How Can You Mend This Purple Heart (3 page)

The beds and cabinets mirrored down the entire length of the wall to the far end of the ward. The bed and nightstand arrangement reflected back and forth across the ward, thirty beds in all. Each bed was locked into a marked slot and not one bed was empty. The bed slots were vacant only when the bed and patient were taken away to the operating room, or worse. The empty slots seemed more like gaping holes, like a freshly pulled tooth. During those times, the entire ward would breathe uneasy until the bed and its occupant returned safely to its mooring.

Orthopedic military beds were hulks of cream-colored metal with chrome trimmings at the head and foot and heavy locking guardrails on each side. A thick, square metal beam traversed the full length of the bed, about three feet above its occupant.

Three beds down to my right, I saw a kid reaching up with his one arm to grab the trapeze triangle dangling from the crossbeam. The heavy chrome chain pinged as he pulled himself up and it tightened against his weight. He lifted himself up as best he could with his one arm. I couldn't tell if he was adjusting his butt to sit on a bedpan or to ease his burning ass from bed sores. His weight threw him off-balance and he swung sideways toward the pulling of his arm. He was holding on as tightly as he could, but his hand slipped from the trapeze and he dropped to the bed like a small child from a monkey bar. He reached up and grabbed the swinging bar, did a couple of chin-ups, and let go.

The trapeze was the only means of movement for most of the guys here. On a couple of the beds, the trapeze had been removed. The young occupants had no hands, or no arms, or a combination. Even with the countless turning and the four-a-day lotion rubs by the staff, their bed sores never healed.

A four-foot-wide corridor dissected the two rows of beds, dispatching traffic north to south. It was the main thoroughfare for an endless march of doctors, nurses, corpsmen, food and supply wagons, volunteers, wheelchairs, and occasionally, a visitor.

The hospital received a daily influx of Marines and Navy corpsmen from the fields and jungles of South Vietnam, and the military made every effort to place the most severely wounded as close to their hometowns as possible.

It was the bottom-feeder, low-life, primitive devices of the war that caused the very worst imaginable wounds, and so many unimaginable emotional and mental scars. The explosion of a land mine was the last time these kids were able to fully walk or touch or see or hear. Those who had lost only one leg, only one arm, or only one eye considered themselves the lucky ones. Those who had escaped the fiery burns to the face and body, or had taken only a partial blow from the explosion, they considered themselves the lucky ones, too.

Anywhere from three to seven weeks would pass from the time the telegram arrived until the parents could walk in and see their wounded sons on Ward 2B in South Philly. Mothers and fathers, wives and fiancées, and brothers and sisters would come from nearly every state east of the Mississippi River.

The first visit was always the most difficult for parents and patient. The slow walk down the ward, seeking the familiar face that left home just a few months ago, and hoping the wounds weren't as bad as the telegram had told them. Their eyes would unwillingly spread the fear, the sadness, and the confusion as they passed between the countless beds of other mothers' and fathers' young boys, each step taking them closer to their own son.

The sadness and the hurt deepened in the mother's eyes as she tried desperately not to cry, but the trembling lips and sagging shoulders were unmistakable signs of the surge of emotions soon to follow.

The father would try somehow to be strong, to be a man, but the shock of seeing his young boy, his soldier, his Marine, wounded and dismembered was always more than any one of them could take.

The silence of these reunions blanketed everyone and everything. Nothing moved. No one breathed. No sounds from anywhere. It's as though time stood still until everyone had absorbed his share of the fear and pain and confusion. Anything to make this easier; make it go away.

The terror would well up inside a kid as his mother and dad stepped slowly toward him, about to see him for the first time, the bottom half of his legs gone or nothing left of his arms. Legs that would never carry him through their doorway back home or hands and arms never again able to touch a loving face or hug a mother goodbye. And, dear God, when the silence would finally succumb to reality, the explosion of sadness and disbelief would engulf the entire being of Ward 2B.

Nightmares would swell up and down the ward following a first visit. Irrepressible bursts of terror cracked the darkness as land mine explosions repeated themselves and phantom pain soared through ghostly limbs, and the war came back to life again and again. One nightmare ignited another, and another. The nurses and corpsmen would rush from one end of the ward to the other, crisscrossing up and down, frantically comforting the haunted souls with morphine.

A couple of hours would pass and Ward 2B would lay awash in a trembling quiet and wait—wait once again for morning.

Salute

THE BROWN DOUBLE
doors opened and closed exactly eleven times this morning. Dr. Donnolly had pushed his way in or out eight of those times. He was back on the ward from his third surgery since seven; he and Miss Berry were doing post-op checks and changing out IV bags.

I glanced across the ward at the big-faced clock hanging above the green and white tiled entryway to the backroom; it was 11:21.

Counting was about the only mental activity you could accomplish while in a constant drug-laden buzz. Count the squares in the windows across the ward. Count the green and white tiles around the utility room entryway. Count the number of cigarettes left in the open pack. And count the number of times someone came onto or went off the ward.

When the double doors swung open for the twelfth time, a solemn-looking sailor in all-white dress uniform stepped through. He cautiously made his way onto Ward 2B. His eyes drifted back and forth, gaining an endlessly saddened face from the bodies lying on either side of him. Slowly rolling his Navy cap through his fingers, he made his way over to me and forced a hard grin. I didn't recognize him. Then he smiled.

It was William Otis Johnson.

Bill Johnson gently placed his cap on the foot of my bed and touched my left hand. His thin, six-foot frame had an ever-present preciseness, as if he were going to snap to attention at any moment for no reason, yet he radiated with a natural, relaxed charm. He had a way of making you feel better just by being in his presence. His smile was broad and easy, with perfect teeth as white and clean as his uniform. It was the same smile I saw the evening I left him standing outside Fiddler's Green.

His dark black eyes sparkled even through the sudden sadness that had punctuated his slow walk onto 2B.

“Hello Jeremy.”

“Hello Bill.”

“My, my, look what you've done now. I won't ask how you feel; it's pretty obvious.”

“I'm doing okay.”

“You really messed up this time.”

Thanks for coming,” I said. “I'm just glad you weren't with us.”

“You got that right. I knew something was wrong when you didn't show up for muster. The chief told us about the accident. I got here as soon as I could.”

Dr. Donnolly had made his way toward us. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Yes sir,” Bill replied.

“He's very lucky. I understand one of your friends didn't make it.”

“Yes sir. The chief said he died instantly.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“The other two…are they okay?” Bill asked.

“They're doing well. They're down the hall on Ward 2A,” Doctor Donnolly said. “Well, the worst part is over for your friend here. Isn't that right, Jeremy?”

“Yes sir,” I replied.

Dr. Donnolly gave Bill a quick smile and circled around him toward Ski.

Our conversation drifted in and out with the ebb and flow of the morphine in my brain.

“I think you're in pretty good hands here,” Bill said.

“Yeah, I think they're some of the best,” I grinned. “You have a great time on that tour, okay?”

“It won't be the same without you.”

He made a quick glance around the ward. “Don't give them too much trouble. You take care.”

William Otis Johnson turned away and walked back down the ward. As he approached the brown double doors, he turned sharply around, firmly placed his white sailor cap to his head, snapped to attention, and gave a quiet salute to the Marines on Ward 2B.

Earl Ray Higgins, from his bed five spaces down, raised his right hand into the air and gave him the finger.

Keep It Inside

THE SUNLIGHT CAME
glaring through the windows, framing the wall directly across from us. Ski lay defiant in the early morning light. A Star of David pendant rested against his neck just below his right ear, propped up by the dull gray beaded chain of his dog tags.

“Dyou look like sheet,” he said to me with a wry grin.

“What?” I asked, thinking he was speaking a foreign language.

“Dyou look like sheet,” he grinned harder.

“You don't look much better,” I smiled back.

A black and green bulldog tattoo with the inscription “USMC,” arched below a pair of boxing gloves, was peeking out of the short sleeve of Ski's blue and white-striped pajama top. IV tubes, bulging up into a half loop on both forearms, disappeared under a ribbon of tape. Small blackish-red bruises marked the needle punctures.

Chalky white plaster casts completely covered his legs from his toes to his torso. The top edges of the hardened shells had already rubbed blisters high on his thighs. A metal crossbar, wrapped in plaster, bridged a one-foot span between his legs. The crossbar was molded into the casts at each knee, ensuring the impossibility of leg movement in any direction.

A catheter tube slid from under the sheet, snaked over the cast of his right leg, and emptied a cloudy, reddish liquid into the plastic bag strapped to the bed frame. The catheter tube was an obvious visible blessing that things could have been a lot worse.

Less than five weeks ago, Ski had been standing and squatting, running, crawling, sitting, and laughing. A couple of months ago, he had celebrated his nineteenth birthday. Just over a year ago, he was dancing at a senior prom.

I hesitated, but I needed to know. “What happened?”

The grin suddenly pulled down on his mouth and he wet his lips.

“Maybe I shouldn't have…”

“Eet's okay. Eet's just that my leg…eet burns sometimes. Eet was a land mine. My buddy tripped dthe wire. He took most of dthe blast…fucking gooks.”

Both of Ski's legs had been ripped and shredded from the spraying shrapnel. His buddy died instantly.

Ski lay quiet for several minutes, a hard frown creased his face, his eyes squeezed down tight, just like the face on the bulldog tattoo. The lanky kid lying next to me with the hard jaw and the strange accent, who had nearly bled to death in a jungle ten thousand miles away, already seemed like a good friend.

“Where're you from?” I asked.

“Dnew Jersey,” he stammered.

“Where?”

“Denew dJersey,” he said again, pushing on the words.

Even a farm kid from southwest Missouri would know he wasn't from New Jersey. Anyone who had ever watched television knew it was New Joisey, just like those guys on the
Bowery Boys
said it.

“No really, where're you from?”

“I was born in dRussia,” he said proudly. He pulled at the chain around his neck and held the Star of David between his thumb and finger. “And I'm Jewish, too.”

It was the first time I had ever seen a real Star of David, and now I was certain the morphine was making him delirious. Anyone who had ever been to one of Preacher Cunningham's Sunday evening revival meetings at the Freewill Independent Baptist Church knew Jews only lived in Jerusalem or New York City.

A Navy corpsman in a crisp, white uniform stepped between us and checked the IV lines dripping life support into each of Ski's arms: icy-cold blood into his left arm, nutrients and antibiotics into his right.

“Okay, Ski, let's see that bulldog,” the corpsman interrupted. “This is going to hurt me more than it is you,” he smiled as he twirled a freshly loaded syringe between his fingers. “Okay, where should the dog get it? How about between the eyes this time?” he said as he took aim at the bulldog tattoo.

“I don't care. Just geeve eet to me.”

He put the needle right between the eyes of the tattoo dog as Ski squinted down at his arm.

“The name's Randy Miller,” the corpsman said. “Everyone here just calls me Doc. You know us corpsmen; we like to think we're more than glorified medics.”

“How about you, Shoff?” he asked turning toward me. “You need anything?”

“Yeah, Doc. As soon as you can.”

“Eet's nice to meet you, Doc,” Ski said, lifting his right hand a couple of inches off the bed sheet. Doc Miller smiled and moved to the next waiting tattoo.

“You really from Russia?” I asked.

“Dyep,” Ski said firmly.

“How did you get here?”

“A bad fucking land mine,” he smiled looking down at his legs.

I laughed uneasily at the strangeness of it: a U.S. Marine, Jewish kid from Russia, wounded in Vietnam, lying next to a farm kid from Missouri in a Navy hospital in Philadelphia—home of the Liberty Bell, no less. How fucked up is that? I thought.

“What's Russia like?”

“I don't dknow. We moved here when I was leetle. My…parents…dwere…” The morphine injected into the bulldog was creeping through Ski's brain. The words fell from his lips like spilled alphabet letters, and his eyelids began to droop like little saddlebags.

Ski was a Russian Jew, and in years only, a mere boy at nineteen. His parents had brought him to the United States when he was a small child. Just over a year ago, at his pleading, they signed waivers for a non-citizen to enlist, permitting him to join the Marines.