There Will Be Killing (2 page)

“There are many kinds of casualties in wars,” the Colonel began. “Psychiatric casualties, of course, have been around since the beginning of warfare. Human beings, although an aggressive, brutal, and vicious species, are not well designed for long-term combat stress.…”

Israel stared at his new Chief of Psychiatry and CO, Lt. Colonel Kohn, a kindly middle-aged career officer from the Midwest, and tried to focus on his little welcome speech. The other medical personnel, including Gregg, were busy with morning rounds, so just three of them were gathered at the table that doubled as a nurses station: Colonel Kohn, him, and the other new shrink, Dr. J.D. Mikel, who had called him by an old nickname, Izzy. He said it so slap-to-the-back familiar it felt déjà vu weird. Only his best friend Morrie could still get away with calling him that. And that was only because Morrie had been confined to a wheelchair since seventh grade after trying to save Israel's dog from getting hit by a speeding cab on their way to play ball in a park.

The unit's mascot, a mutt Gregg had called “K.O.,” parked her rump by Israel's chair, which directly faced the air conditioner unit blasting cold air for the entire room, and its marching line of beds filled with psychiatric casualties. If the random tremor in his hands and constant urge to puke were any indicator, Israel feared it wouldn't be long before he was a candidate for one of those beds himself.

Mikel caught his line of vision, gave a slight conspiratorial smile, and then covered his mouth for a little yawn as Colonel Kohn went on about earlier American wars, when soldiers would return with “the shakes,” or people would say that old Sam had lost his nerve, but how, by the beginning of the Vietnam War, Pentagon researchers had scientifically determined that nearly everyone in a combat situation was slowly breaking down the entire time that they were exposed to war.

“Basically, it is just a matter of time.” Colonel Kohn gestured toward a thrashing patient in full restraints. “Everyone's psyche, they realized, was slowly eroding. Some faster, due to earlier childhood and life traumas, and others perhaps from too much, too soon in the war zone, with quick and repeated exposure to horrors moving up the erosion—”

“Help me! HELP ME!” screamed the patient, jerking against the restraints with such force his spine arched off the mattress, causing the metal headboard to slam against the wall. The head nurse, a luscious redhead in jungle fatigues Israel had briefly met, Capt. Margie Kennedy, broke from the morning rounds entourage and moved in that direction.

“True, some humans are slower to wear down,” Colonel Kohn sonorously intoned, “perhaps due to their fortunate genetics and upbringing. And in rare cases, a few individuals actually seem to thrive. . . .” He glanced at Mikel before looking again directly at Israel. “But by the time we got to this war, here in Vietnam, the Pentagon was anticipating these kinds of mental casualties. This is why
we
are all
here
.”

Here. As in the 99th KO. The 8th Field Hospital's psychiatric unit conveniently placed in a combat zone. We. As in the psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurses, and enlisted psychiatric techs who are doing the good work for our brave fellow men in uniform, serving on the front lines of Vietnam.…

Finally, Colonel Kohn wound it all up with, “The rate of psychiatric casualties is huge and basically unknown to the general population back home. But really, there is one thing, and one thing only, that matters and you can never forget. The patients here are very dangerous. Every minute, every hour and day that you are here, never forget that these patients were trained to kill people. There is no locked ward. Forget, even for a second, that you are treating trained killers who have been pushed over the edge, and you could be the one going back home in a body bag. Any questions?” was clearly directed at Israel who stared numbly back at Colonel Kohn while the loud drone of the air conditioner blended with another shriek of “HELP ME!”

“Okay then, we have an interesting catatonic patient with Dr. Thibeaux to discuss, along with our rather vocal Sergeant Waters in the restraints over there. Dr. Mikel, Dr. Moskowitz?” The colonel got up, his attention carefully trained on the new child psychiatrist. “After you.”

As they moved toward the mind-blasted Sergeant Waters, Israel tried to wrap his brain around what he'd been repeatedly told in officer's training: His first priority was to “preserve the fighting force,” which meant
not
getting damaged soldiers like these home. No, his job was to get them back to their units and the same combat zones that had landed them in this front line mental hospital that made Bellevue look like Club Med.

“As you can see, we have fourteen beds here,” Colonel Kohn was saying. “These patients have been brought in from the field or came through our Camp McDermott outpatient clinic. It's just a short drive and for now the two of you will be accompanying Dr. Kelly out there every day directly after rounds.” Having caught up with the group, Kohn addressed the leader, mid-thirties at most, with thinning brown hair spared from a comb-over. “This is our chief psychiatrist, Dr. Robert David Thibeaux. Robert David, I believe you were on call last night. Would you care to fill us in on the situation here with Sergeant Waters?”

“Well, now thank you Dr. Kohn, it would surely be my pleasure.” Robert David Thibeaux's refined southern accent and aristocratic bearing struck Israel as absurd in this setting as the military making attempted suicide a punishable, criminal offense because it damaged government property. “It was a quiet night except for Waters. The Sergeant has been agitated, and ranting and hallucinating constantly about this so-called Boogeyman story that got started a few weeks ago and seems to be spreading like a bad case of VD.”

“And what has the Sergeant said about this Boogeyman?” Mikel asked.

Waters cried out a terrible sound, a keening wail punctuated by “Ghost Soldier! He gets you in the dark. Shep's dead, everyone's dead
.
Oh god, please,” he gasped, pleaded, “
Help me!”
 

For a blessed moment Israel was able to completely detach, to step outside his body and observe the macabre scene like he was back home in the movie theater, watching the horror film he'd seen last year,
Night of the Living Dead.
Only now starring in the show was Sergeant Waters, eyes bulging, panting, and sobbing; writhing in restraints on the mattress like he was being attacked by ghouls. And Mikel, he could be the director, stroking his chin and strangely untouched by the riveting performance. The surrounding audience, all dressed in mottled green, zoomed in and out, then
snap
.

A SLAM of metal bed to steel Quonset wall coincided with the sudden shriek of “STOP”—Slam—“STOP”—Slam—“STOP!” Waters' earlier shrieking and writhing violently escalated, accompanied now by terrible grimaces and facial tics that were hideous to watch.

Thibeaux urgently tried to calm him with that low, soothing voice that dripped culture from somewhere down south, an assurance of “Shh, nothing will hurt you here. All the bad things have gone away.” Then, to Margie asked, “How much Thorazine did you give him before?”

“Two hundred and fifty milligrams. He gets it b.i.d.”

“My god,” Israel blurted, disbelief overtaking his horror of the whole scene. “Two-fifty twice a day? That is a ton. He shouldn't even be conscious.”

“But as you can see, it is not even touching him,” responded Thibeaux. “More Margie, up it stat to three hundred fifty q.i.d. The hallucinations are driving his agitation towards burning him up in his own skin.”

As Margie saw to the injection, Thibeaux continued to soothe Waters in a lullaby voice until the drugs kicked in, mercifully quick, then promptly ushered the group “right this way” as if they were being led to a cotillion ball rather than another hospital bed, fully occupied, eerily silent.

“We have here Lieutenant Bill Wilson. Just brought in two days ago from Pleiku.” Solicitously, “How are you, Lieutenant?”

Wilson stared up at the ceiling, unblinking, his eyes fixed on something no one else could see.

Clap, clap!
The sharp strike of Thibeaux' palms next to Wilson's ear produced nothing, not even a flinch. Next Thibeaux shouted, “Look out!”

Israel ducked, covering his head with the hands he struggled to get under control.

Someone softly touched his shoulder. “It's okay.” Gregg's voice.

Israel forced his hands from his head and behind his back, the substance of jelly. Then Margie caught his gaze. She was looking at him with a kind of knowing look. Even if he couldn't force more than a grimace in response to her little smile, Israel was grateful.
Thank god
, he thought,
there is someone else here as scared as me.

“Observe.” Thibeaux gently lifted Wilson's arm high into the air, released. It stayed there, a mannequin pose.

“As you can see, Lieutenant Wilson exhibits classic catatonic features. The waxy flexibility of his limbs and the nonresponsiveness to sensory stimulation confirms this diagnosis. Lieutenant Wilson was found in the field, sitting there, just like this. He has yet to speak. Every man around him in the field had been killed. Clearly, they are not speaking either regarding what happened to instigate this extraordinary condition.”

“Wilson is our newest arrival and will likely be sent out within a week, Dr. Moskowitz,” explained Colonel Kohn. “We have only seven days or less with the patients. If they are admitted here, they are almost always acute and severe and if we do not think that we can get them back to duty within seven days then they are sent out to Japan.”

Thibeaux lowered Wilson's arm, touched him warmly on his shoulder, a sincere “thank you, Bill,” and he moved on to the next bed where another poor soul, in full leather restraints on his wrists and ankles, slept heavily. His face was calm, at peace, and Israel could see that he was just a big boy.

“Corporal Kim Sellers,” Margie announced, handing Thibeaux another metal clad chart.

“Corporal Sellers is completely restrained and heavily sedated with good cause,” Thibeaux continued, as though lectures in catatonia and demonstration lessons of deep compassion were just a typical day's work. “This man is extremely agitated. He is paranoid and he is violent. We have dangerous jobs here, Dr. Moskowitz. The KO down in Saigon lost their psychiatrist, a social worker and a specialist six months ago. They weren't the first and they won't be the last.”

“Lost?” Israel noticed the group was very quiet. “How were they lost?”

“They were killed by a patient. And unless we want to risk the same fate, we must all be most careful with our Corporal here. He is quite dangerous to himself—and to you. And you … and you.” Thibeaux' finger pointing down the line ended with Israel, before Thibeaux jabbed the air a good distance from the unconscious Sellers, as if he didn't trust the corporal's teeth from taking a body part while the rest of him slept. “Watch him. We will keep him heavily sedated, but do not turn your backs to him if you get him up to the toilet or you are feeding him or bathing him. The medication will slow him but he is a tied up tiger. And he will not hesitate to take you down.”

Israel willed himself to detach again, but he couldn't. His head was buzzing and his stomach churned bile, produced by the dawning realization that he was in a war zone where the patients were murdering their doctors. This was worse than anything in a horror movie. He was trapped in a ghastly prison sentence and had a year of his life to spend in this kind of special hell. Why,
why,
hadn't he followed in his father's footsteps and gone to law school instead?

“Good work, Robert David.” Colonel Kohn congratulated Thibeaux with a salute. “Okay folks, that's it. Clinic people, move out.” Then, privately, “Dr. Moskowitz, as you can see we keep some formality in rounds, trying of course to remember we are doctors here in this place.”

Israel swallowed. His throat was sandpaper. He felt numb all over, except his fingers, toes were tingling. He didn't trust his voice but he had to say something. “Yes, sir. Where—where is the clinic again?”

The Colonel came in closer, put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, Izzy,” he said quietly. “It's your first day. Don't worry, we will get you through this.”

For the second time today someone had called him Izzy. It took Israel back to more innocent times. It took him back to Morrie who would roar at the irony of his best pal getting saddled with a dorky nickname he'd ditched at the onset of pubescent acne when
Iz ze da pits or what?
threatened to stick like gum to a shoe.

What Morrie got stuck with was worse. Much worse. He would trade in his wheelchair for combat boots and jungle fatigues in a heartbeat. And because Israel needed to find some dark humor in something, do a little more penance for the accident no one had ever blamed him for but himself, “Izzy” managed a nod.

“That's it,” said Kohn, sounding like a proud coach whose best player hadn't let a little rough sacking take him out of the game. He even threw in a back slap as he called, “Hey, Gregg, would you be so kind as to take Izzy and Dr. Mikel for the usual introductions at headquarters with The Emperor, then show them the ropes at the clinic?”

“My pleasure, sir,” Gregg called back and promptly steered his charges out of the air conditioned unit and into the sweltering heat.

The effect was immediate and intense. Izzy felt like he'd slammed into an invisible forest fire while the humidity simultaneously plunged him under boiling water. He struggled to breathe. Sweat moved down his back and his thighs.

“It's hot,” he gasped, and felt so damn stupid.
You're in a war. If you aren't careful, the patients are going to kill you, and here you are whining about the weather?