Young Man In Vietnam Part 8

The helicopter touches the paddy and the crew chief is waving to your heli-team to exit. You push the man ahead of you - to hurry him. There is a sharp crack and you feel a burning shock in your leg. You think an electrical circuit must have been knocked loose - that it brushed against your leg. But you're sitting down and you see blood coming through your trouser.

Suddenly, there are several sharp explosions and the interior of the aircraft is alive with hot metal. You throw yourself flat and cover your face with your right arm. When you look up the helicopter is rising.

You have been shot through the leg and taken shrapnel in one arm. The machine gunner was shot through the b.u.t.tocks and the crew chief has metal fragments in his hand. You look at your leg - still not believing it - and you see a .30 caliber bullet lying next to you. You touch it. It's still warm. It went through your leg and hit the machine-gun stanchion.

The crew chief cuts off your boot and rips your trouser leg open. He ties a compress from his first-aid packet around your leg.

The leg doesn't hurt. It's numb. You watch the crew chief as he aids the machine gunner. You begin to realize what has happened. You wiggle your toes and flex your leg slightly. You decide that nothing is broken and you lean back on your elbow.

You're very angry. They tried to kill you. You want to hurt them, but you feel helpless. You see the machine gun swinging in the hatch and you pull yourself to it, chamber a round, and begin firing wildly at the ground. The crew chief pulls you away and you lie back on the deck and smoke the cigarette he gives you.

You look at your leg and you wonder if you'll ever play football again. The leg is beginning to throb now and you roll onto your side to be more comfortable. You feel the bullet in your pocket and you take it out and look at it. It is almost perfect. There is only a slight bulge at the tip where it struck the stanchion.

You untie the compress and carefully remove it. There is an exit hole about the size of a half-dollar and bits of muscle protrude. The muscle is pink and contrasts sharply with the blood. You cover it quickly and retie it.

You wish the helicopter would get you back to the aid station. The leg begins to hurt and you begin to worry.

There are corpsmen waiting as you land - the pilot radioed ahead. Careful hands place you on a stretcher. You protest - you're able to limp to the aid station - you don't want to be carried.

They bring you into the operating room and place the stretcher on two sawhorses. Everyone is asking questions and writing things down and sticking needles into you. You decide you like the attention.

You can see the doctors working on you, but you're dead from the waist down. It's like they're working on someone else and you're watching. It strikes you as very funny and you begin to laugh.

The shots they have given you make you sleepy. You show the doctors the bullet and they smile. You hold the bullet very tightly as they carry you out of the operating room. It's your souvenir. You earned it.

14 THE HOSPITAL.

It is a week before Christmas and it is snowing lightly in j.a.pan and seems very cold after the heat of Vietnam. You pull the wool army blanket up to your chin as the litter bearers carry you from the bus to the hospital's admitting center. You feel very snug and the slight smell of mothb.a.l.l.s from the blanket makes you think of taking winter clothes out of storage at home.

You hand your medical records to a corpsman and he gives you an identification bracelet with your name and wounds on it. A clerk tells the litter bearers where your ward is, and they carry you toward the elevator.

On your way you recognize a corpsman who was in your company a year before. He doesn't see you at first, but you shout to him and he comes over and you talk about old times. He tells you several men from your first company who had been wounded have come through the hospital.

A corpsman drops your leg onto the end of the bed as you are transferred from the stretcher to your new home. The pain rises through your body like an electric shock. They give you a morphine shot, and when the drug takes effect you sink back into the silky-smooth world only a hard narcotic can produce. The corpsman says he's sorry, but you don't care.

It is almost three hours before your doctor arrives. No one has examined your wounds or changed your dressings for five days. As the doctor cuts the cast from your leg you know it is going to be bad. You don't want to look at the leg, but you smell it, so you sneak a glance. You catch your breath when you begin to feel nauseous at what you see. The leg is not a part of you, you think. It is only connected to you by pain - you can't move it, you can't control it.

You watch your doctor as he gently feels for the ends of the gauze drains that have been put through the shattered channel the bullet left in your leg. You begin to think it will be easy - that there is no feeling left - until the doctor touches the first drain and tries to pull it out. Explosions of pain race up and down your leg and your body trembles in spite of your efforts to control it. You grasp the end of the bed as hard as you can. There is something playing on the radio - a march - and you fasten your mind on it and try to concentrate on the music to keep the swirling redness from overcoming you.

The doctor is saying something to one of the nurses, but you don't listen. You watch him move away from your bed and you begin to relax. He tells you the wound is clean and looks good, but it is too early to tell yet how soon they will close it. He says he has to put new drains in because the wound must heal from the inside out. He says it will hurt. It does. But you're ready for it this time. When you know what is coming - what to expect - it's easier to take.

When the doctor leaves, you look at the man in the next bed. He was an officer in your battalion and was wounded when you were. You never knew him very well before, but there is a lot of time to get acquainted now.

"Pretty bad?" he asks.

You nod. He hasn't had his dressings changed yet and he looks worried. "That music saved me," you tell him. "I think I would have pa.s.sed out if it hadn't been for that."

"G.o.d, I'm a coward when it comes to pain," he says. "I want a shot before they do that to me. You were great - you didn't scream once." He shudders.

"I didn't have time to scream. It hurt too much anyway."

"Jesus, I almost threw up when he pulled out that drain."

"I'm glad I couldn't see it." You lean back on the bed and begin to feel the tension draining from your body.

You suddenly feel very dirty and realize you haven't washed since you came out of the field. You ask one of the corpsmen for a pan of hot water and some soap and a wash cloth. It's not much of a bath, but the cloth is black with dirt when you finish and you feel a lot better.

The doctor said he would return the next day to look at your wounds. You ask each pa.s.sing corps-man where the doctor is now and when he usually comes and if he'll change the dressings again. But they don't know. It's suppertime when you see the doctor come into the room and you flatten yourself against the bed and grab the rails, trying to ready yourself.

He smiles and asks you how you feel and says not to worry because he won't look at the wounds for another day. You thank him and enjoy a meal for the first time since you arrived. You decide you're going to be all right and that you can take anything he does to you.

You begin to remember it's Christmas and that they must have sent a telegram to your home informing them of your wounds. You think how worried your father will be. You told them not to send a telegram - that it wasn't serious enough - that you didn't want to upset anyone - but you know they always send telegrams.

The nurse tells you there is a phone in the hall and you decide to try and telephone the States. You have no idea what time it will be there, but that isn't important. The nurse fixes a wheelchair for you with an outstretched board to rest your leg on and you wheel yourself down the hall to the phone. The left wheel sticks and the chair keeps turning, but you finally make it.

Your father received the telegram only minutes before your call. He sounds much worse than you feel and you are very glad you are talking to him. You tell him it isn't a bad wound and you probably won't lose your leg. He tells you to do whatever the doctors say and you know he is better.

The next dressing change isn't so bad. You don't need music this time. You don't grasp the bed so hard.

Some members of the Red Cross and some officers' wives come by during the day and decorate your room with paper Santa Clauses and Christmas trees and red and green bells. It is only two days before Christmas, and one of the nurses gives you a drink of eggnog. Liquor is forbidden in the wards, but Christmas is a time to celebrate. It tastes good and you drink too much of it and have trouble working your wheelchair.

You give some money to a friend who is an outpatient and he buys a bottle of brandy for you. You decide to save the brandy until Christmas Eve and drink it then.

A choir from the dependents' grammar school comes around on Christmas Eve and they sing carols and stare awkwardly at your bandages. You notice how clean and wholesome they look. And how new their clothes are. They wish you a merry Christmas and move down the hall to another room. You can hear them singing through the closed door and it sounds a thousand miles away.

A Negro corpsman dressed in a Santa Claus suit comes by giving out Red Cross Christmas gifts. You get a sock filled with rubber shower sandals, writing materials, and hard candy. You thank him and think about what Christmas in Vietnam must be like. For the first time you realize that someone else commands your men now. Those troops you trained and fought with aren't yours anymore. You miss the responsibility. You think about your men who have been killed and you decide to write to their families. Families are important at Christmas.

You're suddenly very tired. You pour some brandy into the plastic water cup that sits on the stand next to your bed. You don't really want it, but you drink it anyway. You lie back and look out the window. It is a clear night and the stars are very bright. From somewhere down the corridor you hear the m.u.f.fled sound of "Silent Night." You close your eyes and think of Vietnam again - and you hope the carol is right.

15 THE EAR.

You report to the sub unit at Camp Courtney, Okinawa, and stand awkwardly before the adjutant's desk while he scans your records. Your leg is bothering you and you'd like to sit down, but you don't ask to.

You decide right away that you don't like the adjutant. It's more than just the normal feeling that an infantry line officer has for everyone else. Maybe it's the adjutant's neatly pressed uniform, or the fact that he will be rea.s.signing you, or the way he wears his single Vietnamese campaign ribbon. He tells you to check in to the Bachelor Officers' Quarters and he'll find something for you to do.

The Officers' Club opens at noon. You and another transient officer are the only ones there. The two of you drink martinis and roll dice from a polished leather cup to see who pays. You are losing, but it doesn't make any difference. Liquor is cheap and you have a lot of back pay to spend.

You have lost your third round and are asking the bartender for two more martinis when you hear your name called. A Mend from your days at the Schools Battalion in the States makes his way toward you grinning broadly.

"How the h.e.l.l are you?" You shake hands. "I heard you were hit - lost your leg."

"No, the leg's just a little bit stiff," you tell him. Rumors are funny. You remember some of your troops coming through the hospital in j.a.pan telling you they'd heard you had been killed. "What are you doing now?" you ask him.

He tells you he's the commanding general's aide-de-camp and offers to buy you a drink. By dinner-time you are both quite drunk and you decide you need some fresh air.

The day has been warm and humid. You sit on the porch in the evening cool and watch lights flickering along the coast winding north to Kin Village and beyond. You feel very much alone. You miss your troops and your old friends and you wonder how they are doing. You know you don't have much chance of landing another infantry command and you begin thinking of what you will do when you're released from the Marine Corps in four months. It's appropriate, you think, that your troop-leading career began and will end on Okinawa.