Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
When Gary awoke, he felt intense pain piercing his abdomen. Cautiously, he moved his hand so he could try to massage away the pain, but his hand felt tethered by a cord, or a tube perhaps. His mind felt cobwebby, and he struggled to comprehend what held him back. His eyes saw the tube, and he followed it upward to a bag of red fluid. He tried to focus on the printing on the bag. O positive. His blood type. But it wasn’t his blood flowing into his system. Someone else’s blood now gave him life.
He tried to move his other hand toward his abdomen, but his hand was stopped by something resting on his stomach. He lifted his head slightly and glimpsed a clear plastic bag with some sort of murk inside. Part of his large intestine was exposed, raw, outside his body. He laid his head back against the pillow.
He couldn’t tell if his legs were still attached. He tried to move his free hand to check if they were there. His hand touched one leg. Then reached over to the other. His legs were there, but he couldn’t feel anything in the limbs. He felt other parts of his body. He couldn’t move from the waist down. Everything he touched was numb.
Gary tried to swallow, but his throat ached and his breathing felt restricted. He reached up and discovered a thick tube jutting into his nostril. He struggled to remember what the device was. A nasogastric tube. It ran through his nose and into his stomach. He’d inserted an NG tube into himself once during medical training.
He felt dizzy, his thoughts scrambled. His eyes refused to focus, and everything blurred. He felt himself passing out.
Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
He heard sounds. Coughs. Moans. The whoosh and hiss of machines pumping oxygen into damaged lungs. How much time has passed? Now the room was dim, and only the green and red lights of the machines showed. Maybe it was nighttime.
“How’re you today?” a voice said from above. The voice was gentle, quiet, female.
Gary tried to speak, but his mind felt far away. His tongue and throat couldn’t get behind the necessary sounds to make words.
“You’re in Pleiku,” the voice said. “At the Seventy-First Evac Hospital. You were shot up pretty bad. Just rest now. Rest.” The hospital in Pleiku was less than an hour’s helicopter ride from Dak Seang. Maybe the nurse said more, but Gary’s head started to spin again, and unconsciousness overtook his mind.
Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
His mind worked again. How long have I been out this time? He felt a strange wetness. Smelled an odor. Am I in a bathtub? His eyes opened and he saw daylight. He heard swearing. A gruff voice. Male. A brawny figure stood over him and rapidly wiped sections of his stomach and side. The wiping hurt.
“Listen up,” the male voice said. “You have an ileostomy, okay? Know what that means? Your guts are in a bag. You can’t go moving around from side to side. You gotta lie still. If you don’t, you’ll make a mess again, and I’ll have to clean it up again, and I might not be so nice. Got it?”
Gary wished the gentle female voice would return. If Gary had been more awake, he might have reached up and grabbed the male nurse by the throat, but Gary’s strength was leaking away again. He needed to clutch whatever strength he had left to stay awake, to stay alive, to fight death.
Gary’s thoughts swirled again and his vision blurred. The darkness was overtaking him, ushering him to a place he did not want to go. He had passed out before. Lots of times in college when inebriated. But this didn’t feel like passing out drunk. It didn’t even feel like going to sleep. This was something new and frightening.
Accompanying the darkness was a feeling of sliding down a chute, of traveling through space and time, of journeying to another location. His mind swirled, and he fought against the darkness, but his eyes closed, and he remembered no more.
Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
The face of Dan “Mac” McGinley emerged. Mac was standing beside Gary’s bed, looking down but with his eyes averted. This was the crusty old master sergeant who’d first assigned Gary to Dak Seang, and the old soldier wouldn’t look Gary in the eye. Gary sensed Mac’s feelings of guilt and tried to tell him that it was okay, but no words came out.
“You don’t have a beret,” Mac said. “Where’s your beret? It’s the symbol of what’s inside you. You need a beret.” An ache layered his voice.
Gary hinted at a shrug. His beret had long since disappeared in the fighting.
Mac wore jungle fatigues that had side pockets on the outside of each leg. He’d stuffed his own beret in one of the pockets, and he took it out, smoothed it in reverence, then set it on top of Gary’s hand lying on the hospital bed. “I don’t want you ever to be out of uniform,” Mac said. “Hang tough. You’re going to make it through this.”
Gary tried to convey his gratitude, but his mind was already heading down the chute. He closed his eyes and his head swirled.
Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
This was not daylight but light that punctured the dimness here and there, here and there. He saw small flashlights moving around the ward. Nighttime again. To his left Gary heard a deep, guttural gasp. The soldier in the bed next to him was choking. He gave another gasp. Choked again. Then Gary heard silence. Silence. Silence. Silence.
Gary tried to call out, but his voice was weak and hollow. He wanted to press the button that rang the nurse, but every movement was slow. Besides, he’d already spotted the flicker of a nurse’s flashlight dashing toward the next bed.
More figures ran toward the other soldier. Shadows. They congregated around the bed and worked feverishly. For some time all Gary could see or hear to his left was a commotion. Then came a sudden letdown of activity, almost like a balloon deflating. The activity was over, and the congregation of shadows drifted away. Only one figure remained…and pulled a sheet over the soldier’s head.
Gary stared at the ceiling. He blinked and vowed not to surrender to the same fate. Death might be advancing on each soldier in the ward like a swordsman on a galloping horse, but Gary swore he wouldn’t lie down and die. He was a Green Beret, one of the best-trained warriors in the world. He’d endured the most challenging situations devisable by military minds. He’d been taught to be resourceful, resilient, strong, able to survive any situation—even a fight against death.
I will not lose this battle, Gary told himself. But the darkness again approached. Gary braced himself and tried to fight, but his mind swirled. His strength was gone.
Just before he lost consciousness, he thought he heard a voice asking, “Is this all you got?” Death laughed. Gary slipped into the dusk.
Black. Dark.
Dim. Light.
Is this what it’s like to die? Gary wasn’t aware of time passing, but it must have been hours until he became conscious enough to open his eyes. He didn’t know what he would see. Would it be heaven, hell, or only total darkness? He felt stripped of all his resources, leveled, rid of all self-sufficiency.
He was glad to see the bright light of the hospital ward again. At least I’m not dead yet. He heard the familiar labored breathing, moans, and coughs of wounded soldiers in the ward. Nurses comforted patients and did their rounds. He did not want to die. He desperately wanted to stay alive.
“Glad to see you’re awake, son,” came a sudden voice from his right. The figure advanced, pulled a chair to the bedside. “I’ve been coming by your bed for a few days now and praying for you.”
Gary’s eyes focused. He saw the gleam of captain’s bars on the man’s fatigues and an embroidered cross on his collar, the marks of a chaplain. The man smiled. He was young and holding a baseball cap with a cross on it. He tucked the hat into his belt and sat down. For the first time in days, Gary found his voice. It sounded raspy, and his words emerged stilted and slow. “I’m…glad…to be awake…sir.”
“Would you like to pray?” the chaplain asked.
Gary managed a thin chuckle. “Pray? I don’t know…how to pray, sir. I don’t even know…who…to pray to.”
The chaplain smiled again. “That’s okay, son. God knows how to listen.” His voice exuded reassurance and confidence. He reached toward Gary and handed him a small Celtic cross. It was no more than an inch and a half tall, dangling from a chain.
Gary took hold of the cross. He had determined to take anything anybody gave him that might help him live, and he liked the thought that God knows how to listen. The chaplain’s words helped Gary picture an attentive God, always ready, always listening for the cries of those in need. Back at Dak Seang, soldiers had established listening posts outside the camp at night. The function of those who manned the posts was to remain vigilant, always listening for any sounds. Even in the dark, if one was listening, communication could happen.
The chaplain took hold of Gary’s hand. Gary kept his eyes open and looked up. He didn’t want to close his eyes for fear of losing consciousness again. He gripped the chaplain’s hand as hard as he could and whispered, “God…I don’t know…if you are real…or if you are there…but I’m scared…And if you are real…I need you.”
Gary was nearly twenty-three years old. It was the first time he had ever prayed. Then he closed his eyes.
Something felt different. Definitely different. Gary knew no miraculous healing had occurred. He didn’t suddenly pull all the tubes out of his body. His intestines were not all suddenly back inside his abdomen, and the feeling below his waist didn’t suddenly return. But he sensed a distinct presence he’d not felt before.
Gary opened his eyes and glanced around, searching for answers. The new presence filled the room, but Gary couldn’t see any person except the chaplain. The captain was still holding Gary’s hand, still with an expression on his face that matched the peace Gary now felt in his heart.
Five decades later, Gary described the experience this way:
When I first prayed in the hospital, I could actually sense God in the room. I had never experienced this before. There was someone outside of me who was greater than any fear or pain I felt. That same someone was able to reach across whatever separated us. He began to change the chaos in my heart and mind, and I felt a peace that passed my ability to understand it. This new presence in the room gave me this peace, and with this peace I wasn’t afraid to die anymore. I wasn’t afraid I’d never be able to walk again. I no longer felt afraid. The peace I now felt was real, and although I had a long way to go in my journey of faith, the peace stayed with me.
Gary doesn’t remember if the chaplain prayed too or how long he stayed or if they said goodbye. Soon enough the chaplain was no longer there, and when Gary’s eyes closed again, he fell into a deep sleep. It was real sleep this time—not unconsciousness—and while in his sleep, he felt his body resting, his mind at ease.
When he awoke, he was still clutching the cross. He reached over to the table beside him and placed it on top of his green beret.
One doctor had jet-black hair. He was a major and always wore a white smock with a stethoscope around his neck. He sat down beside Gary, flashed a crooked smile that felt somehow nasty, and ran through a chart, explaining the extent of his wounds.
A lot of muscle and tissue had been removed from Gary’s right side. Shrapnel was still embedded in his spinal column, but fortunately the jagged chunks of metal hadn’t severed the spinal cord. Surgeons had decided not to operate to remove all the pieces because some of the shrapnel lay too close to the cord. Gary probably would be able to walk again, but the doctor didn’t know how long it would take for him to regain feeling in his legs.
Some sort of bullet or projectile had gone through Gary’s large intestine, much of which had been removed, and some of it still lay exposed. The ileostomy had been done to allow the damaged organ to heal. Hopefully the large intestine would be reattached soon.
Multiple pieces of shrapnel were still in Gary’s abdominal cavity and buttocks and might work their way out over the next few years. The doctor announced that he wanted to take him into the OR right away to remove some of the pieces closest to the surface.
Gary nodded. He felt uneasy around this doctor, although he didn’t yet know why. Orderlies wheeled Gary into a small room off the main ward, where he was rolled onto his side. The orderlies scrubbed him down with Betadine, an antiseptic wash, which felt cold and came as a shock. But it was nothing compared with the pain Gary felt as the surgeon with the jet-black hair dug pieces of shrapnel out with probes and tweezers. No local anesthetic was given. Nothing.
Gary won’t swear to it, but he thinks he heard a weird, sadistic laugh as the doctor dug into his back.
A few days later, the same doctor came by Gary’s bed and ordered him to cough. Gary had been immobile for too long, and the doctor was concerned that pneumonia might set in. Because of Gary’s weakened condition and his susceptibility to infection, pneumonia was a real possibility. They’d started him on a new antibiotic called Keflin, but it wasn’t having the quick results hoped for. Fluid was gathering in Gary’s lungs, so the doctor ordered him to cough it out.
“No way,” Gary said. The pain was too intense. His abdomen had been split open and was only partially closed. He could hardly move, much less cough.
A few hours later, the same doctor returned and went to the soldier lying next to Gary, who’d already been diagnosed with pneumonia. He, too, was unable or unwilling to cough, so the doctor had a nurse pull up his traveling surgical tray. He picked up a scalpel, made a quick incision in the guy’s throat, took an NG tube, and shoved it into his trachea. The doctor jerked the tube up and down until the guy coughed violently.
When Gary saw this, he yelled, “I’m coughing! I’m coughing!” and he started to hack up fluid. His esophagus burned. His stomach felt on fire.
The doctor’s mouth twisted into that crooked, sadistic smile.
One morning, two weeks after being wounded, Gary awoke and saw Captain Paul Landers sitting by his bed. The captain had been the Green Berets’ team leader back at Dak Seang. He had been shot in the throat and medevaced to the Seventy-First Evac.
In a raspy voice the captain explained that Lieutenant Ed Christensen had survived, thanks in great part to Gary’s battlefield actions. Christensen was already on his way to Japan and then would head back home. Landers was going to stay in Pleiku because his wound was not serious enough to be sent home. Gary asked about Dak Seang.
“The fighting’s still going on,” Landers said. Gary was surprised. Landers explained that during the first week, the enemy had controlled the runway at Dak Seang and had also encircled the camp. Air drops were the only way to get ammo, food, and medical supplies to the troops and women and children inside. Only three helicopters had been able to land that first week.
Ten days after the siege began, an Australian-led cadre of Montagnard ground troops had reached the camp from the south. Simultaneously an American-led battalion had fought its way through from the east. Supply and medevac choppers were able to land a little more easily that day, and about half the defenders and women and children who’d been wounded were evacuated.
But according to Landers, the fight was still hot. More than two thousand enemy rounds had already fallen on the camp, mostly 82-millimeter mortars and 122-millimeter rockets, and the camp was nothing now but a fortified pile of rubble. Corpses littered the ground. The enemy was determined to win the battle, and there appeared to be more fighting to come.
Gary could only shake his head. He ached for the people he knew and loved. He thought of Chom and his wife. Dead.
Thung and his wife. Dead.
Pher. Dead.
Deo. Dead.
So many other friends. Dead.
The next morning a three-star general came by with an entourage of officers and pinned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart on Gary’s pillow. Gary said thanks but felt unworthy. He thought of Dak Seang, his family still fighting. A soldier doesn’t want to be in a hospital. He wants to be back in the battle.
Later, Colonel Lawrence, the Fifth Group surgeon, came from Special Forces headquarters in Nha Trang to see Gary, along with the group’s Sergeant Major Bowser. Gary felt honored that they’d come all the way to Pleiku to see him, although his heart was still heavy. He knew it was unusual for them to travel so far to visit the wounded. They both asked if there was anything they could do. Gary told them that he did not want to be sent back to the States and would love it if they could pull some strings so he could stay and heal in Vietnam. He wanted to head back to Dak Seang as soon as possible.
They both smiled. Sergeant Major Bowser said, “I know how much you want to stay, Sergeant. But it will be much better for you to go home now. Heal, get strong again, and then come back.”
Gary knew the sergeant major was right. Still, he did not want to leave the place and people he’d grown to love.
A day or so later, Gary found himself on a plane headed to Camp Zama, Japan. There, doctors continued to monitor his treatment for pneumonia, and he underwent minor operations on his abdomen to remove dead tissue and improve the function of the ileostomy.
Gary was able to speak to his mother by phone. The first conversation was short, matter of fact. She was glad to hear he was still alive and coming home. After the call she wrote him letters, but he wrote back only once, a short note. Difficulty of expression had to do with more than just his injuries. He was still feeling too contained within his heart.
At last Gary was able to sit up and get around in a wheelchair, although walking was still not possible and he still couldn’t feel his legs. The hospital had a series of long hallways, and Gary rolled through the corridors for hours. He liked being out of his room. In Japan he was able to read newspapers for the first time. Dak Seang was the top story in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper available to all service personnel. As he read, he felt renewed feelings of hurt, guilt, and anger. Why was he alive when so many others were dead? He saw pictures of people he knew, people he’d fought with, people he loved. He wanted to be back in Dak Seang so badly, not in a hospital and not in a wheelchair.
The feelings nearly overwhelmed him. He didn’t know where to turn, whom to talk with. The embryo of faith conceived within his initial prayer seemed real but undeveloped, smaller than a mustard seed.
Some days later, Gary was wheeled out to a C-141 airplane and placed on the top of the three levels of bunks that lined the aircraft. At first he was told he was going to be sent to St. Albans Medical Center in New York. This was the naval/marine facility where his stepfather had been sent when he was injured in the naval reserves. But at the last minute, plans changed, and Gary was flown to Walson Army Hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he’d gone through basic training, where his service had begun.
On his first morning at Fort Dix, Gary found himself in a sterile-looking ward. A wheelchair was near his bed, and he was able to lower himself into it and roll out into the hallway and past a few rooms. Other army guys lay in beds, and Gary said hello to a few, but he didn’t get many responses. Mostly guys just looked at him with faraway stares.
He rolled up to a closed door, opened it, and rolled through. The door swung shut behind him with a loud click. Inside the room a medic in a white outfit sat behind a desk. Gary mentioned to him that the other guys on the ward didn’t seem too friendly. The medic explained it was probably because of the medication they were on and asked, “Has no one told you where you are yet?”
Gary shook his head.
“You’re on a locked ward for psych patients.”
Confused, Gary asked if the medic could open the outer door so he could leave.
“Nope. Not till a doc talks to you,” the medic said.
Gary never found out whether his placement in a psych ward was standard procedure to screen all wounded soldiers coming back from combat or whether it was because of the serious nature of his wounds and the circumstances he’d endured to receive them. Either way, he was troubled.
A little while later, a doctor came in and asked Gary a series of questions. Apparently Gary answered them satisfactorily, because before long he was transferred to a different ward. This one was filled with soldiers with a variety of serious wounds from the war, mostly spinal cord injuries and amputations. These were guys without arms and legs, guys paralyzed from the neck or waist down. One soldier had burns over 80 percent of his body. His hands were twisted and his face was scarred. He would soon be sent to Brooke Army Hospital at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
A day passed and then another. Gary noticed that a number of the patients just sat around and got high. He stayed in that ward for a couple more days until he was transferred to a facility that would become his home for the next ten months—Ward 9B, Valley Forge General Hospital, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
In Valley Forge, though Gary’s physical wounds began to heal, he soon faced another raging battle. He was out of intensive care, and his hand-to-hand fight with death was all but over. But next he would fight the pain of a wounded heart, soul, and spirit—the stress of having been through trauma, the kind of stress that can’t be readily seen. In time, although he didn’t know it just yet, the battle with his emotional pain would prove more destructive than any of his physical wounds.