My War - Installment 48

While I was still awake for this short time I caught a nurse coming onto the ward and asked her about some food. She checked my chart and said she would inquire further.

"At least let me have something to drink while I'm waiting."

"You can sip a little water, remember only a little. It's not uncommon to throw up for a while after general anesthesia."

"Byy-thee-waaay-wh-h-ere'ss Dooouugg Maa-arrrrooow?" half aware of my slurring all my speech.

"He went to surgery today also; he should be back this afternoon."

"Thaaann-kkkss Booonnnneeeee." I had just come to realize who it was that I was talking to.

She came back a few minutes later with a small Dixie cup of ice cream which I was to spoon in very slowly. It was definitely better than nothing, I thought, but did little to eliminate my intense hunger pangs.

My leg still throbbed, thank goodness my throbbing head had cleared somewhat. I would start receiving regular shots of morphine as soon as all the affects of the anesthesia were worn off. Up until this point in my life the strongest thing that I had ever had for pain was a couple of aspirin. Morphine would be a totally new experience for me. All I hoped for was that it would relieve the pain and discomfort of the surgery. I felt like sleeping, even though my stomach said stay awake and eat.

I understood that wanting to sleep was another of the after effects of the drug, sodium pentothal. Even with the pain in my leg it was all that I could do to hold my eyes open long enough to put a glass of ice water to my mouth and then back to the night stand. Looking hazily about I wondered how the cup of water had even gotten into my hand to start with. "Maybe it was the nurse...what was her nam......"

When I regained consciousness the next time I was more cognizant of my surroundings, like the wetness from some spilled water, and what I was doing. I still had an irresistible urge to sleep. I still had not gotten a shot of morphine and I really did not care just then. The only things on my mind were food and sleep. I dozed off again.

I was awakened at supper time by the efforts of one of the nurses, through cloudy; sleep filled eyes I made out the form of Louise gesticulating. She moved my bed table across me and cranked the bed into an upright position to facilitate my eating. I glanced over toward Doug's bed and saw that he was in it. He was having a bout with sleep just then because of his surgical experience.
&&& My intake of fluids had been limited since the night before and I did not seem to be able to keep awake long enough to get much more than a swallow or two of fluids down. I was becoming concerned about not having taken a leak. They kept a post operative record of fluid output; mine at that point stood at zero or very close to it. I had managed to eat most of my supper. It took me forever, before I succumbed to the onslaught of sleep for the nth time that day.

The next time that I woke up I felt like I had to relieve myself, really bad. I called for a urinal. A nurse brought one in, and then pulled the curtains around my bed to afford me some modicum of privacy. I tried and tried and tried, but I just could not, regardless of the urge, get a drop out. For a minute I thought maybe I could at least pee some dust. My mouth was still as dry as a bone and tasted like a herd of buffalo had stampeded through it, and had all taken a dump on the way.

I must have gone down for the count after supper. I slept, still influenced by the after effects of anesthesia. I woke up, in very early in the morning to pain, I had thought I had known pain, but up until that time I had not known the meaning of the word. I would never have thought that bone surgery could hurt so much. I was told later that orthopedic surgery is one of the most painful, I would have to agree.

I rang immediately for my first morphine shot, I needed some relief. As I waited I looked over to see how Doug was doing. He looked asleep, his leg propped up on a mountain of extra pillows. I tried to talk to him, but his ears were not hearing; he was dead to the world.

I was not groggy any more, and my pain made me even more awake and aware. I looked around the ward, while anxiously awaiting the morphine that would be coming and noticed some new faces, where only empty beds had been before I had gone to surgery. One of the new men was an EM (enlisted man). He was sitting on his bed wearing a fatigue shirt displaying his rank of PFC. There appeared to be nothing wrong with him, he was young and gave the appearance of being muscular and in good health. I figured that he must be in for something specific, and our ward was an orthopedic unit. I saw no sense in my being concerned about it. Another of the new faces nearby looked young also, he was still asleep. I guessed from the outline of his covers that he was missing at least a foot.

I continued to wait for my shot, wishing and hoping that the nurse would hurry up. I poured myself a cup of water and started to sip at it, still trying to alleviate some of the dryness in my mouth. Bonnie came with a hypodermic and asked me which side I wanted it in. "Side of what," I asked.

"Which side of your rump?"

"Take your pick."

The liquid from the syringe burned as she pushed the plunger injecting it into the large glut muscle. A slight lump puffed up on my butt after she withdrew the needle. She rubbed the lump with a cotton wad full of alcohol for a second or two and then told me to relax. I would be receiving shots every four hours henceforth.

It didn't take long for me to feel the effects of the morphine. My head felt funny and I began to feel nauseous. The pain in my ankle was still there which surprised me; I began to feel a bit drowsy. I had no intention of falling asleep and missing breakfast. In spite of my desire to stay awake I succumbed to the drug that burned in my rump and only came back to wakefulness at the sound of the food cart rattling onto the ward, even then it was as if I heard the cart from a great, hazy, distance.

The other men were up now and appeared to be glad to have breakfast on the ward, that is except for me and perhaps Doug, since he too had been a recent recipient of the surgeon's scalpel skills and assorted tools. I still had a queasy feeling in my stomach and the thought of food was just not sitting real well with me. Eating a mouthful of soap appealed to me about as much as breakfast did. Silly, how at that time I could still remember the taste of soap from discipline when I was a kid, caught saying something nasty.

I tried to eat a little of the breakfast food, it did absolutely nothing except increasing my feelings of nausea. I began to wonder about when I would be allowed to get out of bed. As long as I kept my leg propped up to keep it from swelling, I figured that I would be able to make good use of my wheelchair. That is as soon as I could get the OK from my doctors.

It was after lunch when I got the go ahead for the wheelchair, it surprised me in a way; and I was quite pleased with the prospect. Actually, the wheelchair was approved on condition that I would have to wait a day or two before using it. I missed the freedom that I had before the operation and wanted all the pain and confinement to be over with so that I could resume my activities.

It was sometime in the late afternoon or early evening when BT came by to say hello. He had one of the male nurses push him over to visit. By that time of the day I had been receiving shots of morphine, every four hours throughout the day, they had been alternated from cheek to cheek. A stupid thought ran through my mind; this must have been what prompted, "turn the other cheek."

BT was in good spirits and filled me in on what had been happening during my short absence. His New York friend was beginning to solidify her group's membership, for the hospital show that they were planning. BT had a fitting for his arm prosthesis during my absence, so he was quite excited about it. It was just great to see him and to know that he was gaining some confidence. To top it off, It had not been very many weeks before that he had been totally down and closed to being out in public.

Jim turned up while BT was still there and we had a good time visiting. BT and I both simultaneously suggested that we take Jim with us to the club as soon as I was off the heavy duty drugs and able to travel. Jim thought the idea was great. As we sat and talked, Ralph, one of the nurses, stopped by to visit. He told us of a Captain he had heard about that was on the Psych Ward, a building located on the south end of the hospital grounds, in a separate building. This Captain sincerely thought that he was a tank and was continually asking staff members on the ward to bring him motor oil to drink. We all got a laugh from Ralph's story even though we knew it was not a laughing matter. We kicked it around a little; maybe it was a laughing matter, for us, not for anybody else, not for civilians or even other military just us dyed in the wool patients.

The next afternoon I got my wheels back and rolled over to visit with Doug. He having had surgery the same day as I, felt similar, but had no desire to try a wheelchair at that time.

"Does the morphine do anything to you, or for you Doug?"

"Sure does. What do you mean? It takes the pain away, is that what you’re talking about?"

"Not exactly, it doesn't really take my pain away. It makes me feel half sick in the stomach. To top it off, my ass feels like a pin cushion."

"That I'll agree with, maybe I'm fortunate, I've had no ill side effects."

"I'm probably the odd-ball. I have a very high tolerance to the effect of drugs. Bill, the anesthesiologist told me it took a lot of sodium pentothal to put me under."

"That must be the problem, the shots you get may not be enough to give you relief, just enough to make you feel like crap."

I decided that I would mention it to the doctors. I was not sure what good it would do, I would have to wait and see.

Since I was able to and allowed to get out of bed I would start using the bathroom again. It is very easy to forget, when one is able to, how nice some of life's little conveniences are. I was very lucky; there were wards full of people, on the second floors of the ward buildings that would never use a restroom or bathroom in a normal way again. Some of those that would be able to move around, in wheelchairs, would only be able use bathrooms to dump urine or ostomy bags. A great number of those men, the paraplegics and quadriplegics, felt the same way that I did. They felt that they had gone to fight for their country and they had done it proudly. There were regrets, there always is. Just like there are regrets by people who are paralyzed in motorcycle accidents, or any other type of accident. We mostly had regrets mostly for our condition, not for having gone to fight for our country or for having ridden the motorcycle or what ever.

After the operation I had not given much thought to using self hypnosis, I thought that I would see if I could relieve my discomfort by practicing it again. I wheeled back to my bed, crawled up and made myself comfortable. I began my, self designed, process of putting myself into a hypnotic sleep. I found it very hard to maintain an adequate level of concentration. It probably would have been better if I had the foresight to prepare myself, in advance of my operation, for some pain relief. I was able to enter a light hypnotic state and begin to relax more and more. I finally forced myself into natural sleep.

The next few days were similar, the medication did not so much as touch the pain, it did manage to make me feel crappy. I was receiving as much morphine as the doctors considered safe for a person of my size and body weight, so I could not verify Doug's hypothesis. The pain was manageable, meaning that I could live with it. So I started going to the mess hall with some of the other men, it was nice to get out again.

Time seemed to move more slowly during that period of my life, while on medication. There were days when I would wake up, eat and them hypnotize myself and just lay there in a half sleep, half trance, self hypnotic state for hours. It was those periods of hypnosis which seemed to be most enjoyable of all.

I was finally taken off of my injected medication; I had gone from morphine to Percodan a small pill one step down form morphine. They seemed to help me more than the morphine, but they didn't last very long at all. When the Percodan were brought to us they were handed to us in little paper cups, the nurse would keep a close eye on the little pill, making sure it was taken before she would leave. Doug and I figured that if one pill was good for pain, then two would be great, giving twice the time of total relief from the pain. Plans were laid, we would fake taking the pills and save up a couple to take at the same time.

We practiced faking pill swallowing until we felt we had it down pat. We wanted to be convincing. I saved one and then took it along with my next one. It was not all that bad waiting out the extra four hours without a pill, because I figured that the next four hours would go floating by.

Doug, unknown to me, kept saving pills all day long and after supper that night took three or four of the tablets all at one time. Within twenty minutes he was vomiting his guts out because of it. I made up my mind after seeing his reaction to stick to one pill at a time.

During my time in Vietnam I had never come in contact with drugs or drug users. I’m convinced that I was fortunate, not that I ever considered using them. Flying was my drug, the most important thing to me, drugs and flying just flatly didn't mix in my book. Our CO's were the good old gung-ho types. We knew there were drugs in Vietnam, but not in our unit. In the hospital, among the enlisted men, I was becoming more aware that there was a military drug culture.

After the Watson-Jones operation I had been off of morphine for three or four days, still practicing my self hypnosis at least once a day for a few hours. I awakened from a trance one afternoon and lay in bed stretching while coming fully to a conscious condition. A fellow, from across the ward, an EM, walked up and pointedly asked me what I was on.

"What am I on, I responded?"

"Yea, man, I've been watching you, man....and you’re on something. Whoa, right here in broad daylight, yea man you’re on something. You’re all right for an officer. You wanna join us out on the parkin' lot sometime and hit on some good stuff with us?"

"Hit with you!?"

"Yea, man, do some dope."

"I'm not on anything, but self hypnosis and I suggest that you cut the drug crap. I'll report you. You got that, man?"

He took off with out a word. He wasn't the only person to ask me what I was on. I explained how I felt about drugs and why I did not use them. One main reason being my religious belief:
1 Corinthians 3:16 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (17) If any man defile the temple of God,...."

It was also against the law. I controlled my self hypnosis; it was totally safe and natural without worry of side or after effects. I was not about to jeopardize my military career by considering drug use, other than what the doctors prescribed. Doug's popping the Percodan convinced me and reinforced my opinion.

The weeks passed as I began and continued to use hypnosis to, hopefully, heal my ankle faster. I increasingly spent time doing isometric contractions inside the cast to keep the muscles in shape. We had taken up frequenting the "O" Club a few times a week, along with playing cards, shooting "8" Ball, going to the library.

BT had finally been fitted for his leg prosthetic device and he had his new electric wheelchair, which was a pretty snappy number. He would be up and beginning to learn to walk before much longer.

I was anxious to get out of my new waking cast and get my built up shoe and brace. I noticed when I got my new walking cast and started walking, that since the ankle was stable in the cast my left knee was beginning to do strange things; strange like bending back too far and wobbling from side to side. I noticed the side to side movement because the walking pad, on the bottom of the cast, was sort of rounded and caused lateral stress on the knee. I mentioned it to the doctors and they examined my left knee and compared it to my right. Their examination indicated that there had been severe ligamental damage to the left knee and moderate damage to the right knee. Great, I thought. What else was falling apart on me? There was nothing to be done. Not until the cast on the lower left leg came off. So, I would just have to put up with it all.

I got to know some of the other men on the ward during that time after my, Watson-Jones, surgery. There was Davy a skinny fellow who had a hip disarticulation, that being where the entire leg, including the hip joint, had been removed. He had his prosthetic leg and could use it pretty well. He liked to tell a story about going out to a bar with his girl. He had been sitting at the bar and when another girl approached the bar, he acting the gentleman, got down from his stool and stood beside his girl. The new woman moved the stool and sat the leg of the stool on top of Davy's false foot. She plunked down. Being half drunk she did not realize immediately that her stool was tilted until some time had passed. It certainly was no bother him, so he did not say a word. Eventually she noticed, recognizing that it had been that way for some time. Embarrassed she jumped down apologizing profusely. He thought it was pretty funny, he got the stool back too. Davy was a likable guy, easy to get along with. His small features seemed even smaller with is tussled light brown hair getting longer. He often joined us for a game of cards.

The young healthy looking fellow on the opposite side of the ward went off to surgery one morning and came back later in the day minus his whole left arm up to and including the shoulder joint. I was and had been, curious about what was wrong with him. I never found out. He was soon gone from the ward.

My War - Installment 47

"Does that hurt when I do that?" Jim Sargent asked, as he forced the foot forward while holding my leg tightly with his other hand.

"Of course it hurts. It would hurt your leg if I did that to you that hard."

"Does it hurt when you walk on it?"

"Right again Doc."

"We'll get some X-rays of the ankle and then do an intensifier study (Moving X-ray pictures) to verify what I believe to be wrong. You probably tore all of the ligaments in your ankle when you crashed, Sam."

"What are the prospects; what can be done with it?"

"With ligament damage, the sooner it's repaired the better the chances are for a good repair. But generally speaking, depending on the extent of the damage, we would more than likely choose a static repair using a tendon. The repair we would do is called a Watson-Jones procedure. We won't speculate any further, not until we see the films and do the study. OK?"

"In the interim let's measure his legs Jim. He could get a built up shoe and a short leg brace to help stabilize the joint until we decide what we are going to do."

"I believe your right, Rick."

I was given an order slip for the X-ray department and one for prosthetic services so that I could be fitted for a brace. One of the doctors would meet me at the X-ray department at about 1400 hours. I would have plenty of time to eat and get fitted before heading off to get my pictures taken.

The suspicions of the doctors were confirmed by the films and I would be scheduled for a Watson-Jones procedure. Rick explained the procedure in more detail. They would make an incision of approximately thirteen inches on the outside of the leg, open it up and drill a hole through the neck of the fibula, take a piece of tendon, he didn't say where from, insert the tendon through the hole and pull it across tightly and fasten it. Then sew it up, cast it and wait eight to ten weeks to see if all had gone well.

It would be a few days until my brace would be ready so I would have to continue to lay off my game of golf until I could get the added support of the brace.

There were some new patients that had come in, including another warrant officer pilot. I told myself that I would have to make it a point to go and meet him later on.

SECOND AID

I volunteered to help on the ward with changing dressings on wounds and other tasks. I had wanted to go into medicine earlier in my life and still courted the idea. I had started my rounds, changing dressings on some of the guys that I knew, Rick, one of the orthopedic surgeon was checking some of the new patients that had come in that morning. One particular patient had some very nasty wounds that had been packed in Vietnam before he was shipped home. The term packed refers to the physical wound being filled or packed with a material, medicated usually. The wounds had festered and were full of pus and dead flesh and stunk terribly, so bad in fact, that Rick could simply not stomach working on them. I was asked if I could help.

"If you can stand it, go ahead and unpack the wounds, then silver nitrate all the dead flesh and redress them. OK?"

"You got it Rick."

The worst damage was one spot on the left thigh of the man's amputated leg. It was a white phosphorous burn, about as big around as a coffee cup and had actually burned down to the bone. I had smelled various forms of rotten flesh of animals during my life, but none of them comes close to the putrid smell of rotten human flesh at point blank range. I had smelled it at a distance a number of times in Vietnam, but those times had only hinted at the overwhelming stench. I wondered if man's omnivorous habits and junk food had anything to do with the way that he smelled in death.

I removed the packing using large forceps, the hole seemed enormous. There were yards and yards and yards of packing material to be removed. The amount of dead flesh was so great that I had to scrape some of it out before I could cauterize it with the silver nitrate. It was not painful for the patient because there is no feeling in the dead flesh, but I am sure that the patient didn't much care for the smell any more than we did. Fortunately his stump was healing well.

There were others that had come in that day that I worked on. There was one guy with a large wound that was full of maggots. I asked what the doctor wanted me to do. He told me the maggots did no harm, they would only eat the dead meat and it would not hurt anything to leave them in awhile. He told me that I better clean them out though and cauterize it, it would make a better appearance if anybody came through the ward to visit, anybody like media people, or parents, or spouses, or Congressmen.

It was a very interesting morning with all the new patients. Rick had gained a new respect for me that morning, we would become good friends. I was glad to get the work done so that I could slip into some serious goofing off. I met Jim; he had been to the swimming pool. We talked for a few minutes and decided to try the mind reading bit on BT. We had not had a chance to try it out on anyone like we had originally planned. Jim went to his bed and took a fresh packet of playing cards from his night table while I waited in BT's room setting him up for our trick.

"Hey, BT, Jim's been telling me that he's got some ESP type abilities. He says that he has been practicing on developing his abilities or gift, what ever he called it, since he came to the hospital."

"So what does he want us to do?"

"He wants us to help him verify the Extra Sensory Perception. He thought that he could try reading cards and he wants us to help him in some way. He should be here any moment."

Jim showed up as if on cue. We ran the trick with its signals about fifteen times, not missing once.

"That's really something. Wow. Hand me my smokes, please. Could you do that a few more times?"

"Sure."

I played along pretending only to help concentrate on the selected card after Jim would return to the room. We were very convincing. I would show as much amazement as BT.

We couldn't keep the secret from BT, it had gone so well. He had bought our act so completely it amazed us. We felt we had to include him and have him play along with us the next time we would play our trick.

BT had been impressed during our performance and had continually expressed his amazement as Jim got card, after card correct. Of course Jim had been convincing in his part of the performance. He would enter, catch my first signal, close his eyes in pretended concentration, sometimes grabbing his forehead and massaging it, he would say something like: I'm beginning to see a color, the suit is a red one....ah.. It’s taking shape, it....it is a heart. He would then seem to concentrate harder for a moment, then relax for a moment, while continuing his talking. He would then sometimes open his eyes briefly, to peek between barely cracked eyelids, catching the next signal, then he would seem to slowly return to a state of rapt contemplation and begin another spiel leading up to the correct value of the already suited card.

When we told BT that it was all fake, he didn't believe us at first. We had to go into a short description of what we were doing and how we were doing it. He was still impressed, but was also a bit pissed that he had been so easily fooled. He did get interested and offered to go along with us on pulling the same type of trick on others.

With my newly gained mobility I went home for another weekend and visited my parents and Emily and some other friends from my high school days. The truth was coming out about Emily. I was being used to try and make another guy that I knew jealous. I suppose that our relationship or supposed relationship had lasted longer than expected, because it was not as effective with my being absence from the area. I was not around to be perceived as a direct threat. I had been as convenient as the mail until I was close enough and able enough to be present on weekends and so it ended. It all made more sense to me when it was over, the rumors of our alleged engagement and so on.

Most of the people that I had gone to school with were away at college or some other type of schooling, so it was only by chance that I saw some people that I knew who were attending a local community college or working. Not everyone went to college, I did have company.

The really funny thing was that I barely knew these girls when I was in school. One had graduated the year before me and one with my class. They were next door neighbors. The one girl had always acted kind of stuck up toward me when I was in school, so I was surprised when she was so friendly. They invited me to come by and visit the next time I got home.

I had called a friend of mine that I had kind of grown up with. There were four boys in his family, their ages did not exactly coincide with either my brother's age or mine, but we knew them all and I used to do a lot of camping and things with the fellow nearest my age. I lived next to a big graveyard, on one side and a stretch of woods behind us. We used to sleep outside all summer long, sometimes in the cemetery next to a large mausoleum and very often in my tree house.

We talked for a while on the phone remembering things from our past. Things like my Dad making me tear down my tree house the summer before I went into the service and how we use to barbecue on its front porch. Doug was still dating the same girl. She had graduated the year after me and he graduated the year after her. Doug and I made plans to go on a double date. He told me that Sue could fix me up with a blind date. I told him fine, but I secretly had reservations, remembering the fiasco in Denton, Texas. I told him that I would call him before coming home the next time. I didn't know when that would be because of the pending surgery.

After going to church that Sunday and then, eating one of Mom's good Sunday dinners, I returned to the hospital. Upon returning to the ward I was informed that surgery had been scheduled for my Watson-Jones procedure for early the next morning. It had been almost five months to the day since being shot down, I was making progress. Maybe it wouldn't be too much longer before I could get back to flying. I would even have to wait on my brace.

A group of us got together and decided to go to the club for supper that evening. I figured it would be a while before I would be able to get back there for another meal. The new pilot on the block came with us, his name was Marty. He was from Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island, New York and had an arm injury. He was close to my age, only being a year older.

We showed Marty around and introduced him to everyone we knew, at the club. I felt like a man eating his last meal before going before the firing squad. I was not actually, exactly scared of having the operation, it was a feeling akin to the nervousness I had when I first got to my unit in Vietnam. Nervousness derived from...a...a lack of understanding, of doing or being involved in something that....that was new, something that I had never done before.

We returned to the ward, late again, and I quickly fell asleep in spite of my nervousness. I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly awakened by some person prowling through the darkened room and moving straight for my bed. My eyes were heavy with sleep and the a few drinks I had at the club. I watched as the shadowy figure came closer. I had acquired, in Vietnam, the ability to sleep through explosions and artillery pieces going off, and sending rounds out from our compound, but I had also gained a sense where I could be awakened by the slightest noise that was unnatural to my situation...any noise that was out of place would wake me up.

In my sleepy, semi-awake, state I had temporarily forgotten where I was at. I waited silently watching the figure get closer and closer. I was awake by then and knew where I was, so I just lay there waiting to see who it was. A flash light clicked on and was pointed at my face.

"Mr. Rollason, wake up," the voice said while shaking my arm.

"Yes, what is it that you want?"

"It's time for you to take a sleeping pill."

"Time for my sleeping pill, what for? You just came in here and woke me up from a sound sleep to give me a sleeping pill?"

"Yes, that's the rule. The night before someone goes to surgery they have to take a sleeping pill. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Remember, nothing further by mouth either, no water or anything. OK?"

"OK. What time is it anyway?"

"Twelve twenty."

"Great, is this pill guaranteed to put me back to sleep quickly?"

"That, I don't know."

I remained awake for what must have been hours before I dozed off again. It seemed as if no time at all had passed from the time I fell asleep to when I was awakened at 0530 hours, to receive two shots before going to the OR at 0600.

Two people came by and transferred me to a gurney for my short ride to the OR. Only about twenty minutes had passed since I had received the shots, but my mouth was dry and pasty and I felt slightly groggy.

I was wheeled into the OR and conveyed onto the waiting operating table. My heart thumped in my chest as I gazed around at the lights and all the equipment placed around me. Arm boards were attached to the table, my arms were taped down and IVs were hooked up to my arms. My leg had been prepped the day before, Sunday afternoon, after my return. The hair had been shaved off from my knee down to my toes.

The anesthesiologist was introduced to me; his name was Bill, a captain. I remembered looking up at his upside down face as he bent forward over my head. Ringlets of wavy black hair protruded from under his sterile cap, only his eyes were actually visible above his mask. He began to explained what he had done so far, and what he was about to do.

The last thing I remembered was his asking me to count backward from one hundred as he injected sodium pentothal into the IV tube. The operating room was alive with people, doctors, nurses, and others. I could hear all their voices as I drifted into my drug induced sleep.

As I began to awaken in the recovery room, I felt as if I were returning from the dead, maybe I was, I had heard of numerous accounts of guys dying in the OR and being revived. My mouth was very dry, my throat hurt from tubes that had been inserted. My head throbbed as if I'd been on a binge. I was hungry beyond measure and the stupid joke about dreaming about eating a ten pound marshmallow and waking up to find the pillow gone, crazily ran through my mind. As I drifted in and out of wakefulness the thought of eating made me nauseous. And then there was my leg. The cast went from just below my knee down and it felt as if it were a shoe that was four or five sizes too small and laced up as tightly as possible.

I felt a little better as time passed and soon there after my gurney was pushed back to ward 3AB. I was placed in a bed on the opposite wing from where I had been. I kept going from short periods of awareness to complete confusion, or sleep. I smelled vomit and figured that I must have puked all over myself a few times in the recovery room, somewhere, although I had no recollection of doing it what so ever. I was ravenously hungry again and I looked about for some staff member, to ask if I could have something to eat. I noticed that Doug's bed was just diagonally across from mine, but he was no where to be found.

My War - Installment 46

My leg was healing rapidly and I, remarkably, would be getting out of my body cast. The thought of not having to drag around all of the extra weight, being able to bend and sit properly at a table, being able to eat without having to scrape food off of my, shirt covered, cast were heavenly. I would have to use either crutches or a wheelchair, and would gradually be able to start putting weight on my left leg. I was not to put weight on the leg at all until I had been to physical therapy for a few days. That was fine with me I could hardly wait.

As soon as I had been told that I would be getting out of the cast, I ran, so to speak, to make plans with BT to go to the "O" Club to celebrate. He still had not received his electric wheelchair, so we would have to find at least one more guy to go along with us to push BT.

During those past weeks I had met Ralph a young Warrant Officer pilot and the Silver Fox (John), a captain in infantry. He was called the Silver Fox because, even though he was only in his late twenties or early thirties his whole head was covered with silver gray hair. Both of these men said they would go with us. They were both friendly, Ralph had an arm and hand injury, John had a leg injury that was being worked on and had been worked on for some time. Ralph was about five feet eight or nine inches tall had light brown hair, angular facial features and a friendly manner. He had been a Lift pilot in Vietnam.

The Silver Fox always seemed to be smiling and had very prominent dimples that emphasized his smile and attracted women, he said. He also had a reputation for having his way with them.

Speaking of women, we had some pretty fine looking nurses on our ward and we asked a couple of them if they would care to join us for dinner. Bonnie was a real fox, young, strawberry-blond, and put together. She declined because she had a date with a Lieutenant, which I had come to know a few weeks earlier. Jeff was his name; he had lost an arm, below the elbow. Jane, another real looker, had short coal black hair cut in a pixie style, a petite frame, beautiful eyes, smile, and legs and on and on, very desirable. I asked her, but she declined on the basis that she was committed elsewhere, a disappointment to all of us. The other nurses were either too old to consider, or were real bow wows, so we gave up on the idea of any female companionship for our meal that evening at the club.

I went to the cast room in mid afternoon the body cast was removed to my great relief. I had been doing isometric contraction exercises while in the plaster. Unbelievably, they had worked, so there had been very little deterioration of the muscles; almost no atrophy at all. As soon as I got into the wheelchair, I made a bee-line for the bathroom. For the first time in over four months a real bath was just moments away. Come to think of it that was the first real bath I'd had since before I had gone to Viet Nam. The first thing or one of the first things that I noticed was that my back still bothered me. It hurt when I bent over to ease myself down into the tub. Later it hurt as I stood on one leg and bent over the sink to brush my teeth, another first in months. Even brushing my teeth and being able to spit into a sink, rather than an emesis basin was a wondrous treat. Things were going well though, I had not been able to stand and bend over anything, for a great number of months, that part was great. But the sharp stabbing pain when I did bend over was causing me to hold tightly onto the sink every time I did. I would continue mentioning it to the doctors for months to come. In my mind I believed that I would be out of the hospital in no time and back to my love, flying. The way things were heating up in the Middle East some of us had started to speculate that it would be the next place we would be going, that is, after the hospital. Some of the men kidded me about doing recons over the sand dunes in the desert.

After bathing I put on some civilian clothes and then got back into my wheelchair to go to orthopedic services for my crutches. It felt really great, having the freedom of the wheelchair and being able to sit upright and everything. It was just overwhelming regaining that much freedom and mobility. I got my crutches and quickly took them back to my bed where I dropped them off. I felt that I would be too tempted to put some weight on my leg if I used them, exclusively, that soon after getting my cast off. I did not want that kind of temptation. That would have been almost like putting me in a room full of naked women, with me wearing a straight jacket.

I zoomed up through the ward, dodging around chairs and tables and people, throwing an occasional wave at friends as I passed along. When I arrived at BT's there was another guy there before me, he too was in a wheelchair. I didn't recognize him at first. It was Doug Marrow, another first lieutenant from across the hall. I had met him previously. He was a husky fellow, married, from upstate New York. He had an ankle that had been seriously injured and the doctors were planning to fuse the ankle to regain a stable platform for Doug to walk on. He and BT had been talking when I entered.

BT noticed me and said, "Hello Sam. Free of the white stuff I see."

"Yes. It's great."

"You know Doug, don't you?"

"Yes. We met last week I believe. How's it going Doug? When are you scheduled to go under the knife for that fusion you told me about?"

"Within a week or two, they told me. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the hold up is. In the mean time I'm just swimming and going to P.T. and goofing off."

"Swimming eh? I'd like to go with you next time. You can show me around, if you don't mind?

"No. I'd be happy to show you the pool area."

"Hey. You should go with us BT, your stumps will never toughen up with all the pussy foot'in around that your doing."

"Have you been talking to the doctors about me, their saying the same things that you are."

"Up yours BT! I haven't been talking to anyone about you. I just believe that it's a good idea to get out of bed as soon as possible, especially when it's OK with the medicos."

"You'll be getting out of here before too long, by the looks of it." Doug had changed the subject.

I hope so Doug. I'd like to get back to doing some flying, even if it is back across the big pond. By the way would you be interested in joining us for dinner this evening?"

"Sure. I don't see any problem with that."

"There is sure to be a high time at the "O" Club tonight."

"All we need now is one more guy to go along with us and push me then we'll be set," said BT.

"I'll check with Hank and Ben to see if either of them would be interested. Can you think of anybody else to check with Doug?"

"Doug is married, but we could try the nurses again Sam," croaked BT.

"Hey you two, I hear tell that some of the Red Cross girls aren't bad at all."

"That'd be fine, but I don't know any of them, how about you BT?"

"Me! Shit! I haven't been out of this ward since you took me to the club. I've hardly even been out of this room."

"Let's just look for another guy to help us out."

The Silver Fox went with us and pushed BT. We had a great time, along with a good meal. After we had finished eating we wheeled over to the bar area and watched the able bodied patrons dancing and carrying on. The Silver Fox knew most of the people, both male and female, from Al the bar tender to Zelda, one of the full time Red Cross workers stationed at the hospital. He joined in the dancing, slow dancing that is, and would bring girls over to meet us, which was good for our egos. It did us some real good to meet some of the girls. Linda, Mary Ann, Nonie, and Zelda were the Red Cross girls, we met them only briefly, then they rejoined the others in the dancing.

We met a few other girls, nurses, most of them I had at least seen before, either on or around our ward. Louise, a husky woman, probably in her mid to late twenties with short black hair and lips colored dark red. Jane whom I had asked to dinner before was there. Bonnie was there with Jeff. Ralph a male nurse from our ward was there with his roommate, another male nurse named John. They were mixing in with the others around the bar area.

Throughout the evening different people would pass by our table and visit for a while between dances, or stop by to have a drink with us before rejoining the others. We would joke around and talk for a time. We all started to get to know the RC (Red Cross) girls and the hospital personnel on a personal and social level, rather than just from a patient hospital staff relationship. It was quite refreshing.

I enjoyed being in my wheelchair, being able to move right up to the table like a normal civilized human. I learned that evening that BT would be getting fitted for his prosthetic arm in the morning and would soon have it to wear. He had been lucky in a way that his arm loss was below the elbow. His leg loss, on the other hand was an AK, above the knee, which was not the best, but then it wasn't the worst either, like a hip disarticulation (the total removal of the leg, including the hip joint).

We returned to the ward late that evening, which was becoming more and more of a habit with us. My biggest problem was maneuvering through the darkened ward to my bed after helping BT into his. There were definite advantages to having a private room. I told myself that I'd have to get on the waiting list for a room if I was going to spend much more time there.

The next morning Jim and I got together and talked, he had come up with, what I can only refer to as an act, a mind reading act, which he and I would perpetrate on otherwise unsuspecting fellow patients and staff members.

The mind reading scheme would use regular playing cards as a medium of convenience. The idea was: Someone, anyone, could choose any card from the deck, show it to someone else in the room for conformation, replace the card in the stack, shuffle the cards and then concentrate on the chosen card. All this would be done while Jim was out of the room. Jim would then be summoned and would stand in front of the person and concentrate. He would then proceed to, successfully, call out the chosen card. Later on Jim would even go as far as to fashion a turban for himself out of a hospital bath towel.

The way the act really worked was rather simple. When Jim would or rather as soon as… even better… while he was reentering the room, I would give him a signal for the suit of the card. There were only four signals; all were taken from natural personal movements that I normally exhibited. We worked these out together, beforehand of course. If I was scratching my earlobe, either one, it was a spade, wiping my forehead a heart, stroking my mustache a club, and scratching my chin a diamond. All of these movements were done in a most casual and natural manner and were the first thing Jim would look for when the door was opened, and while everyone's attention would be naturally drawn to his entry.

The next set of signals was again simple placements of the hands, which could easily be picked up in Jim's peripheral vision. With practice, people even trying to deliberately catch us were foiled in their attempts.

Jim, Doug and I went to the swimming pool for some exercise and while Doug was stroking around the pool, Jim and I decided to get a little more practice in, so that we would be able to try our mind reading act out on Doug and BT, later that day.

It was mid morning when I left the others at the pool to go to PT, (physical therapy). I hoped that I would be able, for the first time in a long, long time, to actually put weight on my leg without the use of any, extra, external support. At the direction of the Physical Therapist, I wheeled my chair up to the parallel walking bars and stood on my right leg. I grasp the wooden bars and moved my left leg forward in what was to be my first step. I gritted my teeth apprehensively, then eased the weight of my body down slowly onto the foot and started to walk in as normal a manner as possible, to the end of the rails. It went well; I only seemed to notice two small problems. The first being I was limping as if my left leg was shorter than the right. Second, when I would step forward with my weight on the left foot, the leg bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula would slide to the rear of the ankle joint about an inch to perhaps twice that. It was really weird and to top it off it hurt. It almost seemed to me as if the only thing holding the foot on was muscle and skin.

The PT people noticed my limp and measured my legs. I had lost over an inch in the length of my left one. As far as the foot problem, they agreed that something was wrong, but I would have to mention it to my doctors sometime, when they were making their rounds. I was also told to mention the shortness in the left leg.

I would probably end up with a built up shoe for my left foot, nothing that unusual about that. It made me think about another friend of mine a few beds away on the ward, within the same cubicle. Eddie was a black fellow, really good natured, always smiling, and balding slightly. We played cards together pretty often. Eddie had lost about six to seven inches of the femur of his right leg. He had a shoe with a sole of six to seven inches thick, to compensate for his loss, a real bummer. He was happy to be able to walk though, a lesson to be learned by me. Eddie and the doctors were discussing what would be best for him: to keep the huge built up shoe for life, or to amputate the right foot and make up the total loss with a prosthetic device. Eddie's right knee would always be six to seven inches above his left knee, but with the prosthesis he would appear more normal and it would be easier for him to control than the heavy built up shoe. The final decisions were Eddie's and Eddie's alone.

A few days later I sat on my bed waiting for the doctors to make their rounds. I had been practicing walking and even while using crutches the bones slide to the rear of my foot. I was ready and waiting when the doctors arrived.

I told them of my discovery and was asked to demonstrate the laxity, by walking, so that they could observe. I walked a short distance and was then told to lie down on the bed. One of the doctors examined the ankle and foot and discovered that he could easily move it every which way he desired.

My War - Installment 45

BT was beginning to come alive, entering more and more into the conversation and even beginning to get interested enough to ask questions and joke around.

I had not been paying very much attention to my hair, I shaved each morning in bed using a small mirror, and ran a comb through my hair, but I had not actually looked at it. I had only had one hair cut, in bed in Japan, and a trim, also in bed, since I had left Vietnam. My mustache was nice and full, I did keep it trimmed neatly. Anyway, my hair must have been fairly long by military standards. BT started talking.

"You know, Sam. When I first met you I thought you were some college protest leader that got pounced on by the National Guard and were just brought here for care, to keep you out of the way for awhile. And now I hear that you were a recon pilot. Tell me how you got yourself screwed up and brought here to Valley Forge."

"Sure BT."

We had stayed talking to BT for hours and when we left that afternoon it looked like BT was really coming out of the shell that he had built around himself. He had even asked Jim how to go about getting a wheelchair. We told him that we would try and run down one of the ortho docs and get him to sign BT up for a wheelchair. It had turned out to be a really great day for all of us. Jim and I had just as good a time with BT as he had with us.

Mom came down that Friday and brought me some pants and a shirt. I put them on with much effort, picked my cane up from my bed, signed out from the ward, and we headed out to the car.

I opened the front passenger door of the car and tried to get in, unfortunately with the seat in the far forward position, to accommodate Mom's short legs, there was no way for me to get in. The back seat also proved just as impossible and frustrating regardless of the position that I tried. Finally, after thinking for a short time, I told Mom to move the front seat all the way to the rear position because I was going to drive us home. I moved around to the driver's side of the car and eased myself in, angled down across the back of the seat I planted my plaster-clad left foot on the floor, it's fortunate that the car was an automatic. I reached out for my cane and placed it on the seat beside me, started the car, pulled the shift lever to the drive position and we were off for home.

The ninety mile drive home seemed to take forever, stuck in that sloping posture, not being able to move, but then it did feel good to be driving. The weekend passed quickly. I always enjoyed Mom's home cooking. Dad and I took a ride out to some property that he had given to my brother and showed me where they were going to build his house. I had taken my new camera along and used the self timer to get a picture of the two of us. With the cast on, increasing my height by several inches, I was finally as tall as, or taller than Dad. I went to church Sunday morning and it was good to see everyone that I had not seen in quite some time.

My folks let me drive the car back to the hospital. I decided that I would have to buy a car before too long so that I would have a way to get home without someone having to come and get me. I did figure that it was far too complicated, and a great deal of trouble and discomfort to leave the hospital as long as I had the body cast on. With any luck and as fast as I seemed to be healing, I didn't believe that I would be in the cast for very much longer anyway.

Sunday evening I met a few more of the officers that were on the adjacent ward from mine and we spent the evening becoming acquainted. On the way back to my place I stopped and visited with BT. One of the guys I had met was totally intrigued with the idea of golfing and I asked him to join Jim and me in our planned trek to the golf course the next morning. The fellow's name was Hank, a first lieutenant with a rosy cheeks, fair complexion and very little facial hair. His head was covered with dark wavy hair which emphasized his smooth face and narrow features. We made plans to meet the next morning, after breakfast and mosey on over to the hospital's nine hole golf course.

Monday morning came swiftly and I greeted the morning with enthusiasm, eager to try golfing for the first time in my life. In the past I had viewed golf as a rather silly practice. Clubbing a little white ball and then chasing it about a great expanse of grass and greenery. I was soon to grow fond of a game which takes a great deal of patience, practice, and coordination. My misunderstanding was typical of anything which is unknown.

We stumbled up to the clubhouse and each of us signed for a set of clubs consisting of a one wood, a putter, a two, five, seven, and nine irons, all in a Sunday golf bag. I was very happy to find out that Hank had played for a number of years and was quite willing to give Jim and I lessons and pointers during our play. Hank had briefly described each of the clubs and their use and how to swing them, for which we were glad. I had to make some modifications due to my inflexibility, but things went well. Without being able to bend or twist my back I started my first game of golf hitting the ball straight, later when my back was freed from plaster, I unfortunately, learned to hook and slice.

After nine holes, with an astronomically high score, I was plumb tuckered out from dragging around my body cast. Jim was tired too, he had only been out of his cast a few days and his leg was pretty weak. It felt exceptionally good to make it back to the ward and rest up for a little while, my bed felt like heaven.

After I had rested for some time I went to visit with BT .Hank and I had discussed the idea of going to the Officers Club for supper and having a few drinks afterwards. I wanted to see if I could persuade BT to go with us. I had some reservations about it because I couldn't sit at a table very well but...

BT still didn't have a wheelchair, although he did tell me, with great excitement, that he was going to be getting one of the new electric units, which could be controlled with one hand or one finger for that matter.

"BT, how about going to the "O" Club with us for supper tonight?"

"How am I supposed to get there? Walk?"

"Not just yet. I've got a wheelchair lined up for you and I'm going to push your funky butt over there myself."

"Sure, you’re going to push me. Huh?"

"You bet your sweet ass, and....if I want any shit out of you I'll squeeze your head. You got that, Sir?"

"OK. So I'll go."

"Hey. Let's get this straight. I'm not saying that I'm going to treat you to supper; I'm just going to push you over there. OK?"

"All right."

BT and I chatted for a while. He was from New York and knew some girls that were in show business. One had been in an off Broadway production of Neil Simon's Star Spangled Girl. He showed me a picture of her, which made me drool all over his bed spread. She was a real knockout, to say the least. Perfect figure, long golden hair which surrounded and absolutely angelic face, I couldn't wait to meet her and anybody she knew.

Well, this gorgeous hunk of woman flesh and some of her friends had the idea of putting on a show for the boys at the hospital. It sounded too good to be true, it sounded terrific to me. I told BT that I'd love to meet Lynn in person.

"Do you know any of her friends, any single, good looking girls among them?"

"Yes and yes, but what about that girl, Emily, that you're sweet on?"

"Her? It doesn't feel right--I don't believe its going to last for very long or whether it ever actually began. I'm not sure why, but a little time is going to reveal any weakness and I believe a very short time will show me she's not really interested in me. I talked to one of her teachers, an old friend of mine, and he told me she has been telling everybody that she and I are getting married; this is news to me. He may not be too reliable; he also told me that everybody had heard that I was dead. All of what he said was news to me."

"That sounds like some pretty serious distortion of facts!"

"It’s serious to her only, and for her reasons. She's a good looking girl and all, but I can't help feeling that I'm being used for some specific purpose, the heck with it. So let's get your skinny, funky, ass into the wheelchair and be off to the club."

I left the room for a few minutes to get the wheelchair for transporting BT. I hung my cane on back of the chair and pushed it into the room and up alongside of his bed. It took some considerable effort on the part of us both to get BT into the wheelchair safely. I turned him around and started out of the room. Before I could get the wheelchair out of the door he remembered that he had forgotten his Camels and matches. I grabbed them from the night stand and we were on our way.

I'm sure that we must have looked a comical sight in our hospital blues, as we proceeded down the long halls and then outside and down the road toward the Officers Club. We had two kinds of hospital clothes; both types were totally shapeless and very unfashionable. The sleep-wear was a thin, light weight, sky blue material with a draw string closure on the pants and a button sown the front shirt, neither of the pieces were made for a one handed person. Then, we had dark blue day clothes made of a heavier material, tie top on the pants, button shirt-jacket with a hospital insignia stamped on the pocket. They were definitely not what someone would want to wear out in public to go dining, but then it was just another concession, to allow us in the O Club, brought about by our circumstances.

We turned and went out a set of double doors and into a beautiful Pennsylvania spring evening. The air was fresh, cool and brisk, trees were beginning to bud out, and the grass was starting to turn green.

The Officer's Club was not very far away, only a few blocks. It was a rather small, but nice looking building located to the front of the hospital grounds. It was a permanent type building made of brick, not like most of the buildings that were referred to as "T" buildings, temporary and usually made of wood with clapboard siding. I was relieved to see a ramp going up to one of the doors. We had started to wonder if there would be a ramp, we could not see one as we had approached.

We went into the dining room and made ourselves as comfortable and inconspicuous as possible, while waiting for a waitress. We ordered drinks and perused the menu. It didn't take me long to decide what I wanted to have. I decided to order a New York cut steak. I had not had a steak since the lousy filet mignon, in Saigon, at the French restaurant. My mouth was all ready salivating as the image of a thick juicy cut of meat soared into my mind's eye. BT was worried about ordering something that he would not be able to cut and eat. I could appreciate his feelings....how humiliating it would be, to not even be able to cut up your own food when just a short time before you could do anything you wanted to do. I assured him that I'd be honored and happy to cut up anything he wanted to eat that needed cutting.

The waitress finally came with our drinks, we both ordered steak, rare, with salad, baked potatoes, and all the condiments that go with it. She put our drinks down and left. We lit up some smokes to have with our drinks then just relaxed and waited for our dinner.

The meal seemed to take forever to eat with my hacking away pieces for the both of us. It was quite awkward, in my slanted position. This being the first time I had really tried to sit to eat at a table, with my cast on, I kept dropping pieces of BT's and my steak, on my chest, but no matter we both enjoyed ourselves immensely. Much time and many drinks later we finished our meal.

We returned to the ward sometime after 2200 hours, neither of us being sure of the time. We had enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to make the "O" Club a regular stop in our socializing. It could not do anything but get better as our conditions improved. We would be able to become more relaxed, be able to sit up better, wear civilian clothes or uniforms, and generally have a better time. With time we would probably even get to know some other people at the club, some that we could party with. Hank had not come with us, he had received a call from his fiancée, she was coming by to visit him. It certainly would have been easier on both BT and I; I am not complaining though, if he would have gone with us, but there would be other times.

At that time we did not know anyone else at the club, so we had remained by ourselves, not much chance at our moving readily about anyway. We were the only men there that were so fashionably dressed....we weren't obvious or anything.... Little did we know that these small feelings of exclusion, which we felt there, only because of our manner of dress and condition, were beginning to run rampant in the hearts and minds of, not only, the American public, but the American politicos as well. That small inkling, of that moment, which we shared in that somewhat closed environment of the hospital, we still believed to be untrue. We had been serving our country, surely America was behind its Armed Forces and especially those wounded and or disabled in her service; those in the service of promoting and protecting freedom and democracy.


JUST HANGIN' AROUND

We began golfing on a regular basis; it was one of the few forms of exercise that I could participate in. I had wished, often, that there was some way that BT could play with us, but then as one of my childhood friend's father used to say, "Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up the fastest!" That statement was just one of those subtle of realities of life.

The next few weeks were spent getting to know more of my fellow patients, and playing golf, cards, pool, and joking around with Jim, BT and others. Jim would remember some crazy thing that Steve Allen had done on the Tonight Show like when he had dressed up as a tea bag and was dunked into a large tank of water or some other stupidly silly thing and we would all chuckle at his remembrance.

My War - Installment 44

The next fellow, Wade, was in his early twenties, blonde haired, husky build, from what I could see, leaning at my sitting angle. He was from nearby Philadelphia. We all exchanged some small talk for a few minutes and then the conversation turned to a common introductory topic, how each of us had come to be there at Valley Forge General Hospital. Since I was the new comer I had to go first.

I finished a short description about how I got there and gave the floor over to Jim. He began his narrative with nary a hesitation. He had been on leave during Christmas holidays and was at home in Pittsburgh. He had gone to his fiancée’s home to take her out to dinner. They had spent a short time inside her house, having a drink, before exiting to go to his car, which was parked in an alley beside the house.

Jim, with his fiancée on his arm, went out. He began to open the passenger door to help her into the car, when a hoodlum jumped from behind the vehicle with a pistol drawn and pointed it at Jim. The assailant must have been watching the house for some time and knew that no one else was there. He stated that he was going to make Jim's fiancée strip and was going to "have her" while Jim would be made to watch at gun point.

The situation was not a tenable one for Jim. He bided his time and when the, would be, rapist turned to check out a noise in the alley, Jim made his move. He leaped at the man. Jim's ultimate goal was one of diverting the aim of the hand gun, and then to try to overpower the felon, hopefully with the help of his fiancée.

Jim succeeded in diverting the barrel, but during the struggle that ensued, the pistol discharged hitting Jim in the right knee, and putting a real job on him. That was how he had come to Valley Forge.

Wade was next and started right off as if with some practice, I thought that he had probably lived though his personal horror story a number of times. Wade had been at home on Christmas leave, as had Jim. He had been standing outside of a store waiting for his girl friend, she later became his fiancée. The parking in that area, in that Philadelphia suburb, was diagonal to the curb. Wade had been standing and waiting against a brick store front, an old couple drove up into the parking place directly in front of him. The old man had parked too close to the car on his right so his wife could not get out of her door. Therefore the oldster left his motor running, because of the cold weather of December, but had forgotten to place the gear shift lever into the park position. The front tires against the curb were all that held the car from moving. The old geezer got out. His wife slid across the seat, toward his door, to exit. Wade was not watching them closely; because he had been keeping an eye out for his girl. As the old woman slid across the front seat her foot must have hit, and floored, the accelerator pedal. The car leaped over the curb and in a split second had pinned Wade against the wall, crushing his left knee.

Wade continued his story. He was taken to a local hospital, where they were prepared, to immediately, amputate his leg, above the knee. He told them he was in the military and asked to be sent to a military hospital. At that time his decision had been based on financial considerations. The expense would have been tremendous. Since his injuries were not life threatening the civilian doctors agreed to transfer him to Valley Forge, but only after his condition had stabilized.

The military doctors checked him over, and not being concerned about expense concluded that they could save the knee, but not the lower leg. His leg was amputated below the knee, which is far better than an AK (above the knee) amputation. He was thankful that he was in the military.

I found it interesting that fifty percent of the men, the four of us at the table, had been screwed up not even on active duty, let alone not being in combat. They had and would have all of the same privileges and benefits, if any existed, as those men that had been injured in combat. Not that I cared. It was just crazy that so many of the first men I talked with were not combat veterans. I was glad to find out later that most of hospital's patients were combat
veterans.

Another fellow had joined us at the table just as Wade was finishing his story. His name was Greg. He was sort of a weasel looking guy, with longish sandy colored hair, skinny, and thin faced, with a roman nose. His right arm was in a sling and I could see wires protruding from the tips of each finger of that hand. Wade had introduced him and told him to tell us his story.

Greg had been hit, just a fraction of an inch below the elbow of his right arm, with a fifty-plus caliber round. That single round had literally torn his arm off, all that is, but a tiny sliver of skin and flesh, no larger than a pencil in diameter. He had maintained control of himself, and after realizing his condition, he had picked up his forearm and stuffed it inside his fatigue shirt. He called for a medic who put a tourniquet on his upper arm. He was evacuated and they sewed his arm back on. It would take a number of operations and loads of therapy for him to regain any use at all.

I looked more closely at his arm and hand. The fingers were withered looking and very lean. The skin was drawn and looked thin like the skin on a very old person, or perhaps a corpse.

Greg made a comment that we all could have said in a similar way. "It could be worse. I heard of one guy in the hospital in Vietnam, the only wound on his body was that the "head of his dick had been shot off."

We all chuckled, but felt happier not having the just mentioned problem.

We decided to break off our conversation and go to lunch. We would play some cards when everybody got back. All these guys could go to the mess hall, at that time I still had to eat on the ward. I could not complain though, I could use a little time to rest after my jaunt.

I climbed back in bed and laid there quietly thinking about my new found friends. Jim was hilarious; I just knew that he and I would hit it off. That lucky joker was in a wheel chair with a cast just on one leg. Wade was in a wheel chair, like Dave and Greg was walking.

They were all interesting. This hospital life was not going to be so bad after all, especially since I had been healing so quickly and would not be there for very long. It would only be a short time until I'd be joining all these guys in the mess hall. Maybe we could go to the recreation hall and shoot some pool, or snooker, I had heard that there were some tables there.

Later that afternoon, after the card game, Jim and I decided to go to the recreation hall together. Jim was in his wheel chair, I got him to hold my cane and I pushed him using the handles of the wheel chair like a walker. It was definitely an easier way to get around, especially for the guy riding the chair.

We played a couple of games of eight ball. It was amusing to the onlookers, I was sure of that. We figured the game was even because Jim was stuck in a sitting position and I was stuck in a standing position, so the game was evenly matched. There were not very many others in the recreation hall in the late afternoon. We must have come earlier, or maybe everybody else came in later in the afternoon or had come during the day. There were not even any Red Cross workers there just then, but they must have been around, it wasn't even supper time.

We would catch them some other time perhaps. It had been rather tiring trying to reach the table, but we both had a good time doing it anyway. Jim went from the rec hall directly to the hospital mess. We had made plans to get together, after supper, back on the ward.

I bid him goodbye, grabbed my cane and started back. I had noticed that there were a number of old fashioned looking wooden wheelchairs on our ward, the kind with the large wheels in the front and the caster wheels in the back. That type of chair has a back that can recline. So, I thought that if I could get one, I could recline in my cast and roll around in comfort. While moving toward my bed I kept looking for one of the old chairs. I took notice of one back in a corner, seemingly abandon, so I requisitioned it and pushed it over to my cubicle of abode.

On the way onto the ward I had given BT a yell and told him that I would be by later. He did not appear to be too thrilled, but then that was his problem. As usual he was lying covered up and puffing away on a Camel cigarette.

I was glad to get in bed and rest for a few minutes before supper was placed on my table. Walking in that big cast had become a fairly easy exercise. I just wished that eating in it would be getting easier.

Jim came by when he returned from mess and we made some plans to go hassle BT in the morning. I was a relative new comer on the ward and Jim told me that no one fooled around with BT, he was just too bitter.

"Hog wash. I visited him once since I've been up walking and he wasn't bad, just a little down. Don't you think that you would be down and pissed off and everything else, if your own grenade had blown away your right arm and leg?"

"Yea. I guess so; really I think that you've got a point. So we'll go visit him."

"Hey, by the way did you notice my new wheels over there by the wall?"

"What, that old wooden piece of shit?"

"Yes that old wooden piece of shit."

"Those things are hell on wheels. Their almost impossible to steer with the wheels set up the way they are. I had one for a while."

"Come on. They can't be all that bad."

"Their OK if someone else is pushing you or for sitting in to play cards, but that's where their usefulness ends."

"Alright, so I'll use it for playing cards until I can find a better one. When are you getting a walking cast on that worthless leg of yours?"

"Friday I was told. Why?"

"I think that I am ready to hit the golf course and begin learning how to play. Want to give it a try?"

"Sure, why not. I think you’re crazier than I am."

"Fine, so I'm crazy. Tell me something I don't know. Tomorrow we'll go visit BT before we go to check out the golf course and get the details on using it."

"Yes Sir."

OUTINGS


The weather had become very warm that spring and the old radiators were still clunking away, pumping out BTU upon BTU. The windows were opened, but not even the hint of a breeze could force its way over the barrier of heat that emanated from the ancient cast iron clunker radiators. The trouble was that the military seemed to run its heating plant on a calendar, regardless of the outside weather, or temperature. It could be two hundred degrees outside, but if it was the time of the year for the heat to be on, then the heat would be on. We were all miserable, sweating our buns off without any relief in sight. Groans echoed around the ward in the gloom of night, along with muffled cursing about the heat. It felt almost as bad as the heat in Saigon, just a bit less humid.

It was a restless night for all of us. We hoped the early heat wave would stop, or that the hospital could at least turn the heat off.

We were not able to visit BT that morning, because we had to stick around for x-rays and some other small chores to get ready for grand rounds. Not being able to do very much, I joined a group at one of the game tables that was near my bed and played a few hands of gin rummy while waiting.

Again the doctors expressed amazement at how rapidly my femur seemed to be healing, I was very pleased about too.

It was apparently a little known fact that I was an officer, I suppose that it was because of my openness and friendly manner toward all the men. I didn't flaunt it in any way. We were all in the same boat and needed each other.

I had called home and given my Mom the waist measurement of my cast and an approximate inseam length. Mom was going to come down on Friday afternoon and take me home for a brief visit. That was one of the real advantages of being an officer; I had the freedom to come and go on weekends and evenings, if I had a mind to, and if I had transportation.

After grand rounds Jim came by and the two of us went up to BT's room to pay him a short visit. I introduced Jim to BT, who again showed no real interest in our being there. The only time I was able to get a reaction out of him was when I would bum a Camel from him and light one up for him. BT and I remained quietly smoking while Jim rattled off a few quick one liners. I had brought some cards along with me, but it would have been far too crowded in that tiny room for the three of us to play, with one in a body cast, one in a wheelchair, and one in bed. We ended up just talking for quite some time. The longer we stayed and talked the more BT began to loosen up and join in.

We had not been treating him any differently than we would anybody else; no better, no worse than we would have treated anybody or even someone with nothing wrong or with more wrong with them than BT. I was hoping that this might make BT realize that he was not any different. He was still a person, an interesting person, probably a more interesting person because of what he had been through. We were all more interesting because of our experiences, at least I thought so and a lot of the other men did too.

I had just begun to take notice of what was beginning to happen in the world outside the military, with the protests against the United States involvement in Vietnam, and all the anti-war demonstrations hype that was going on. I found it all unbelievable. At first I didn't pay much attention, we were living in a semi-insulated atmosphere there in the hospital, or perhaps, deep inside, we just down right really did not want to believe what we were reading and hearing.

My War - Installment 43

Rick Sullivan, the youngest looking of the doctors, came by to talk to me for a few minutes after supper and suggested that I wait until morning to test out the boundaries of my maneuverability. He explained that the thicker cast would take longer to dry and if I put any excess stress on it that evening it would likely develop some cracks, which would ruin the cast and perhaps cause me to further damage to my leg. I figured it best to heed his advisory warning. Thank him I bid him a good evening. He told me that I would soon be able to visit the officers club with my new cast on. I was concerned about getting a measurement on the waist of the cast, so I could get some pants to fit as soon as possible. The baggy old hospital pajamas wouldn't do for prowling around the club.

As I laid there in the dark that night there were no limits to the things that went through my mind; and believing that I was going to try with the cast on. There was not only the mess hall to look forward to visiting, but there was a library, a recreation hall, a swimming pool, of no use to me, a gymnasium, a golf course, the officers club, cars to drive, cards to play, friends to make, people to visit, the list seemed to go on and on. I beginning to fall asleep but continued listing things to do instead of counting sheep.

I was awake bright and early the next morning ready to start out on new adventures of freedom from the bed. I was going to make the most out of it.

I reached up and grabbed hold of my trapeze, lifting my upper body above the mattress slightly. Using my free right leg I pushed my left leg, including the cast, over at an angle and off the edge of the bed. I kept my right foot in position on the bed and lifted my upper body higher, while lowering my plaster covered left leg to the floor, in a coordinated combination of raising one section and lowering the other like a child's see-saw. The process took perhaps a minute or so. I did move slower that first time, because I wanted to be sure of what I was doing.

With my body tilted at a steep angle I brought my bare foot down to the floor. My cane was hung near the head of the bed on the upper part of the traction framework. Just like when I had been in flight training and had dreamed about procedures and flight maneuvers, going over them again and again in my mind, I had repeated this maneuver, a thousand times, in my head since getting the new cast. I reached for the cane and then placed it into my right hand; then pushing off of the bed and pushing on the cane I was up on my foot, or was it feet.

My head was spinning, I did not know if it was from lying down for so long, or from the excitement and jubilation of just standing up and what was ahead. I tried a first step. It was strange doing all the real moving using only one leg that hurt like hell and one cane in a hand that also hurt. I would reach out with my right leg for the step and then sort of bend to the right, pivoting on the hip, and then I would lift the left leg, swinging it out and round, either slightly ahead of or in line with where the right leg was. I was almost completely oblivious to what anyone else was doing around me, almost to the point of absolute exclusion.

The cast on the left leg with its pad for walking made the leg about two inches longer than the right, which further added to the difficulty of walking. I felt as if I must surely look like Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," taking his first steps in the laboratory.

I began to become cognizant of my surroundings in the ward; I had moved halfway through the ward, and was just then realizing or beginning to grasp the overwhelming enjoyment of my new found abilities.

I read the names on the doors to the officers’ rooms as I moved by and saw that there were not as many private rooms as I had previously believed. Some of the rooms were for storage, others for examination. The private rooms, totaling four, had two majors, a captain, and a first lieutenant. I ventured on past the nurses' station, and out into the hall, then I moved across into the next ward. "I'm sailing now," I said to myself. I glanced about to see what kinds of patients were in that side of the ward...

The scene was much the same as on my ward with the exception of a very large circular affair in the place of one of the beds. I asked a nurse what it was. There were two large circles made of chrome or stainless steel tubing, between which was a double sided canvas stretcher-like bed, which surrounded a patient. The large circles were in another frame, which held them, and on which the large circles could be rotated. The nurse told explained that these frames were for patients with broken backs, or necks, or patients who had undergone back surgery. With this apparatus the patient could be held in place, but could also be turned over so that the he could spend some time on back or belly, depending on the wants and needs of the patient. By using this bed structure the probability of bed sores was greatly reduced.

I was becoming more confident with each passing moment, more sure with each strained step. I turned and began the journey back to my bed, my first adventure having worn me down a bit. I'd have to try a few more walks and start to get to know some of the men I was living with later that day.

After lunch I planned to take another walk. I had learned that I would not be expected to go to the mess hall until I was free from the Spica cast; this was due to not being able to bend and sit in a chair. I would postpone any decision about going to mess hall until after I had a chance to experiment with sitting.

I launched myself from the bed and started out again, this time, having planned a little better, I even had a slipper on my right foot. I moved toward one of the tables and grabbed onto the back of a chair. I lowered myself down and stopped propped at an angle, touching just the front edge of the seat and the top edge of the back of the chair. I had to place my right foot along side for stability. I could sit up in a chair, whether or not I could sit up and eat, might prove to be a difficult matter, unless I could grow longer arms.

BUDDING FRIENDSHIP

I struggled up from the chair and strolled through the ward again, this time paying more attention to the men that were there. While awkwardly walking along I noticed that the doors to the officers’ rooms were open. In passing I nosily tried to look into each one to see who the occupant was. The majors looked altogether and normal. The captain looked really down in the mouth and was apparently missing part of his right arm,. Looking more closely I could distinguish only one bump where his feet should be. He must be missing, at least, a bare minimum of, a right foot and perhaps more.

I went in uninvited after knocking, thinking that he might want some company. He didn't act very thrilled.

"Hi, my name is Sam, Sam Rollason, I've just been here a short time and I'm trying to meet a few people."

"Yea big deal."

"What's your name?"

"Mullens - Captain BT Mullens."

He just lay there grinding his teeth in a closed mouth, not seeming to be especially interested in my being there. He did not move or even take more than a quick look in my direction. I knew that I was going to like this guy.

His night stand was clear of everything, except some Camel cigarettes, matches, an empty crumpled Camel's packet, and an ash tray full of butts.

"Mind if I bum a smoke, Captain?"

"Naaw, go ahead. Just call me BT. Light one for me, would ya?"
"Sure." It seemed that the ice was breaking.

I roughly tapped the packet of Camels on the bottom and pulled out two of the unfiltered smokes, sticking them both between my lips. I carelessly flipped the pack back on the night table, awkwardly reaching forward I picked up the matches. I was teetering somewhat as I tore off a paper match and dragged it across the phosphorus strip, bringing it to life. I guided the match to the tips of the two fags, while eying BT. I inhaled, drawing on both to make sure they were lit and then put one to BT’s lips. He drew in, taking the smoke deep into his lungs and then put the cigarette between the first and second fingers of his left and only hand, before exhaling a cloud of blue-gray smoke.

"Thanks!"

"Sure anytime. You into playing cards or anything like that BT?"

"Not really. You see I lost my fucking right arm and right leg. So, I'm not too...a...into that shit any more."

He was definitely bitter. I couldn't blame him. Here I was some jack-leg clown covered in plaster barging in on his privacy. But then for some reason I believed he needed to have some one force their way through his wall of discontented frustration.

We remained in silence, BT just laying there and me just standing there, uncomfortably swaying back and forth, while he ground his teeth and smoked. BT looked like he was somewhere between twenty-six and twenty-nine, it was hard to make a good guess with only his head and one arm really visible above the covers. His hair was red and his face was freckled over a ruddy complexion, the blue of his eyes appeared to reflect the steely blue anger that he must have felt inside. He had told me that his arm and leg had been blown off by his own grenade, which had a short fuse.

"I think you ought to play some cards with me. Don't give me that crap about you can't play because you lost an arm and a leg. It takes head power, I can supply the hands, the foot is no excuse for not playing cards anyway. Cripes, between the two of us we can muster two and one half good hands any how."

I left BT to think over my offer and continued on by the next few doors and across the central hallway and into the next ward again.

I was beginning to move more easily now that I was getting use to the cast, as well as the knack of manipulating it. I moved on into the ward and again became fascinated with the circular bed. I approached the bed and peeked at the name plate. There was a major hidden in that bed somewhere. I stumbled up and introduced myself. He told me that he was getting his back fused, four or five vertebrae were being joined together, due to the amount of damage; the doctors had decided that a fusion was the safest and best means of treatment. He hoped to be out of the contraption within a few weeks and looked forward to joining us. His name was Ben Johnson and he seemed a very personable man, easy to get along with and easy to talk to. He was in his mid to late forties, maybe older, and was just a real nice fellow to chat with.

After talking for a few minutes I said goodbye to Major Johnson and walked along a little further in the ward. I had not noticed it before, I don't know why, but the great majority of these patients were very young. I considered myself to be young, I was only twenty and within a few months would be twenty one, but these guys looked like they had been shipped in from some high school somewhere. There was one kid with both arms missing below the elbows. I talked with him, he was eager to tell me his story. He seemed to be pleased that an officer or anybody for that matter would take the time to listen. He had been sitting on a "shitter" in Vietnam, reading a comic book when some dodo, that had been cleaning his M-16, carelessly shot both of his arms off. His lower arms and hands had fallen to the ground, still holding the comic book. The stumps were far too torn up to even attempt to graft them back on.

His story of a careless act by someone else reminded me of some of the incidents that had happened in my own unit. There had been a private, from New York City, playing quick draw with his side arm one afternoon and shot one of our crew chiefs in the back.

I was beginning to theorize, from seeing all the young men there in the hospital, and from observations of the young GI's in Vietnam and their careless ways, that many of the young were not prepared mentally for the war they were sent to fight. Perhaps they actually believed that it could not really happen to them. Many had that youthful belief that it just could not happen to them. I know there were few times when I had thought that way.

There were other young fellows missing legs, arms, feet, and other having wounds of varying severity. I turned around and started back to my side of the ward. I figured I had spread enough joy or discontent in my wake for one morning. Ben gave me a wave as I shuffled by and I nodded while smiling my acknowledgement.

My aim was to see if I could join one of the double-deck pinochle games down at my end of my ward. I had learned to play pinochle years before. My big sister Judy had taught me and I had played partners with her and her husband numerous times. I was considered to be a fair player.

The policy in military hospitals or rather with the military in general was to place patients in hospitals within their home state, or at least within their home geographic region. So the patients were almost all from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and surrounding states, at least I had a regional association in common with everyone.

I moved on in and lowered myself into a vacant chair at the card table. There were three others there talking when I arrived. They all stopped as I went through my seating procedure and applauded when I had finished. I can not say that it felt good to sit down, because it didn't, but it did take a load off of my free leg.

One of the men was Dave, the drop foot fellow whom I had met briefly. He was a tall thin man…no he was downright skinny, he looked like he was in his mid twenties with dark brown, almost black, hair, cut in a typical military crew cut style. Dave was a lieutenant. He had been wounded in both legs. His story was not too glamorous compared to what was to come. The next fellow was in his early twenties and was a dead ringer for Steve Allen. His hair was black, wavy and combed just like his name sake look-a-like. He wore glasses, black horn-rimmed, just like you know who. He even talked and joked like Steve Allen. He was from Pittsburgh and his name was Jim.

My War - Installment 42

The hospital layout was basically all on one level, with long interconnecting hallways joining the buildings. The long halls had trim that similar to a chair rail that ran along the walls, this trim was used by the blind to find their way around. There were many other interesting details about the hospital. I wondered how much was true. I do not remember the story well, but the information about the hospital made a lasting impression on me.

Being alone in the room was nice, there was little to do other than watch TV, so that was what I did and how I spent my first weekend back in the States. Monday would come soon enough and with it another move, the one coming up would be to my final resting place, hospital resting place that is.

We arrived at Valley Forge on a Monday afternoon. The hospital was the military installation, there was no Army Post or any thing like Fort Dix, the hospital was the installation, in its entirety. I never really got to see the outside of the hospital that day, other than the entrance to admissions. I was taken to admissions, and after being processed, I was rolled to Ward 3AB. Just as in the Valley Forge Hospital movie, there were the tremendously long halls connecting what looked like two story buildings. As I was pushed along I could see that even the two story sections, at least some of them, perhaps all, had long ramps to the second floor levels.

I arrived at 3AB and quickly glanced around from my vantage point. The wards took up the entire space of one of the two story buildings. Two wards were on the first floor and two on the second floor. The hall ways bisected the buildings so that there was a ward on either side. The nurses’ station covered both wards; it was located on one side of the building, like space on the other side was set up as a cast room. I was moved onto the “A" ward and pushed down a hall past a number of small private rooms, each room displaying the name of its officer tenant. All the rooms were full so I assumed that I would not rate getting one of them. I was moved into the open ward area which was divided into sections, with four beds per section.

I was placed on a bed in the last section on the left side of the ward. There was a frame on the bed. Surely I was not going back into traction, I thought. I was placed there in the bed and then left wondering what was to happen next. There was nothing first class about this place. It was clean and nice in a way, but it was definitely old. Institutional green walls, old cast iron radiators putting out too much heat, double hung sash windows all stuck shut, nothing very impressive.

The center area at that end of the ward was set up like a day room. There were tables and chairs and they were all full. Men sat in chairs and wheel chairs around tables playing cards. They paid little attention to my arrival, continuing the play of the games. Here was another new place to get use to, new people to meet and try and get to know. I had to start all over again, and these guys did not appear to be all that friendly. Probably a misconception, I thought. I decided to take a nap.

When I woke up that afternoon I was greeted by some new doctors, new to me, Jim Sargent, Rick Sullivan and Major Gunderson, all orthopedic specialists, but then this was an orthopedic ward.

They informed me that I would be removed from my cast and would be placed in a Thomas splint, the same type as when I was in traction, but there would be no traction weights. I would spend at least a week in the splint, in bed, and then some more x-rays would be taken. Some were taken later that afternoon, so that they would have a record for reference. My x-rays from Japan had not arrived with my other records.

After the doctors left I practiced my self hypnosis to pass the time. I had my mind set on not waiting the full year to be walking again. The other aches and pains were hanging on, like my lower back and almost every joint in my body, but then I just figured that my whole body had been through a great deal of trauma, I hoped that all the other aches would pass with time.

The food at Valley Forge General Hospital was pretty good, even if the accommodations were a bit shabby. I was told by some of the ambulatory patients that the food in the mess hall was even better than what was served on the wards. In the mess hall there were choices and as much as you wanted to eat. There was also whole milk, chocolate milk, tea, coffee, and usually some other beverages. I wasn't sure if they were telling me all that to torture me or just to inform me. No matter, it was all something for me to look forward to.

I slept uneasily that night, probably too much rest during the day. It was some time after breakfast when the boys from the cast room came to remove my cast. Within a short space of time I was in my Thomas splint and able to bend at the waist again. With my torsional freedom came the loss of vehicular mobility, that being gurney riding, but I figured the doctors knew best.

I inquired about the use of a telephone, and found out that I would be able to make one free call from my bed, via a portable telephone. I made arrangements to call home later that day. I planned on telling my folks that I was at Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville and would ask them to relay a message to Emily. When I did talk to them they told me they would come down to see me in a few days, most likely on Saturday.

A few of my fellow patients on the ward came by and introduced themselves to me, before the morning card game, but didn't stay long. I could appreciate that. They already had their friends and I made them a bit uncomfortable after they found out that I was an officer, time would tell.

I was unable to see very far in the ward, but I could see that there were a variety of orthopedic problems. One of the fellows I had met had drop foot, a problem which I didn't quite understand. He said that his wound had left him unable to raise his foot so he was undergoing a series of corrective surgical procedures. He told me that there were a variety of patients on the ward. There were patients that had under gone arm amputations, and leg amputations, there were head injuries, broken bones to include necks, joints that were mangled, broken backs and on and on. I would get to meet them all in time, and hopefully get to know them, or at least some of them.
There were about thirty two men on the ward. I had counted, on my trip through the ward, four beds per cubicle and there were either four or five cubicles per side of the ward, that part I was not too sure of. So by my count, it looked like there was between thirty two to forty beds on each ward. That was not counting the officers rooms, which were all occupied. I wondered how many wards there were and how many patients were at the hospital. I guess it really didn't matter how many there were.

I needed someone to talk to, somebody to say something, anything....a positive remark....a nasty jib, anything; anything at all. Being in bed was getting to me. Especially since I could lay there and watch the other men doing things. It was not so bad in Japan where everybody on the ward was stuck in bed. If I could go visit some of the officers, develop a bit of camaraderie with...I decided I'd better stop feeling sorry for myself, there were plenty of other men there that were worse off than I was.

My parents came to visit me that first Saturday, they even brought Emily with them, which I thought was very nice....seeing that they didn't know her from a hill of beans. I had been snoozing quietly; they had passed me by a few times not recognizing me. I found it hard to believe that I was that beat up or different looking, but then I had not looked at myself that often, and then only when shaving and then in a small mirror, seeing only little parts of my face at a time. It must have been the mustache that I had been growing since entering the hospital. Originally I had the idea of growing a handlebar mustache, but had soon given it up, because it required far too much attention and care, not to mention that without mustache wax, every time I would wake up from a nap the ends would be in my mouth.

Emily, to my dismay, had cut her pretty, long, brown, hair. She still looked good though. It was great to see Dad and Mom. I could tell Dad felt out of place there in the hospital. Everyone, but Emily gave me a hug and a kiss. I remembered that she had decided to like me under some odd circumstances, to my way of thinking, which I was not too sure of.
"Sorry I can't get up and greet you all more formally, it sure is good to see you all."

Dad was not the only one that looked as if he felt out of place. Emily was doing a good job of looking uncomfortable herself, having been immersed into that pool of broken people. I took my camera and snapped a few pictures of my visitors for posterity, while showing off the camera. I knew I was home, seeing my folks, it had not been a big shuffle around the world, I'd been sent to the right place, I hugged Dad and Mom again, while Emily sat rigidly near the foot of the bed.

Dad and Mom chatted, telling me how business was and how my brother was getting ready to build a house on some acreage that Dad had in Susquehanna Township, outside of Harrisburg. Emily sat saying nothing. I could not believe that she knew what she was getting or had gotten herself into, with writing to someone that flirted so casually with death and disaster as often as I had. I really think she felt it a lark when she got the idea to write to and "fall in love" with me. I certainly was not convinced of her sincerity. Time again would tell.

My visitors didn’t stay very long. I think they all felt like fish out of water, especially with me stuck in bed like I was. I thanked them or coming to visit and gave Mom and Dad hugs and kissed each one. Emily just sat quietly at the foot of the bed and then waved a little good bye as the left.

With the new week new x-rays were to be taken. I had spent most of the previous week practicing self hypnosis and concentrating on reinforcing suggestions about healing my broken leg. My x-rays from the 249th General Hospital had come in so the doctors would have them for comparison. I had talked them into showing me all the snap shots, since I had not seen any of them while in Japan. I was looking forward to the doctors’ rounds and taking a look at the pictures.

The x-ray technician had come by at 0900 hours and was back with the new pix, to be put in my folder, before rounds would begin. Just before rounds would start, one of the staffers on the ward pushing a cart on which everybody's x-rays had been placed. I saw the cart being pushed onto the ward, so I was becoming anxious for the doctors to get to my bed. I wasn't sure why I was so excited, I just had a good feeling about that day.

The doctors had a portable, back-lighted, x-ray viewing arrangement. It was portable because they had placed the viewer on a gurney. It was pushed up along side of my bed. One of the doctors began placing the pictures in a progression along the two rows of clamps on the viewer. The first showed the break and the ragged ends of the femur, surrounded by innumerable bone fragments; another early view from a different angle showed that, although the ends were, what the doctors called aligned, the upper bone piece, from the hip down, seemed, to me, to be cocked at a very odd angle.

The later pictures showed a lump of calcification, lump is not right, an area of calcification, which showed that healing was progressing well, and that the bone ends were stabilized. The doctors seemed to think that very good progress had been made, far exceeding their expectations. One even commented that he did not understand how everything could be healing so quickly. I thought I knew, but then I was not about to verbalize my thoughts and feeling on the matter at that point in time.

"Well, it looks like we are going to have to put you back in a cast, Sam. A walking body cast called a spica cast. The cast will be just a modification of what you came here in. It will go from above your nipples and all the way down your left leg. Your right leg will be completely free, from the bend in the hip down."

"So, I'll be able to walk! Is that what you’re telling me?"

"Yes, with a little practice and a cane for balance you'll be able to move around quite well, I would think. You seem to have the desire, from what I've seen in notes in your records."

"When can I get the cast on?"

"This afternoon, is that soon enough."

"Sounds great, terrific, I can hardly wait!"

It is common practice, at least to my knowledge, for bed ridden patients to have certain kinds of a...maintenance care performed on a regular basis. Things like, being checked for bed sores, in those cases a lamb’s wool pad is to be issued to lay on. Another thing like having your feet inspected and washed and lotion rubbed into them is done periodically, this is done because layers of skin build up, I was told, on the feet and does not get sloughed off under normal usage. As the skin gets thicker it can become hard, dry and irritating. It must have been my lucky day or it may have been because I was going to be casted that afternoon.

A corpsman, a black fellow, very friendly to me since my arrival, had come to administer care to my feet, a normally enjoyable experience; that is, unless in a ticklish mood where I would find it hard to keep from laughing while this was going on. He began by greeting me, then he immediately moved to the foot of the bed and started to lather up a wash cloth to wash my feet, beginning with the one in the splint, which he was more careful with. After he finished one wash job he moved over to the other foot. He dried both feet and then got some lanolin enriched cream or lotion from his cart. He began to massage the stuff into my feet. That's when it began......

"Sir, you have lovely feet," as he tenderly stroked and caressed my toes with his hands.

I had just been laying there relaxing not paying very much attention; usually finding the process far more enjoyable when done by a female.

"What'd you say Sergeant?"

"You have such beautiful feet, Sir!"

"Uh huh, that's what I thought you said. What, exactly, is your problem Sergeant?"

"No problem, Sir. You just have s-u-c-h lovely feet." All the while he passionately kept rubbing and stroking and trying to get his body closer to my free foot.

This guy was either queer as a three dollar bill or he was just queer for feet. In any case I decided either way he was one queer bird that I wanted nothing to do with.

"Sergeant, I believe you better leave. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated by me, and if I'm made aware of actions like this, by you, again, to anyone I'll report it. Is this understood?"

He looked a bit shaken as he quickly gathered his paraphernalia and hurried off with out saying another word. I personally was glad to see him go.

It was some time after lunch when the boys from the cast room came to get me for my fitting. The walking style Spica or walking body cast, as I called it, was very much like the last one; the only difference being, no plaster on my right leg and therefore there was no cross bar going from leg to leg as there had been on the other casts. I did not know if the bar had been for added strength for the cast or just to be used as a handle for those persons stuck with manipulating me and the cast around.

I think it took longer for them to do the walking cast than it had taken for the previous cast that I had been awake for. It took them longer because the hip area, between the leg and body sections needed to be reinforced to withstand the pressures of walking. Then there was the foot pad and its reinforcing layers of plaster impregnated bandaging.

I was taken back to my bed to finish drying. As soon as drying would be completed, I'd be able to take it out for a spin. If the test drive went well, I would be able to go home for a weekend if I wanted too. I had planned to call home and get my Mother to buy a pair of pants for me that would be big enough to fit over my cast. There I was only a little over four months since my injuries and I was going to be up and walking around. I could hardly wait.

It seemed to take forever for the cast to dry. The normally cozy, moist, warmth of the plaster became pure aggravation. The plaster reached the cool clammy stage by the time supper was served. As I ate I wondered whether it would be possible for me to go to the mess hall in my new cast. Not being able to bend at the waist would certainly be limiting as far as the things that I would be able to do. I'd just have to wait and see. I would have to experiment and find out the limits for myself.