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.

My War - Installment 41

Lights were turned out early on that ward. Darkness covered everything and there was nothing to do, but lie there in the dark and smoke and think. I stared at the ceiling and thought of the men still up on the traction ward, my friends. I reminisced about how we would all lay awake at night, not being able to sleep at times; some of the guys would light farts. No one would tell anybody else when they were going to do it. You would see a match light up and then an unexpected blue flash as the methane fart gas was ignited. It was a general, and well known, rule that you should always light a fart with your drawers on; otherwise you could easily burn all the hair off of your butt. Matches were commonly used; they afforded ease of manipulation being more easily handled than a cigarette lighter. I had enjoyed watching the men on the ward cutting up and had often wanted to join them, but thought that as an officer, it might be looked down on.

Thoughts of Sandy and Emily flashed in my mind's eye. My eyes strained toward the windows looking for anything to fix on. I lay awake and dreamed of getting on a gurney and zooming pell-mell down the halls of the hospital, visiting other men and seeing what every person in the place was doing.

Before it got too late I called for a bed pan to take a dump. Going to the toilet while in a body cast can best be described by saying: it’s like trying to take a crap through a table top. Just lying on your back and trying to go is bad enough. Your butt is all scrunched together and ... I decided that I was going to try an alternative method, because I just could not go, even though I knew I had to. I continued to lay there trying to figure out just how I was going to be able to get to a real toilet. I had made up my mind that I was not going to use a bed pan again.

They must have had the same cook for this ward that we had on the other one. At least the hairy scrambled eggs made me feel at home. When one of the nurses came around I asked for a pair of crutches. She looked at me kind of funny, but said that she would see what she could do about it. In my mind’s eye I was going to use a toilet. My well planned idea was ready for first trial. I talked the nurse and a corpsman into helping to stand or prop me up beside the bed and adjust the crutches to the proper length. Without their help, I tried moving using only the crutches. It was hard, but I was managing. I was driven by the desire to not to have to use a bed pan, the curse of the bed ridden.

I made it across the room to the door of the bathroom. Then carefully and slowly I inched my way to the first stall. I was apprehensive, if I lost my balance I'd crash down like a felled tree. More than likely smashing the toilet, and would have about as much chance of getting up, by myself, as running a foot race. I gingerly swung around in the doorway of the stall and then grabbed, placing one hand on each side of the doorway. Holding on I leaned back at an angle and took careful aim. When I believed that alignment was achieved I let'r rip. Success, ah that was the most comfortable bowel movement I'd had in months. Taking a dump, something to really be proud of, one of mankind’s truly great pleasures. I pulled myself upright and then used a crutch to hook my hospital, baggy pants, PJs and pulled them up over my nakedness that protruded from my cast. I lifted a crutch and flushed my mission a success.

I was glad to get back to my bed. Although the journey had been worthwhile, it had been tiring. I rested for a time before lunch was brought in and practiced some self hypnosis assuring my subconscious that I would heal faster and do better on my next trip.

After eating, write some letters sounded like a god proposal. I pulled my pen, paper and envelopes from my bedside cabinet, then positioned my bed table over my cast covered body. The stinking lousy table had some loose bolts which made it tilt awkwardly across me, darn thing bounced up and down when I put the weight of my arm on it too. I flipped up the tilting portion of the table so I would be able to see what I was writing, placed an ashtray on the inside flat end, and lit up a cigarette, a Pall Mall, and began to write. I had only taken a puff or two off my smoke before I smashed it out in the heavy glass ashtray and continued my scribbling. Caught up in my writing I paid little attention when the ashtray fell off the end of the sloping table and clanked against my cast covered left leg. "I'll get a corpsman to brush the ashes off the bed later," I said to myself and continued as before.

I had just finished one letter and was writing "FREE" where the stamp would go (we had free mail in Vietnam, but needed stamps for mailing film and things like that) when someone on the other side of the room started yelling.

FIRE!! YOUR BED'S ON FIRE!! YOUR BED'S ON FIRE!!"

Wow, somebody's bed was on fire? I wondered how that could happen, I was too busy and too uncomfortable, with my head all propped up, to look around and see where the fire was. The fellow across the way kept yelling "YOUR BED IS ON FIRE." and I kept writing, he kept yelling so I finally looked up. Holy Toledo, it was my bed that was on fire. That's the trouble with those filter-less cigarettes, if they are not snuffed out just right, they lay there and smolder until there all gone. There was nothing I could do, so I just continued to lay there in my cast and watch the smoke and flames come up around my leg. Maybe they would fix my table. Soon there was enough, agitated, noise making that one of the staff members, a nurse, of the female variety, my preference, came running onto the ward. For some reason there were no call buttons at our beds, no alarm to bring a nurse running to help, but then I'm sure that they were not expecting jokers like me to be setting the beds afire.

The nurse grabbed a pitcher of water, from some GI's bedside table, mine was empty, I had checked, and dumped it on my bed; the excitement was over. My mattress was changed and I got a different table, but just to play it safe I decided to do some more self hypnosis and stay out of trouble for a little while. Even while I rested word of the incident spread like wild fire through the hospital's underground, giving many a laugh I'm sure.

The next few days went smoothly, I stayed out of trouble. I spent most of my time reading, eating, practicing self hypnosis, and sleeping. I had decided that I was not going to write any more letters until I got to Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. I had given everyone an indication of when I expected to be in Pennsylvania. I had told them the expected month and week. All that was left was to get there, I would be able to call any person I had a mind to on the phone when I got established there.

One afternoon a few days before I was to be gift wrapped and shipped out, the Commanding Officer of the Hospital came onto the ward with a photographer. He approached my bed and introduced himself before presenting me with a purple heart for one of the times that I had been wounded. George Washington was the person who initiated the award and a profile of his bust was on the medal on a, heart shaped, field of purple. My name was even engraved on the back of the medal. I was impressed. If I had known that I would have been in a position like I was in then, I would have tried to get written up, for Purple Hearts, for the other times I had been wounded.

The photographer took a picture of the CO pinning the medal on my hospital pajamas and then they both quickly left the ward. I unclasped the pin on the back of the medal’s ribbon from my hospital PJs and proudly placed the medal in its case. I took the silver K-wire that had been through my leg and placed it beside the medal and closed the lid; two souvenirs for the future.

Two days later I was in route again, to Tachikawa Air Force Base, on the first leg of the excursion home, only one more night in Japan. As I laid there in bed passing the time some Red Cross workers came by. I had developed a keen dislike for the Red Cross due to my experiences with them of the past half year. One of the women stopped and talked to me for a few minutes. She was friendly enough and not bad to look at either. She told me that I looked just like Doctor Zhivago, in the movie, who ever the heck he was? What ever movie she was talking about, I had no idea. She said my mustache was just like his and my dark sunken eyes, still dark and sunken from the severe blow on the head from a couple of months back. She continued for a few minutes and then left. I lay awake most of the night reading, too excited to sleep. I still had that same excitement about traveling that I always had. I was glad for that, but disappointed that I still would not be able to look out of a window and see where I was going.

The next morning we were carried out to a waiting C-141 Transport. The stretcher bound patients, like me, were stacked on racks as before. I was on the bottom again but near a door, with a little luck I might catch a glimpse of something through the door, if we stopped some place.

Within a few minutes after take off I was sound asleep; there was nothing else to do. I was not aware of how long the flight was supposed to last; I woke up one time to relieve myself. The flight nurse handed me a little cardboard urinal, which I quickly filled to the top and placed on my cast, waiting for the nurse to pick it up again. I fell asleep before it was retrieved. The next time I woke up was when the urinal dumped on me and the urine ran down, all inside of my cast adding insult to injury.

We landed in Fairbanks, Alaska. I wished that I had not been by the door. We were told that the air temperature was hovering in the low teens, low teens below zero. However it felt lower, because when the hatch was opened the cold rush of air that tumbled in on us chilled us to the bone. The only thing that covered me was a chincy little blanket over my cast and baggy hospital PJs. Being by the door, I did get to glance out. Snow was piled deeply along the taxi-ways that I could see.

There was a bright side to it all. A women's auxiliary from the air base came on board with donuts and cold, ice cold, drinks, they were even free. It was a nice gesture, even in the chill arctic air.

After refueling the hatches were pulled to and the cold flow of air was stopped as heat again started to circulate in the aircraft. What relief. We were off for Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. I fell asleep while humming Simon and Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound", I slept most of the way, my urine soaked cast had dried and I was a bit more comfortable by the time we arrived on the east coast.

We were unloaded and put into, panel truck type, ambulances and taken to waiting UH-1D Hueys to be flown out, some of us by way of Fort Dix, New Jersey, others to points closer to their homes.

It felt great to be flying in a helicopter again even if I was in a horizontal position on the bottom shelf. There is a totally different feel to flying in a helicopter, which I had always found exciting. Being excited about being in the air, and in a helicopter, reminded me of one day when I had our recon platoon leader along on a scouting mission. He had expressed a sincere interest in seeing what it was like and how reconnaissance was done from overhead, so-to-speak. He rode with me during one of the periods when there was a lull in the action. The ground units were not being used very much, it was between the 506 action and the LZ Bird massacre. He was a little nervous from the moment that we had taken off, but I just figured that he had some butterflies and that he would soon settle down. Well, he never did. He complained that he felt like he was hanging on a string in a basket, and that he was a sitting duck, being out in the open; there was nothing to hide behind, nothing to even jump into, or at for cover. Once during the flight we had been shot at and he really started to moan.

"I don't see how you guys can do this. You'll never get me up here again. I'll be happy to stay on the ground."

I reminded him that he was the one that had requested the opportunity to come along, and that I could not just abandon the mission because he was uncomfortable in the H-13. He finally did settle down somewhat. But, he never asked for another ride. His short trips in the Hueys were enough for him, he said. Of course my feelings were just the opposite. I wouldn't trade the flying for anything. It beat walking any day.

We landed at one of Fort Dix's med evac pads and were met by, a panel truck, ambulances again. Some medics jumped from the ambulances and began to unload us. On the bottom layer as usual, which meant that the medics would have to lift me and my cast to the top level, which was the third level in the ambulance. They must not have taken notice to my cast. They grunted and groaned as they lifted me out. With much effort, they got the head end of the stretcher on the top shelf and slid me in. There was only one problem; they had not pushed me in far enough. My feet, at least from where I was looking from, were at least two inches outside of where the door would be when they closed it. I noticed this small discrepancy, unfortunately, just as they were in the process of slamming the rear doors. I yelled, but too late, the door crunched shut on my feet, both of which I was incapable of moving. I yelled again but to no avail. The medic operating the door, thinking that the door just didn't close properly, slammed it again and then he must have hit the door with his shoulder. Great, this was like a bad scene from an old cartoon and besides, it hurt. I managed to get his attention after a few minutes of yelling and the problem was rectified, to my great relief!

After a short ride we were at the hospital. The building was quiet impressive, a multi-storied structure which could easily have been a modern civilian facility, from all appearances. I was unloaded, placed on a gurney and wheeled to one of the upper levels of the main building. There I was placed in a semi-private room, no less, all to my amazement. There was no one else in the room; the whole place was mine. Fantastic! There was a nice color TV on the wall, remotely controlled, and the bed was electrically operated. I could raise the head or foot of the bed with the flick of a switch, or move it anywhere in between. It would not do me much good to have the bed go into the curved shaped recliner position, because I could not bend at the waist. I could adjust the height of the bed with another switch. There were just all kinds of neat things to be amused with; it was definitely a first class operation there at Dix.

It had been mid-afternoon or there about when the C-141 had arrived at Dover and it was then creeping up on supper time. If the food was as good there as the accommodations it would, most assuredly, be a good place to spend the weekend. I just hoped and prayed that Valley Forge would be as first class as Fort Dix was.

Supper came and I was equally astounded by the food. Roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and the whole nine yards. I thought that, per chance, I had been unconscious in a coma for a number of months and there was a holiday or something that I was unaware of.

It was even easier to eat there with the electrically tilting bed I could position myself comfortably for eating. I enjoyed my meal while swilling down REAL chocolate milk, real as opposed to reconstituted or powdered milk. I topped off the meal with pie and coffee. I felt like a king, it was good to be home. The nurses were good looking too.

After supper a short nap was in order, after having basked in the luxury of the hospital's food and finery. When I woke up I flicked on the TV and enjoyed my first American TV shows in over seven months. English was actually being spoken. I watched show after show straight through the Tonight Show. Then the late movie came on and then the late-late movie. It was a strange coincidence that the late-late movie was one about Valley Forge Hospital. The movie was based on facts or on I true story one or the other. The name of the movie was “Bright Victory, first release in the United States on 31 July 1951. The story took place at Valley Forge General Hospital after the end of World War II. Valley Forge had been a blind rehabilitation center toward the end of and after War. The plot line dealt with how men dealt with disabilities that they knew would linger for the rest of their lives. The main character was Sergeant Niven, I believe, and had been nominated for two Academy Awards and many other film awards.

My War - Installment 40

Next I pulled or rather slid the box containing the record player from the gurney and tore it open. It was made by RCA Victor of Japan. It wasn't fancy, but it looked fine to me and hearing it would tell the real story. I was not able to weasel it into position on the night stand by myself so I had to do a little more waiting so I put it out of my mind.

I clutched the last bag from off of the gurney. I tenderly removed the box containing my Ashai Pentax camera. I quickly removed it from the box and just admired it for a time. I had been interested in photography for years and had been the first in my family to buy a good camera at the age of eleven after I had earned and saved enough money. I had started doing darkroom work even earlier when my older sister, Judy, ten years my senior, had given me a darkroom outfit for Christmas one year. I had even built my first enlarger from an old view camera that I had found somewhere. I pulled myself back to the present and admired the very nice piece of precision machinery, the best camera I had ever laid my hands on.

A corpsman came by and I asked him to set up my record player. I donned my headset, put on a record and lay back to read the instruction manual for my camera. Fortunately, I had enough foresight to have carefully placed the camera on my table, because the next thing I knew it was morning again.

The days and weeks began to blur into one long agonizingly boring ordeal. Every day it was the same institutional green walls, the same exact routine with the staff personnel: doctors, technicians, and ourselves. I had never realized how much my freedom of movement had meant to me and how useless I felt without it. For me it was impossible to seem to do anything productive. I felt that way because I viewed the hospital and the broken leg as a temporarily debilitating set of circumstances, even if the doctors said it would be at least a year.

I would have much rather been confined to a wheel chair or at least in a sitting position where I would have some sort of mobility. I knew there were plenty of others that had lost limbs and I was pretty well off comparatively, I thought. My back ached constantly; I had mentioned it almost from the beginning of my hospitalization. None of my other multitude of continuing aches and pains seemed to mean anything to anybody but me.

"If it still hurts when you get to the States you can tell them to check it out there," I was told.

"Fine I'll do that!"

We had a number of instances of blood clotting on the ward at varying times since that first one. There were occasions when the whole ward was awakened, that is other than people that were sedated, by the, now familiar, hacking and coughing that was associated with the swallowing of a plastic tube by way of the nose.

STATESIDE EXPERTISE

One day while lazing about listening to records and playing cards with Jack, the doctors came onto the ward with an older looking fat man. We all decided that he must be a civilian consultant from the States. This man had a very pompous air about him and was very loud, to the point of distraction. He obviously wanted everyone to know he was there and what his opinions were. Everyone included every patient on the ward. I felt that if everyone had not been awake when he came in that this particular pompous ass would have shaken them awake individually so they would have to hear his “wonderful voice and astute and educated opinions.”

There were a number of men on the ward that had developed phlebitis (blood clots associated with inflammation of a vein), in an extremity that had been wounded or otherwise drastically traumatized. This consultant fellow started to tell everyone on the ward, both patient and doctor alike. That in his, thirty odd years, in the practice of medicine that he had never had one single case, not one single patient had ever developed phlebitis. He did not stop with that statement, he went on and on about it, and about how great he was. I was pretty sure that our doctors felt embarrassed by this, consultant, guy. But when the brass would send clowns like that in, there was very little, if anything, that anyone could do, except grin and bear it. I decided that I would take it upon myself to come to the aid of our doctors....in a small way. Even a dummy, like me, could see that phlebitis would be more prevalent in cases of severe trauma.

When the doctors, during their grand rounds (grand rounds were visits to every patient), came to my bed I asked Doctor Smartass, with great enthusiasm, "I am so happy to meet you Doctor, such and eminent doctor and scholar, as well as a specialist on Phlebitis. I’m sure your experience is vast sir. How many patients have you treated in your thirty years of practice that had sustained trauma from armed engagement, either gunshot, grenade, or mine type wounds, doctor?

"None," he replied.

I smiled and thanked him. Case closed. The other doctors smiled at me, trying to conceal their faces from the consultant. They had recognized my point, whether Doctor Smartass had or not. Apparently the good doctor took it as a question prompted by curiosity, because he believed himself to be above question. After he had given me his answer, he quickly continued rounds in his boisterous manner.

One afternoon I was lying quietly in bed, nothing new or exciting. The sky outside was a pretty blue with billowy cumulus clouds floating by behind the buildings out side of our windows. Strange how I had not been looking outside much, it depressed me, made me sad, knowing that I could not enjoy any of Japan first hand. Almost everyone on my end of the ward seemed to be awake for a change and aware of the beautiful day outside. There was only one thing wrong, everything was down right quiet. Suddenly, and without warning, a sickening quickness and silence came over the ward. On the outside of the building were heavy concrete structural beams, probably 12 or more inches square. These thick upright e structural members of the building began to sway back and forth in movements of what appeared to be two feet or more. I guess it looked like they were moving more than anything else, because they were an easy reference point. Actually the whole building was swaying and shaking and shuddering like crazy. The weights which applied the traction force on my leg, swung on their cords from the traction frame, back and forth like a pendulum on some grandfather clock; they continued to swing to and fro long after the quaking had ended and during the multiple after shocks.

"Nice earth quake, eh Jack?"

"Very interesting; I kind of expected to see things start to fall apart for a minute. There are supposed to be lots of quakes in the Japanese islands. They must build for them."

"I guess they do. There's no apparent damage anywhere, but then all we can really see is this ward."

"How about some cards, Sam?"

"Great. Let's do it."

"Doctors say that I'll be shipped out of here next week, Sam."

"That's great Jack, really. I'm sure your wife and kids will be pleased to have you close to home."

"Yea, I can't wait. It'll be nice; I haven't seen my kids in a long time."

Jack left that next week like others I had come to know at the 249th. Just like any other unit or place in the military you made friends, got to know them and appreciate them and then suddenly they were gone. In Vietnam the only difference had been that there were more ways to unexpectedly be gone.

I was lonely after Jack left. He had been the only other officer on the ward, not to mention his being a pilot. We had started our brief friendship with a lot in common. Oh well.

I started to use self hypnosis more often and read the Bible and other books more after Jack was gone. As I all ready knew, before I had acquired them, the articles I had bought would not satisfy me or make me happy. They had just been things that I figured I needed and could get cheaper in Japan. I was just taking advantage of being in Japan, since I had never had the chance to go on an R & R.

One day after "X-ray man" had made his rounds and the doctors had looked at my new pictures. (A patient's entire set of x-rays was always brought by before rounds.) I was informed that my turn to be packed for shipment had arrived. I would be put into another body cast from high on my chest down to the toes of the left foot, my right leg would be left out from just above the knee down.

"Hey doc, where am I to be shipped?"

"I believe that you’re headed for Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. Yes, I think that's what I remember."

"Sounds great to me; how long till I leave?"

"Oh, about one week, I'd say. You'll be cast today and moved to a transient ward. You'll be shipped from there when they're ready for you."

"Thanks for everything."

"Take care, Sam."

"Right, I have no choice do I?"

My doctor turned and walked away, chatting to his colleagues. Thompson came in a few minutes later and began packing my belongings that I had acquired during my stay. The larger items would be shipped ahead of me. I kept my camera with me, not wanting it to be damaged by careless handling.

There was a publicity team that came through the ward right after the doctors, it was becoming a busy day. Two one star generals, General Doleman and General Felenz stopped in to visit on the ward. They stopped by my bed and talked to me for a few minutes, a photographer snapped their picture beside my bed while they pretended to show interest in me. It was nice talking to the brass and fun in a way. They told me that I would get a copy of the picture at some later date, turning they left my bed and continued to visit on the ward.

Some guys from the cast room came in with one of the orthopedic doctors, to prepare me for casting. A doctor would remove the pin from my leg, and then the other men would take me to the cast room for a fitting. The pin had been loose for some time in my leg. In fact loose enough that I was able to slide it back and forth, it had also been oozing a little puss. I had taken it upon myself to slip it to and fro in my leg. The doctor arrived and after wiping one end of the silver wire and the hole with some disinfectant, the doctor took some stainless steel, sterilized, side cutters and snipped the K-wire close to one side of my leg. As the doctor turned to replace the cutters on his wheeled table I reached down and pulled the K-wire out myself. It slipped out very easily.

Spinning around the doctor said, "I told you it would be quick, painless and easy. Thank you for your help. You know we'll miss you around here Mr. Rollason."

"Thanks, I really appreciate hearing that Doc."

He left and the cast boys took over, carefully lifting me onto a gurney for my first ride since my telephone calls.

I had not been awake for my last cast so it would be a new experience for me. It took the cast room people thirty to forty-five minutes to incase me in plaster, it could have been longer, I had been keenly interested. I didn't really keep track of the time because they had asked me to remove my watch, another of my recent purchases, an automatic winding Seiko. I had not been able to find a good watch in Vietnam after mine had been stolen. Even the “Timex” brand seemed to be of the counterfeit variety. The Seiko was a prime piece of jewelry in my mind.

I was rolled back onto my gurney after casting and pushed out into the hall way. The plaster was warm and moist and it felt sort of comfortable and reassuring in a funny way. I had made sure that this cast was equipped with a rear exit. The cast would soon turn cold and clammy before truly starting to dry out and harden completely.

Even entrapped in those many pounds of plaster, I had already started to feel more mobile. I was told that when the plaster dried completely that I could roll over, that I could be propped up on one side, and that I could lie on my stomach on a gurney and push myself around with canes or crutches. The idea of actually having some mobility excited me a great deal. I was not really sure how limiting the huge cast would actually be, but I would certainly find out my limitations within the cast.

I was wheeled to my new ward on the ground floor and placed in a bed off to one side of the room by myself. The cast would definitely take some time to get accustomed to, but then I had gained....some limited freedom; no longer confined traction. Everything in life is a trade off of some sort. I could no longer bend at the waist and assume a semi-sitting position, but I could live with that. I could put up with anything for a time.

The only possessions that I had with me were all stuffed in a little drawstring bag that had been made by a women's auxiliary group in the states. I didn’t know who they were, but they got together and made them up bags to send to military hospitals everywhere, to be given out to patients. I had some stationary, a book, my Bible, my toilet articles, my camera, my wallet, and some smokes. I still had an occasional smoke when I really got bore or depressed.

There were no people near me in the ward. The others were all enlisted men. I got the feeling that the staff wanted to keep any officer on the ward separated from the other men. The cast had dried out and had lost its warmth by the next day. I borrowed a felt tipped marker from one of the nurses and printed "MADE IN JAPAN", crudely, across my chest at the top edge of the cast.

I had forgotten how incredibly hard it was to eat and drink while flat on my back. It took longer and adjustments had to be made, I had to revert to the use of flexible straws to drink and slow sure movements with utensils to get the food to my mouth instead of my cast. It was all a continuing adaptive process. It would only be one more week and I would be going home. Short range goals were the key. I would face any problems at home when the problems presented themselves; one day at a time became my motto.

My War - Installment 39

He took the picture anyway, that is, after the commotion settled down, so that the doctors would be able to see if it needed to be manipulated back into position. The patient had been livid with rage; a torrent of curse words erupting from his mouth. If he had not been attached to the bed, I'm sure he would have leaped off, and disregarding his pain, grabbed the X-ray man by the neck to chock him to death, or at least knocked him senseless. The rest of us were very defensive while "X-ray man", a name the technician had just acquired that morning, finished his picture taking rounds.

With the excitement of the morning over things started to settle down to some serious relaxing; like what else was there to do? Jack and I watched a soap opera. I soon dozed off again and did not awaken until the lunch wagon came rumbling and clattering onto the ward. I was beginning to believe that my mind and body were using sleep as a defensive or escapist mechanism to help alleviate my boredom. I decided that after lunch I would make it a point to stay awake and have a chat with the doctors when they came. I still had not asked if I could try the, swing to the side of my bed routine, to try placing some weight on my right leg during sheet changes on my bed. I would have to wait and see.

Spec-six Thompson came onto the ward to bring a bedpan to someone. On that ward a patient was devoid of any privacy when going to the toilet. Any way his presence gave me a chance to call him over; I wanted him to do some more shopping for me, if he was up to it.

Since I had never had an R&R and being that I was headed state side when my leg stabilized, I would not be able to shop for some of the things that men serving in Vietnam seemed to traditionally buy to take home. I had a few things in mind to buy. I could handle not being able to buy some of the fancy stereo equipment. There was just too much variety of electronics on the market to decide without looking and of course listening to it. I knew what kind of camera I wanted so I would get Thompson to pick up an Ashai Pentax 35mm camera with and f1.2 50mm lens and some film. I would just have to get him to pick up a small stereo record player and a bunch of contemporary, easy listening, music albums for me. Of course all this depended on whether or not he would be willing to get it for me.

It took very little persuading, on my part, to get Thompson to agree to do the shopping for me. I gave him some money and thanked him again and again for his kindness. A little something else to look forward to, I told myself. The camera would really be a great item to take home; I'd even be able to snap a few shots of the ward and all the turkeys I was spending so much time with.

The doctors came by right after Thompson had left with his bedpan full. They said I could give the standing a try, but just take it easy while doing it. Their decision to let me try the standing bit made me feel pretty happy. I could relax now and practice some more self hypnosis to pass the time.

My self hypnosis was working out great. I would wake up more refreshed and with a better attitude after practicing it for a few hours. I kept giving myself suggestions to, hopefully, heal my leg faster and to generally make me more comfortable and contented with my confinement. The nicest part was that it was working. I seemed to be proving to myself some of the things that I had read about self hypnosis, and that I had practiced on others. I already knew that it worked; it was just that it seemed to make more of a difference right then and under those circumstances. I also was using it to discipline myself to reading the Bible daily. God's word was helping me to accept my situation more than anything.

Philippians 4:11 "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."

OFF TO THE TELEPHONE

Supper had been over for forty to fifty minutes when Jack and noticed a whole group of doctors and corpsmen hurrying onto the ward. They quickly grabbed one of the traction patients, bed and all and whisked him out to heaven knew where. It was not unusual for medical personnel to come onto the ward and look at someone; we were not aware of them having checked this guy out before the entourage came in. We were at a loss, without the slightest idea of what was happening. Traction is a very isolating situation. There had been a guy, just across the room, whose name we did not even know and now he was gone. Why? We would probably find out later, so we returned to our soap opera.

I had made arrangements earlier in the day with some of the medical staff to be wheeled to the telephone sometime after supper. They informed me that they would come and get me at the proper time, in order that the time would be correct on the east coast of the United States.

Transport time arrived and I was moved to the pay phone down the hall. I got an operator on the telephone and, after some minutes of talking, explaining and repeating and repeating I managed to convey to, the Japanese female, operator that I wanted to make a collect call to my father Thomas Rollason at area code 717 – number - 564-2910 in Pennsylvania in the United States of America. I could just visualize the trouble that my folks were going to have figuring out what was going on when she would get them on the line.

When I did get through to them it turned out to be 0300 hours in the morning, so much for the figuring of my friends on the medical staff. By the time I got hold of Emily it was about 0345 hours and thirty-six dollars worth. Her father worked for Bell Telephone and wanted me to know immediately how much the call was going to cost me when I got back home.

I was left in the hall alone for a time waiting for someone to come along and push me back to my spot on the ward. Finally, a corpsman came to check on me.

"How did it go, Sir? Did your calls go through?"

"Yes, thanks. Everything went fine. It was just a small issue of the time being screwed up a little."

He pushed my bed along slowly, to keep the weights from swinging and clattering into the bed frame. When we got back to the ward I noticed that the soldier who had been taken away earlier had returned. As my bed was moved close to his I asked the corpsman to stop for a minute. The young man was asleep, probably sedated; the leg that was in traction was cut open, on the outside of the leg, from ankle to hip. There was, it appeared, a saline solution being trickled along the entire length of the incision, flushing it and keeping it from drying out. I did not have even the foggiest notion as to what kind of a procedure they had done on him. The whole cut was wide open; very puzzling. Little pumps hummed and whirred; the fluid bubbled and trickled through the wound continuously. I scratched my head in puzzlement, and then motioned for the corpsman to move me back in place.

We finished out the evening, Jack and me, watching some American shows that had been dubbed in Japanese. My thoughts while watching the shows were not on the action, but on Emily and the phone conversation we had just had a short time before. My picture of Emily, which came to me by way of Vietnam, was in my hand and I looked at it longingly. My waking thoughts were full of Emily, but it still made no sense to me why this beautiful young girl had suddenly decided to “fall in love” with me. I just would not be able to fully believe it until I could experience her in person; not until I could see her and hear her face to face, then I would start to believe, maybe!

"They must have gotten a new cook in the kitchen", I said to Jack,

“Why do you say that,” he replied.

"Because the menu has changed, "there is no hair in the eggs this morning. Matter of fact, there are no eggs." Instead we had pancakes. "Perhaps the old cook has some time off to grow more hair."

I could just discern the soft whirring of the motors that operated the suction and pumping devices that were attached to the guy across the ward. He was awake that morning, but looking as if he had been heavily drugged.

Jack was up and about early, a ridiculous statement for someone that is bed ridden. John the black fellow on my other side quietly fell back asleep while eating his breakfast, pieces of pancake had fallen all over his chest. His mouth hung open and syrup covered his chin. Yes it looked as if it was just another regular day in the traction ward.

The morning was progressing normally. I noticed when I looked out the window that it was snowing. There was not very much to be seen from the windows, especially since they were clear across the ward. The view was that of any very large city, just the tops of buildings and more buildings as far as the eye could see which was not very far that day. There were no really large building like I had originally expected, but then I didn't know where, in this the largest city in the world, the 249th General Hospital was located.

The snow must have started falling the previous evening and when one of the corpsmen came in I asked how deep the snow was. He told us that it was nearly two feet deep and that the storm had dumped the deepest snow to fall on Tokyo in the past twenty years. Tokyo was just full of excitement, so much, in fact that I thought I would take a nap.

Thompson had rotated to another shift and had a few days off before he was due to come back, so he had plenty of time to check on my items. It just seemed like it was taking forever. Patience, my boy, you need more patience. After breakfast I tried my standing up act for the first time and helped the nurse change my sheets. It felt good to get off of my back and backside, if even for those few brief moments. The snow had stopped by noon and was all ready beginning to melt and form beautiful icicles outside of the windows.

A corpsman had come on the ward and I asked him if he could get me a deck of cards from somewhere.

"No problem, Sir. I'll be right back."

"Thanks sergeant, I really appreciate your getting these for me. While your here..."

I had him rearrange the furniture so that my bed could be pushed up against Jack's. Now we had another diversion; we could waste time playing cards.

The weekend went by slowly, but finally Monday arrived, and with it, Thompson would be returning to work, hopefully with all my goodies. The regular cook must have just had the weekend off too. We were back to our usual fare.

I was becoming quite a hand at grabbing my trapeze and swinging off the bed to help make it. It had taken very little effort to get the maneuver down pat, thanks to my gymnastic ability, and I looked forward to it each day. The old nurse, the major, gasped every time I'd zoom out over the side of the bed to help her, my youthful exuberance making her nervous.

The afternoon passed slowly while waiting for Thompson's shift to take over. Jack and I played some gin and watched a little TV to pass the time. Super came and it was another meal not worth remembering; breakfast, even with hairy eggs was better than any of the other meals. I hoped that I would not be in this hospital or any other hospitals for very long. The food couldn't be much worse at the next hospital. State side at least there would be a chance of improvement, because there would be Americans cooking American food instead of Japanese cooks cooking American food.

Thompson came in for his shift early; he entered the ward pushing a gurney loaded with, well partially covered with packages. All mine, I chuckled to myself. Thompson pushed the gurney up beside my bed with a smile on his face.

"Here you go, Sir. I hope the albums are all right, I picked out twenty that I thought you might enjoy."
"Twenty record albums plus all this other stuff, amazing how much more money do I owe you Thompson?"

"None, I owe you some change!"

"I find that hard to believe, but then you must know."

"I've got to go on duty. I'll check with you later. Here's your change."

"I just don't know how to thank you, Thompson. You've really been a great friend to me. I sincerely appreciate all that you have done."

"No problem. I'm glad that I could do it for you. I've got to go now."

"Thanks again!!"

He handed me an envelope containing my change and then left to go on duty.

Wash up time came straight away so I had to wait a little longer before examining my purchases. I still could not get accustomed to the helplessness and dependency of being tied to the traction frame and bed. Not being able to do anything or to be in any position other than on my back; not being able to do a simple thing like rolling onto my side, was really frustrating at times.

Time had arrived for me to inspect my prizes. I grabbed the bags of records to see what Thompson had chosen for me. I began to riffle through the albums; I was awe struck by the prices on the jackets. The records had been purchased at a PX and the prices were cheaper than the PX prices in the States, these albums unbelievably priced between, $1.70-$2.20. There was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66, Peter Paul and Mary, The New Christy Minstrels, Percy Faith, The Ray Conniff Singers and many others. Thompson had even bought a stereo head set so that I would be able to listen privately and disturb no one.