My War - Installment 51

The majority of my time, other than what I spent at PT and the few light duty assignments, that I had helped to invent, were spent back on the other side of the hospital with my friends.

Another Warrant Officer WO-1 moved in to a room next to mine a day or so after I had moved in. Marty was one of the men I have mentioned that had an arm wound of some sort, which had caused some nerve and tissue damage. He was undergoing reconstructive surgery and PT. Being close to one another in age we hit if off and became fast friends. Marty invited me to visit him at his home in Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island, New York some weekend. I readily accepted, wanting something different to do.

The heat of Indian summer was on us and the fan that I had bought for my room did little to quench the heat. Marty and I spent our leisure time in the air conditioned comfort of the "O" Club.

Being on the opposite side of the hospital had some grave aspects, one of those being that it was so close to the Commander of the Medical Holding Company. The CO was a major, he had never been in combat, and we figured that he was more than likely some joker out of an ROTC program. He was trying to make sure that everyone had something to do. He had no real authority over the officers in the hospital, because there was no suitable duty for them to be assigned to. He seemed to spend a lot of time trying to be a prick.

For some reason the Major got the idea that I was some sort of jerk-off or something, particularly because my hair was slightly longer than what he approved of. He never came right out and said anything to my face, but he definitely had a, distinct, dislike for me for some reason, why I just could not figure out. I had the feeling that sooner or later I was going to be able to show him how wrong he was about me, how or when I had no idea; I would just have to wait and see.

I received a letter from Buddy, my friend from flight school. He was making plans, with his fiancée, to be married in October, when he would return from Vietnam. Katie, his fiancée was going to have a friend that was attending college in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to be the maid of honor. Apparently Katie and Buddy had it in their minds to play matchmaker for old "unlucky in love" me. I was told in the letter how beautiful Katie's friend was, about all the things she was involved in at school, about how smart she was and on and on. Finally, toward the end of the letter I was informed that they, rather Katie, was going to get her friend to write to me. They wished me good luck.

I wrote and thanked them for their interest and concern for me; what I needed though was a flesh and blood girl that was close at hand, not someplace in Arkansas, halfway across the country from me, someone to romance and woo in person and not in a "paper chase" affair.

BT's friends were getting their show plans wrapped up and would be putting on their performance sometime in late November. The girls that he knew were terrific. I had gotten to meet some of them when they came to visit BT on one occasion during the middle of the week. One of the girls was absolutely gorgeous, the others were not bad either, she was simply, ravishingly beautiful, magnificent, superb, out of sight etc.. In lay terms she was strikingly beautiful. I looked forward more than ever to their show, after I had the privilege of meeting them.

As the summer progressed I became friends with a guy I had known briefly on Ward 3AB, an enlisted fellow that had lost a foot. He needed a ride home to New York City on the coming weekend and asked if I could take him there. He was Jewish, his father owned a plastics manufacturing company, on Long Island, or was it Manhattan? According to Jeff his folks were wealthy. How well-to-do I didn't know, but at that time I found those things to be unimportant, what a fool I was then.

I had never spent much time in big cities and had only been in New York City two other times that I could recall: once as a child, Mom had brought my brother and me on the train from Pennsylvania to Grand Central Station. We walked from there to The New York Museum Of Natural History, we could not afford a taxi. All I could remember was it was one hell of a long walk. We were going to spend the night there in the city, but my brother threw such a tantrum that we went back home that same evening. The other time was when we went to the docks to see Mom's brother and his family off. They were going, by ship, to Egypt, were he was going to be a missionary. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. We rode over in Dad's Willey's Jeep station wagon; I was in the back laying on a large trunk that was part of my uncle's baggage. We stood on the docks as the huge ship left. All the passengers were on different levels throwing streamers down at the waving throng of people on the dock. New York was a lot safer in those days.

We drove into town by way of the Holland Tunnel. We were about halfway through the tunnel I wished that I had held my breath. We went up town and drove my Healy into the underground garage at his parent's place. His parents lived in a pretty fancy place; at least it was fancy to a small town boy like me. His parents were nice, I sat and visited with them while their son called all the girls that he knew and purchased some pot, which I disapproved of. His parents knowing that I was an officer and that their boy liked me asked if I would try to influence him and help straighten him out. We sat in the living room and sipped Napoleon Brandy, I listened to the family history, both business and otherwise. The father did in fact own a plastics manufacturing company. His mother's family was in construction and her sister's husband, or the sister, owned controlling interest in Colombia Motion Pictures. It was all very interesting.

They told me that they had put ten million dollars in a trust fund for there son, he would receive it when he reach the ripe old age of twenty-four. I was spell bound by all the talk about such amounts of money; it was mind-boggling to me. I felt uncomfortable in the city, sitting there listening to this guys parents tell me all this stuff. I would have been far more comfortable in the woods somewhere shooting squirrels or just anything in the out of doors.

It seemed that I spent most of my weekend entertaining and be entertained by the parents rather than their son. I was glad when the weekend was over and we could go back to the relative calm of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

Speaking about Nervous

It was common practice around the hospital for the hospital's liaison officer to heckle the officer and enlisted patients, that were on the different wards, asking them to speak at public gatherings such as Lion's Clubs, or Rotary Clubs and the like. As luck would have it, since I was up and around, he started to pester me about talking to some civic organization. I finally conceded.

"Great, you'll be the perfect speaker having the Air Medal with "V" device. You'll be talking to a group of thirty to forty people at the Boeing Vertol Helicopter Company in Morton, Pennsylvania. Your topic will be "The role of the helicopter in Vietnam."

I was apprehensive to say the least. I had never spoken before a group other than a few classes in high school, and a small Civil Air Patrol meeting before I had gone to Vietnam, at least as far as I could remember. As the day approached for my little talk it appeared that more details of the plan came to light. There would be more people than just me going to this little gathering. A number of other patients would be going, in fact there was to be another speaker besides myself, a sergeant, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner. He was not at our hospital to my knowledge; therefore I did not know him. The Boeing Company was going to provide each of us with a female escort, chosen from volunteers within the company.

The big night arrived. Typically I had not prepared a speech, I figured that I could wing it for a few minutes, and at least the subject was one that I was totally familiar with. We rode to the Boeing Company in a small bus; there were about a dozen of us. We were driven to the front of the company cafeteria. When the door to the building was opened I about fell through the floor. The cafeteria was a huge cavernous room and there were approximately one thousand five hundred people or more present, give or take a couple of hundred or so, in my inward confusion I thought that I heard someone mention that number. Our escorts were seated in the front, all pretty girls (women) and nicely dressed in long formal looking dresses.

We were ushered onto the stage that had been set up in the front of the room, and asked to each take a seat there. The Medal of Honor winner and I were placed behind the podium and slightly to either side. I gazed out at the seemingly endless sea of faces that was the audience, and my heart pounded in my chest, I felt light headed and queasy - I hardly heard the MC introducing me by reading my citation for the Air Medal with “V” device. It was propitious that when my name was called I snapped out of my confusion and walked to the podium. On my way across the stage I reasoned with in myself that all of these people had come here to hear me. What I was going to say mattered to them. This I hoped would give me the confidence that I needed. "I know that they came to hear me, I know they came to hear me," I kept repeating to myself. I am glad that I did not reason that they came because their bosses told them that they had to.

I began to talk, my voice, to me, sounded as if it were quavering, and faintly echoing from somewhere deep down inside of me a hollow me. I knew for sure that my hands were very damp. I had them clamped tightly to the sides of the podium. My knees were knocking, I hoped not visibly or audibly, there were men behind me that would take notice if they were and would tell me about it. I could not loose face like that.

Later that evening I was told that I had talked for twenty minutes or so, I had not been aware of the time. During my talk the company photographer occasionally snapped a picture, startling me each time the flash bulb popped. One thing that I did remember, advice from someone at sometime in my life, was not to look the audience in the eye, just to look at the tops of their heads. After I had finished I was not even sure of what I had said. The crowd erupted in a round of applause and then a few people started to stand, others followed suit and soon the entire audience was standing clapping wildly to whatever I had said. I remember thanking the people and motioning for them to become quiet, but the applause continued for a short time. This was all too unreal. I thought that I must have been dreaming. I thanked them one more time and then took my seat on the stage, while the Congressional Medal of Honor winner was introduced.

They read his citation as an introduction as they had done for me. I was shocked. His citation was not very impressive at all, my Air Medal with "V" device citation sounded far more exciting and dangerous than his. I had always thought of the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients as almost legendary figures, hero personified, and all that. Maybe I was just disappointed. I had expected blood curdling acts of bravery and heroics....I later found out that he had retired on 100% disability. He had been shot one time and was missing one little finger on one of his hands, big deal. I had been wounded three times and had been in the hospital for over six months up to then, and knew plenty of men that were in far worse shape, being shot once and loosing a little finger was nothing compared to what some guys I knew had been through. Politics maybe he had been in an operation where a lot of men were killed and some field grade officer was trying to justify what had happened by writing up a survivor for the CMH. Heroes were cheap in Vietnam. There is a little hero in most of us, regardless of training, and there is also some chicken in everyone. I had witnessed the most unlikely men exhibit bravery and heroic actions; I had also seen men, that had gone through the same training as I had, and the first time that they had been shot at they went crazy, literally, and had to be removed from flight status. Awards are elements of a nether land, they never really express any human emotions or grasp the reasons why the acts were done. It is unfortunate that so many seem to be politically oriented.

After our talks we met our escorts, for the first time and were led to a smaller room where we were fed and presented with a few small gifts, a tie clasp, a necklace, and a money clip; tokens of Boeing's respect for us. Their desire for military contracts would be more like it. We had a very good time, our hostesses were charming, the food was good, and having gotten my speech out of the way I was calm enough to enjoy it all. I had been hoping that we would be given a tour of the plant, but alas we were not. I was happy to get back on our bus to return to the hospital; too much excitement for one evening. I thought to myself that I would rather be shot at than to have to do that again.

Aside from the usual hospital routine there was little to do that could be classified as exciting. The pain and suffering of close friends and other patients was accepted as normal run of the mill. If anything was happening in or around the hospital our little group knew about it.

One weekend a number of officers and enlisted men, all patients, I was among them, were invited to a picnic at Pete Martin's farm. Pete was a retired Saturday Evening Post writer. The farm was located fifteen or twenty miles from the hospital in southeastern Pennsylvania. Pete Martin had bought the farm and had remodeled the barn into a very livable and nifty dwelling. He gave us a guided tour of the place before we gathered on the patio for our meal. As we ate Mr. Martin explained his reason for inviting us to his barbecue. He wanted to pick our brains to see what we thought of an idea that he had in mind for a book. I am sure it was not his only reason. His idea was: he wanted to interview a large number of patients throughout the hospital and present a given set of identical questions to each. He wanted to tape record the patient's reactions to them. Questions like how they felt about their condition, what they perceived public reaction and opinion to be, and many other questions pertaining to Vietnam and the United State's involvement.

I thought it was an excellent idea, partly because I had the same idea. The only problem I had with his idea was that it burst my bubble. I figured that I had a snowball's chance in hell to go ahead with my project, since a veteran writer was going to do the same thing. I was just a green uneducated pilot. Even with the advantages I had, by being a member of the group to be interviewed, would be overcome by Pete's experience. Even if I did go ahead with my idea I believed that my chances of getting published were very slim to none at best, especially with the competition from Pete Martin

I could not let my disappointment show. I like the others offered my views and any other assistance that Pete thought that he might need. We resumed our partying and talking and enjoyed the hospitality that was being afforded us. I wish that I would have said something to Mr. Martin, perhaps he would have encouraged me or maybe we could have worked together.

I was continuing with my progressive resistance exercises and was up to thirty five pounds hanging on the machine as I worked each knee. There never seemed to be any change in the lack of stability, if any change was detectable it was a change for the worse, as far as I was concerned. The doctors told me to continue with the workouts.

"Whenever you reach forty pounds we will make a decision about what to do with your left knee," they would say.

I was discouraged; another delay in my return to active duty was something that I just did not want to hear. Time was passing me by as I sat, day after day, in the hospital and repeating the same old worthless activities, over and over. Occasionally I would enter periods of depression, like every one else. The prime reason for the depression, I thought, was what was happening around me. Men were coming and going, and I was still there. I had seen men come in with legs amputated; their stumps were worked on surgically, and then toughened up by the patient slapping the stump with his hands and so forth. They would be fitted with a prosthetic limb, undergo some rehabilitation therapy and physical therapy, then off they would go on a medical discharge or retirement. I was still there. There were exceptions to the rule of course. Some men continued on as I did. I thought about them and kept my feelings to myself. An officer was to be an example above all things, outward appearance counted measurably. Very often my left leg hurt so bad that I wished that I would have lost the darn thing from the start, and have it over with. My main driving force, during these times, was my desire to return to military flying though.

During this time I became aware of the fact that there was a full time Veterans Administration Representative located in the hospital. His job was to counsel the veterans that were going to be discharged from the military. He would give them batteries of tests to determine their aptitudes in various areas, then he would recommend programs, based on their test scores and where the program was offered at a school or college, or whatever. All of this depended, of course, on the individual’s disability or handicap. The VA man would not suggest that a person with no arms become a weaver, but then it might not have surprised me either.

There were two different programs available to those leaving the hospital. One was the GI Bill which gave a Vetean X number of dollars per month if they were full time students in a VA approved program and school. The other program was Vocational Rehabilitation. Voc Rehab was for men whose disability was rated at 30% or more. This program paid for books and tuition and some small expenses, in addition it paid "X" number of dollars per month living expenses. I learned from older veterans that neither of the programs was as comprehensive or as beneficial as the GI Bill legislation of previous wars and conflicts. This would have little effect on me, one way or the other, because I was a career man, I expected to take advantage of some of the Army's, in service, educational opportunities. I had it all planned out. Buddy and I were going to put in for direct commissions. With good service records and good OER's (Officer Efficiency Reports) it could be fairly easy, especially since the United States was involved in armed conflict; it was a prime time to put in for a direct commission. All I had to do was get out of the darn hospital and back to flight status. I craved it, I just had to get back out there flying somewhere, anywhere.

I worked like crazy at my physical therapy, hoping upon hope to build up my muscles, in order to support my knees with their lack of ligamental stability. I prayed within myself that the doctors were not just wasting my time with all the physical therapy work.

BT's friends finally came down and put on their show for the hospital. It was a musical variety sort of show. They staged it in the auditorium that had been designated as the Red Cross's area. The auditorium was packed. The men hooted and hollered at the beautiful women, we all thoroughly enjoyed the performance. The girls had apparently gone to a great deal of expense to stage the show for us. They all looked ravishing in their costumes, as they danced and sang their way into our hearts and memories, that evening. Being able to watch a group of good looking females like they were, was a real treat, for men that had been caged up in the lonely corridors of the hospital for so long. That group, putting on an extravaganza like they did, sacrificing their own time and money, meant more to me than if it would have been some high paid professionals, like the tours in Vietnam, that none of us saw.

Being a close friend of BT, I was privileged to spend some time with the members of the cast and, in fact, was invited to go to New York City to a cast party that was scheduled for the coming Friday evening. One of the girls and I seemed to hit it off. It so happened that the party was to be at her apartment in Manhattan. I was thrilled. Most of the cast were ordinary people, secretaries and tellers and others, that had volunteered to perform, they all had other jobs. Only one, the beauty I mentioned before was in show biz, most of the members of the cast were her friends.

During the performance I noticed one GI that I had heard about for some time, but had never seen. His neck was bent to one side in a downward fashion and he shuffled around. I had been told that he had been like that for nearly a year. Test after test had been run on him trying to determine the cause of his malady. None of the tests had ever revealed that there was any physical reason for his problem. Must be some psychological or psychosomatic manifestation, I thought to myself. I felt sorry for the guy they referred to as Hunch, (after the Hunchback of Notre Dame), nobody every called him that to his face, he stayed pretty much to himself. It must really have been uncomfortable to have to walk around like that all the time.

It was late in the evening when the cast left the hospital to return to the Big Apple. Nancy, the girl that I liked, said goodbye to me, and told me she expected to see me on Friday evening for the party at her place. She gave me her address and telephone number and then departed.

THE BIG APPLE REVISITED

Friday afternoon took forever to arrive that week. I got in my Austin Healy, I was giving my Jewish, Enlisted, friend a lift to the city; he was going to pick up a car that his parents had bought for him. He told me that I could stay at his place if I wanted or needed to. BT and some others were going to go up in another car.

All the way to the big city I day dreamed. Perhaps this girl was the answer to my girl problems. Sure she was a little older than me, but what did that matter as long as we liked each other. She worked for some big advertising company in downtown Manhattan, she had her career....maybe we could hit it off and things would work out. Who knew? It would not hurt to think positively in any case.

I dropped Jeff off at his parent's and went over to look for Nancy's apartment building. I had played it smart for a change and left my car parked in the garage at Doug's, I certainly did not want anything to happen to my wheels.

I rang the buzzer and when someone called down I told them who I was. The remote door release hummed, I pushed open the door and entered the building. I felt strangely out of place in the city, but I proceeded, bolstered by my silly dreams of love or infatuation or whatever it was.

The apartment was crowded with people, male and female. They milled about and chattered among themselves. I went unnoticed for some time while looking for Nancy. When I saw her I waved, she waved back; so far so good. I met some more of the people, and became a bit more at ease with my situation, thing were gong more smoothly than I had expected, everyone was very friendly, which helped a great deal.

There was food and drink galore. A hand appeared out of nowhere and handed me a cocktail, which I cordially accepted and drank deeply. After some small talk, visiting around and such, a couple of the girls from the cast decided that they were going to pick teams from among the people present, so that we could play some party games. I was having a great time, the perfect cure for my touch of depression from a few days earlier.

The girls began to choose team members, splitting us up evenly. There were a few more females than there were males, but that was fine with all of the men that were present. After the teams were organized, some vigorous, debate began over what game or games were to be played. I just sat back and watched and listened to the animated discussion, enjoying watching all the pretty women. I went to the small kitchen for some ginger ale while the debate slacked off. The apartment, like the kitchen, was smaller than I had originally thought, although it was nice and homey. Moving back to the sofa I heard someone say, "Let's play dirty charades!"

"All right!", came the reply from nearly everyone.

Nancy went to a cabinet and returned with a note pad and scissors. She quickly cut enough slips of paper for everyone to have a piece. The two teams huddled around their team captains and begin to write down ideas that the other team would have to try to act out.

I had never in my life played charades before, let along dirty charades. So, again I did more listening than talking.

"Over the shoulder boulder holder, how’s that", asked one of the girls. Nancy wrote it down on a piece of paper.

"Come on let's get some good stuff, you guys!"

"Yellow River by I.P. Daily.", whispered one guy sheepishly. "I had heard that one as a kid."

There were others, grosser, but all would probably prove to be very funny to watch while being pantomimed.

One of the girls quickly reviewed the rules of he game,...lucky for me. I was relieved that I would not be the first person to act out a phrase. I needed to watch for a while and get the gist of how it was done before it would be my turn to make a fool out of myself. It was hilarious watching the acting. The antics and motions were truly hilariously ridiculous.

A person would first hold up their fingers indicating the number of words in the phrase they were working with. Then a finger, or two…or what ever to indicate the word, within the phrase, that they were dealing with at that moment. A hand to the ear meant, sounds like. Then they would try to indicate something to give a clue as to what the sound was.

One pretty girl stood up and held up six fingers.

"OK, six words," her team yelled.

She held up one finger.

"First word," everyone chortled.

She spread out her hands.

"Spread?"

"Spread, your legs, I'm coming in for a landing."

She shook her head no, holding up three fingers. She was going to try another word first.

"Third word," they called out.

A hand went to her ear.

"Sounds like, come on show us."

She pointed at her breast.

"Sounds like tits." Everybody started to laugh.

The interest and actions were becoming more intent. She shook her head yes and chopped at her left hand with her right indicating that part of the word "tit" was correct. Then she squatted and pointed to her behind and grimaced.

"Shit, shit;, the third word is shit."

She animatedly smiled, shaking her head positively. It took us a while, but we finally got the phrase "Here I shit and wonder why."

When my turn rolled around I was nervous as a coot. I choose a slip of paper from the other team, unfolded the paper and looked at the sentence, it read: "Toe jam and crotch cheese." I had not heard the term crotch cheese before, toe jam, I had. I figured this would be an easy one to do.

I raised my hand and indicated five with my fingers.

"Five words?"

I shook my head indicating that they were correct. I pulled off my shoe and sock, stopped, then held up one finger before continuing.

"First word."

Again I shook my head yes, and then pointed to my toes.

"First word is toes."

I motioned yes and then did a chopping motion, like I had seen the others use before.

"Oh."

I motioned for more than that by pointing my hands at the team and moving my hands in a come to me type movement.

"Toe, first word is toe!"

I wildly shook my head yes. I jammed my toe under the edge of the couch while holding up two fingers.

"Second word is jam. OK. Toe jam."

I shook my head yes again and held up three fingers, then I made a plus sign with my index fingers. I pointed to my crotch.