“Selective Service spokesmen acknowledged that a just-issued regulation may permit “dozens, even hundreds,” of men to avoid the draft by parlaying administrative delays until they turn 26. The Draft director said men desperate enough to pay the price of such tactics would be more trouble than they were worth.”

—Atlanta Constitution, October 2, 1970

33

Recovery

October 20–November 8, 1970

I stayed only one night at the 15th Medical Battalion to have the wound in my foot cleaned, but much longer was needed to heal my bruised heart. Later I was moved to the 24th Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. First Sergeant Royas visited and brought 1st Cavalry Division stationery, a new pipe, and tobacco. The writing paper reconnected me with Sandy; the pipe reconnected me with myself. I needed both because I was feeling very disconnected. He also brought bad news. Lieutenant Judge had been wounded a day after me. He was shot in the thigh with a VC AK-47 round. A clever VC who allowed them all to get into the kill zone before opening fire also hit Tony Daisy and Al Ervasti.

The first sergeant told me that the company had found a grenade factory near where I was ambushed and where the others had been wounded. The VC had fiercely defended their depot. Someone tossed a grenade into the bunker and set off a large secondary explosion, which blew the top off. Steve Martinez, wounded by the Chinese mine that had killed Burgess was also in the same ward next to Judge. After being patched up and stabilized both would be evacuated to Japan. I needed to see them before they left.

My concern for all the troopers weighed heavily on me. Beyond that I realized that the investigation of the patrol incident was now stymied. No one else would investigate it, and time would purge it. I was disappointed because I wanted to know the truth about what had happened—it might have been explainable, but I’d probably never know.

I felt guilty about Judge’s wound as well as my own. I believed that when he was wounded he was following my example of assertive, perhaps over aggressive, leadership and took risks that might have been avoided. I kept those thoughts to myself but noted them in my journal. I visited Judge and Martinez for a while and limped back to my bed with my heart as well as my foot, aching.

That night, relentless monsoon rains pounded the hospital so hard that rainwater flooded the floor around me. A nurse pushed my bed into the center aisle, out of the expanding puddle. I could see the television set better, but AFN was replaying the World Series, which I’d already read about in Pacific Stars and Stripes. There was no escaping my doubts, a wide range of them. I had to face them.

So there I lay rusting in bed 8, ward 4, 24th Evacuation Hospital. My ankle and Achilles tendon were sore as hell. Very early in the morning, even before coffee, two nurses rolled me into surgery so the doctors could dig into my ankle.

“We’ll remove the fragments from your ankle. How do you feel?” asked one of the doctors.

“I’m okay.”

“If you aren’t in too much pain, we’ll give you a local in the foot and do a spinal block of your legs. That way we won’t have to put you out with a general anesthesia. You’ll recover much faster.”

“Fine by me. I don’t want to be put out anyway. I was awake when it went in; I’ll be awake when it comes out.”

“Roll over on your stomach. Let your feet hang over the end of the bed, so we can get to your heel better.”

With a little help I rolled over. The cold air on my butt told me it was exposed to the air conditioning in the operating room. A nurse covered me with a thin sheet.

I thought they would never finish probing my ankle. After a while, the doctors stopped talking to each other and one moved around to my head.

“We’re having trouble getting the fragment out. It’s lodged between your Achilles tendon and anklebone. Getting it out may cause more problems and damage than leaving it in. What do you think about that?”

“Feels like you’re sawing my foot off. What happens if you just leave it?”

“Your body will cover it with a protective layer of tissue. It may move around some, but if it causes any problems, it can be removed later.”

“Leave it. I’ll keep it as a souvenir.”

I had been lucky again, and I knew it. The fragment had gone into the fleshy part of my left ankle. Had it struck an inch to either side, I would have had a more serious problem with either a fragment in the anklebone or a severed Achilles tendon. I recalled my good fortune when Lieutenant Than shot me in Cai Lay in 1967. I had been spared by an inch both times.

Customer service is of a different variety in a war zone hospital. Nurses do very little for you; they insist that patients do everything possible for themselves. Pain is a good thing. It means you’re still alive. Therefore I went to get my own coffee. Where were the Red Cross “doughnut dollies” when you really needed one? Planning ahead, I took one crutch so I would have one hand free to carry the coffee. Unfortunately once I poured the coffee, I couldn’t hop on one foot and still keep the coffee in the styrene cup. After scalding my hand a few times with spilled hot coffee, I sat the coffee cup on a table, hopped past it and reached back, advanced the coffee to another table, and then hopped again. When I got to my bed the show was rewarded with applause from others watching from their own beds. Unfortunately the coffee was cold by then, and the cup was half-empty; a trail of dark puddles on the floor showed where I’d been. Nevertheless I was thankful to have half a cup of cold coffee.

I was depressed in the hospital, where I gave up hope for flight training. I was scheduled for another hearing examination and a flight aptitude test while I was there. I was certain the ringing in my ears from the last mine blast would indicate further loss of hearing. I also missed the guys in Bravo Company, and I was especially worried that I might lose command of the company. I had to get back on my feet and return to the unit as soon as possible.

But for now, all I could do was lie there and think. I would be a father soon, and I wondered whether it would be a son or daughter. The situation reminded me of my own father and how I was born while he was in the Navy during World War II. I missed Sandy so much that it hurt, and I hoped she was getting by all alone. I hadn’t figured out what being a good husband meant yet, much less a father.

October 21, 1970

Dearest Sandy,

No! I don’t want my son to be a Junior! I want him to be his own individual self. I hope to have his respect, but not to monopolize him. I want him to learn to stand on his own feet much younger than I did. Not that I won’t give him all the support he needs, but I don’t want to over-shadow him. I want him to absorb my good traits and cast off my bad ones and weaknesses. I don’t want a junior. I want a new and better person and we will have one.
    I feel very closely associated with my father right now. When I was born, he was in the Navy in World War II. I know how he felt now. I can hardly wait to return to Columbus and my little family. I want to show off my kid when I get back.
    Be sweet, darling, and write often. I love you more than I can say. Take care of yourself and our baby. I need both of you.

I wrote a second letter of sympathy to another family—our pointman’s. It was the hardest letter I had ever written. Losses were tragic and connected to choices I had made. Mercer had died in retaliation for a successful ambush I had ordered, and Burgess on a patrol I had led. Both deaths had a profound impact on me, as they joined the prodigals who still visit me. Perhaps they never left. I wish I could see them in life again, with families of their own. I missed them then, I miss them still.

As I sit in bed with a clean sheet, a hot black cup of coffee and a White Owl cigar, I have time for philosophy. I sit here in the comforts of the hospital bed—even smoking in bed, and desperately wanting to go back to my company in the field. I’m lucky to be alive, but that isn’t enough. I’m drawn back to the war to get recharged. Death and danger are not enough. Once you learn to live with them, it is difficult to live without them by your side. Why do young men keep going off to war? Why do countries continually send their sons to war, to waste their blood on fields of battle?

On October 24, the doctor woke me at 6:45 A.M. “Wake up, Captain. I need to look at your ankle,” the doctor ordered.

“The days get real long when you wake me up so early,” I replied.

“Do you want to leave tomorrow?” He surprised me.

“I want out now!”

“Well, I have to sew up the hole in your foot, but it looks pretty good. Are you ready now?”

“You mean stitches?” I was being challenged. “Damn right,” I replied.

“I don’t have any anesthetic here. Do you still want to leave today?” He was testing me.

“Why are you talking instead of stitching?”

“Turn over on your stomach and hold on.”

I thought about a million cowboy movies and wished I had a shot of whisky and a bullet to bite.

He stitched my ankle on the spot. Then I walked without a crutch, but as the blood rushed down to my foot, the pain rushed up to my head. Every time I stood up, I had to hold onto something until the flow of blood and nerves were stabilized.

I hobbled to the ear, nose and throat clinic for the new hearing test the doctor had ordered. Tests confirmed a 55 percent hearing loss at 4,000 decibels. I would need waivers for hearing and time in service to qualify for flight training. Only one waiver was permitted, and none was assured: flight training was definitely out. Later Chaplain Ron Rodeck came by for a visit, timely, I suppose. I liked the battalion chaplain, but I really didn’t need a sky pilot right then. Maybe I did but I wanted to fly solo for a while, anyway.

I was released from the 24th Evac at 11:00 A.M. By 11:30 a light observation helicopter from Brigade had picked me up. I was at Fire Base Green by 12:30 P.M., in time for lunch. Bravo Company should have been there already, but its extraction was delayed because it had selected an inadequate pickup zone. I was concerned; selecting LZs was a basic function in an air cavalry company.

Tony Labrozzi greeted me warmly, and he agreed I should go back to Bravo Company as soon as the doctor released me. I was encouraged by his support. I hobbled to the aid station for a release from light duty. Instead I received more bad news. The surgeon told me the incision was wide, requiring two more weeks until the stitches came out. I argued I had been in the field with stitches before, but he would have none of that. Actually I knew he was right. This wound was in my foot, which I kept sticking into the jungle mud. The wound would become infected, creating a more serious problem. So I resigned myself to impatiently waiting a while longer; but waiting was slowly killing me.

The duty of fire base security commander fell to me, but I had no company to man the perimeter because Bravo Company was delayed. I rounded up cooks, clerks, and other warm bodies to do the job that night. I was thankful the motley crew was not attacked, even though my luck had been mostly bad.

Despite my hearing loss, orders directed me to Da Nang for the flight aptitude test. I was discouraged about my hearing, but preferred going to Da Nang to sitting around. Labrozzi agreed. So I took a Chinook to Phouc Vinh, a C-123 to Tan San Nhut, and a Lambretta taxi to Saigon, where I registered at an old French hotel called The Arizona, bachelor officer quarters. It was not as luxurious as I remembered the Rex’s being two years earlier, but I was broke anyway. I found enough change to buy two beers at the hotel bar, and a Red Cross worker bought me another. The bar was filled with Vietnamese whores, but they left me alone when they saw the size of my bankroll.

The next morning I sat at the 8th Aerial Port from 8:00 A.M. until 8:00 P.M. waiting for a flight to Da Nang. The first flight had been overbooked, and the next two were canceled. A final flight was cancelled at 8:00 P.M. I was stranded for another night in a fleabag hotel and further delayed en route back to the airfield next morning by a two-hour funeral procession. Consequently I missed the first flight again. By then, I was so disgusted that when a flight to Phouc Vinh was announced, I jumped on it instead, giving up hope of flight training. I went back “home.” There is just no place like home.

I was anxious to return to the field, but a typhoon blew through southern Vietnam and choppers were grounded. A crazy warrant officer decided to try to fly to Green anyway and invited Bob Kon and me to go along. We flew through heavy rain for an hour and a half between craggy mountains, buffeted by high winds and with visibility obscured by clouds and fog. As we circled aimlessly, I heard a pilot say on the intercom that we were over Cambodia.

Eventually we landed at Song Be for fuel. Afterward, the pilots aimed the helicopter along the highway five feet above the blacktop, guiding on the faint centerline on the road. Any higher and we could not see the road in the heavy fog and rain, any lower and we would need wheels. If there had been a truck on the road, it would have ruined our day, but no one was so foolish as to drive a truck in that weather!

I made it to Green on October 31—Halloween. I swore I would never leave again! Bravo had returned during my absence, but it was already prepared to return to the jungle. I was a caged animal. It was Sandy’s birthday, and I missed her more than I could stand. I wanted to go home and I wondered what she was doing. I wondered what she thought I was doing, if she had any concept of what was happening here. I doubted she could fathom it from my sketchy letters. I wished my writing were more lyrical. I knew my letters were boring; I had lost my inspiration for writing while being careful not to reveal too much. The good stuff was between the lines.

On November 1 Bravo Company conducted a combat assault into War Zone D. I was left to sadly watch their departure from the sidelines. My low morale sagged even further: I had ten more days of light duty, and I was weary of shamming. Ten endless days!

I ventured back to the rear, restless and wanting to stay occupied. I found Capt. Ted Plucinski, the battalion surgeon, at morning sick call and we shared a cold beer while we watched a football game on television. That was the best therapy Ted had to offer until brigade headquarters announced an officers’ call for 3:30 P.M. We found the former Alpha Company commander, George Lovelace at the officers’ club. George had left Alpha following a successful command tour and was on his way home. We celebrated his good fortune with a drink Pete called “skip and run naked”: beer, limejuice, and gin. We talked and joked for a while, ambling after dark to the 11th Aviation Group club to teach the pilots some of the finer arts. At 2:00 A.M. we stumbled arm in arm back to our base for a private nightcap from Ted’s personal stock. My ankle no longer hurt when we were finished. I was feeling no pain and I spent the night on a litter at the clinic.

The sun rose early and brighter than usual the next morning. It was followed by the first sergeant who informed me I had been selected to go to division headquarters as “king for a day.” Had I not been so hung over, it would have been the funniest thing I had ever heard. The commanding general selected one company commander each week to give his rear-echelon staff the smell from the field. Actually it was a great program, but I believed I was a poor selection, because I was shamming in the rear area, not coming directly from the field. I was simply available.

I was chauffeured in a jeep to division headquarters at 11:00 A.M., and shown to the general’s mess. There I met a gaggle of lieutenant colonel staff officers who all appeared harassed, busy, and preoccupied—but determined to make the “king for a day” feel important. After lunch, I followed an agenda that included office calls on staff officers responsible for personnel, intelligence, operations, supply, and civil affairs. Each one wanted me to tell him how to do his job better. They all listened politely when I said they were doing a fine job already. I didn’t want to offer any great new ideas that might make me a candidate for the staff.

By the time I finished the day I knew the war effort was really screwed up, otherwise we would not need kings for a day and air-conditioned officers’ clubs. My mind had probably been warped, but I still believed if we concentrated more time and effort on winning the war, we could.

At 6:00 P.M., I attended the evening briefing and was seated between Major General Putnam and Brigadier General Burton, both of whom I knew and liked from their visits to the field. The briefing officers wore heavily starched uniforms, and their hair was shaved into white sidewalls. They were stiff, formal, and clearly nervous as they stood at attention. I was relieved for them when it was finally over: I didn’t find the spectacle especially entertaining, as some did. The dog-and-pony show reinforced my intention to face Viet Cong mortars, not briefings. Little did I know!

When the show ended I accompanied the generals to the mess for cocktails and dinner. I was seated between General Putnam and the chief of staff, Col. Rex Newman, during dinner. The conversation started by Brig. Gen. “Smokey” Hyman dealt with why troopers carried their weapons on “rock and roll,” full automatic, thereby firing all their ammunition at the first indication of trouble. General Hyman put his question to me, “How do your troops carry their weapons, automatic or semiautomatic?” He intended to solicit my help to prove his point, which was lost on me.

I knew I would have to justify my answer, whatever I said. “We carry them on safe, unless on point.” That was, of course, a blatant lie, but it was the textbook answer. There was some laughter at the general’s expense, and the subject was quickly changed.

After dinner, General Hyman graciously offered me one of his trademark cigars and, of course, I graciously accepted. It was like a peace pipe offered to a cavalry officer by a renegade Indian chief. I was pretty sure Hyman saw himself as the cavalryman. Nevertheless it was an unusually fine cigar, not the Tampa Nugget or White Owl I was accustomed to. The commanding general presented me a Penguin lighter with the 1st Cavalry Division horse blanket on one side and “King for a Day” on the other. I was touched by it, and I still have the lighter even though it leaks. I replaced it with a Zippo, the real Vietnam lighter.