the hall, that being the post OP ward I wondered why I was to be put in a post OP area, it just didn't make any sense to me.