Around Veterans Day, I try to write something that qualifies as inspirational, heroic, and military-related. To that end, I decided to write about me. Unfortunately, this eliminated the first two qualifications, but left the third. If any of you out there have read my book (Oh, no, another shameless plug ahead), “The Militarized Zone: What Did You Do in the Army, Grandpa?”, you’re aware of the staring-in-the-face-of-death experiences I encountered during the latter part of my military career. But I did have a couple of those early on as well.
The first one was for URI. No, it wasn’t some type of sexually transmitted disease or alcohol-related disorder. It’s an Upper Respiratory Infection. I could tell I was running a fever, so after dinner chow I got permission to go see a doctor so I wouldn’t risk making my whole barracks sick. The company clerk drove me to the hospital, where a doctor checked my temperature and admitted me. I was assigned to a ward with a couple dozen other guys. Not long after I got into a gown and settled in my bed, a nurse lieutenant checked my temperature. It was 104°F. She left, and returned with another nurse, some thin towels, plastic bags and a couple bins of ice cubes. They covered me with the towels and began packed the ice into the plastic bags, then packed the bags around and on top of me, under my arms, up and down both sides of my legs, over my torso, neck, and head. I thought I was going get frostbitten to death, feeling as if I were crushed under a fat snowman…or woman…or person. Before long I was numb and didn’t really care, so I fell asleep.
Next morning a nurse sergeant came into the ward. She walked along the rows of beds and whacked the metal foot of each bed with a nightstick. “Get up! Get your (bleep) out of bed!”
I noticed I was still alive. All the ice had melted and my fever was gone. And because the sergeant had referred to bleep, I knew she meant business. I didn’t want her whacking my bleep with her club, so I got up and stood next to my bed.
“There’s a duty roster on the board,” she said. “After breakfast, check your assignments. I’ll be back later to inspect the place.” With that she left.
My assignment was to collect the ward garbage and haul it outside to the dumpster. As I hauled my collected goods out the back door, I wondered what would have happened if I would have had one of my legs surgically removed instead of suffering from URI. Would I have to hop along, dragging my garbage behind me, trying not to fall on my face? Actually there were a couple of guys who were unable to get out of their beds, so I probably would have been excused from details in that event.
My second experience was when I fell off the overhead monkey bars. My foot hit one of the strategically-placed, injury-preventing sandbags underneath, and got twisted. Again, the company clerk dove me to the hospital. A doctor examined my swollen foot and told me to soak it in warm water, and keep it elevated as much as possible. He gave me a note for my drill sergeant which stated that I was to stay off my foot for three days. On my ride back to the company, I noticed the No. 3 on the black ball point note looked very much like the right half of an No. 8 and could be converted to one without much artistic expertise, which is exactly what I did before turning it in to the drill sergeant. When he read the note he was suspicious and used many bleeped words while he quizzed me. I kept my innocent look and managed to keep from sweating. He eventually gave up and, with another round of bleeped words, sent me to the barracks to enjoy my eight days of leisure. This did my foot a world of good, eliminated a perceived hellish week of basic training, and made me the envy of my platoon. I got to ride everywhere in the company jeep.
At the end of the eight weeks of basic, somewhat less for me, I still managed to pass my final physical tests and graduate with the rest of my company trainees.
But now, I want to offer my salute to all of the brave members of our military who weren’t as fortunate as I was, many of whom are still suffering the effects of what they encountered during their time in the service. We all owe you our thanks and gratitude every day of the year.