Posted on 05/20/2017 4:22:46 PM PDT by Chainmail
Where is the first part? Can not find it.
Your picture...looked like just a kid. Interesting reading, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the ping. I thought our wounded were treated better than this.
Thank you for the link to Part 1
I was sitting outside a doctors wooden shack, sick and delirious, waiting to be seen by the Dr. at the army hospital outside Saigon, choppers came in and stretchers going by, men without limbs or otherwise shot up. I’m too emotional to write any more, reading the follow up what I wondered what happened to those men.
Click on the word “here” at the top of this article and it’ll take you there.
A great story.
I understand the nurse saying ‘you’re so tall!’ I lived in an apartment complex where a lot of guys coming back from Iraq were living on military set-aside while being treated at Walter Reed.
One of them was a beautiful young man whom I’d only seen sitting down or in a wheelchair - he had lost a leg. One day months after I’d met him, I was waiting for the elevator and when it opened, this gorgeous blonde vision, well over six feet tall, in a beautiful summer business suit, stepped out. I’d had no idea how tall he was, before I saw him with his prosthesis. He looked like an angel, suddenly standing there in the elevator door; it was kind of surreal.
I was always impressed with the equanimity and good grace that he showed throughout what had been a terrible ordeal.
You’re a very talented writer, and manage a lot of humor in the telling of a difficult experience. I laughed out loud at the vision of ‘ghost ships prowling the sea’ :-)
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for posting. I didn’t see the first part....I’ll look for it. This was much like several chapters in a favorite book.
I hope your years of recovery were successful.
Thanks for writing this. My uncle was injured on Iwo Jima and it gives me a feel for what he went through.
I have some of his stuff including a catalog of wheel chairs he had to pick from, can’t imagine having to do that at his young age. He was in the wheel chair until he died in 1967. Prior to that he was in a gurney and they had to cut his tendons to sit in a wheel chair. He played wheel chair basketball and hunted and fished till the end. He had a gun shop in the basement of his house, big stump for target, but lots of holes in the concrete block behind it. He was an inspiration to all us nephews.
Nobody could figure out why our upper body strength was so good...
Da Nang was called “Rocket City”. Don’t know if he was there, but, yes it is possible.
Thanks Chainmail...
YOUR Service and Your story.
I did not catch part one
How about a link or at least
The Title.
Thanks Again.
Hi Red Badger -
I included a link at the top of the article - the red word “here”. I’m still learning!
Confession is good for the soul. I almost decked a few of the objectors while walking through airports in my dress whites. I figured it wasn’t worth it. At my age and disposition now, I am nor sure I would have the same restraint.
“I actually wrote this for my kids - and I decided to share it with all of you.”Thank you for that decision, and the effort to write your story. Respect (and gratitude).
I was reasonably mature about it and told him that I believed that it was our duty to protect the Vietnamese allies from aggression.
He shouted at me (for the crowd's benefit, since I'm not hard of hearing) that "if you love the Vietnamese so much, why didn't you just stay there".
I told him that I wanted to but I got shot.
He said at the top of his voice "then you got what you deserved!"
I did hit him, knocking him all the way over the picnic table behind him. A campus policeman ran up and asked me what happened and when I told him why I hit him he said "huh - well OK" and just went about his business and I went on to class.
Did you get the much publicized speedy trip to a field hospital ? They always bragged that more US soldiers were saved because the average time from being wounded to getting medivac was 20-30 minutes. Just curious because that sure wasn’t the case in ‘68.
Wow, you guys had it so rough; and, you were so tough. Very impressive.
Don’t worry about the length of this installment. I loved every minute of it.
I had no idea what it was like to come back wounded from that war and now I’m more than a little pissed our heroes were treated so shabbily. Your description of the deaths and suffering you and others endured has got me choked up, so I’ll stop, except to say God bless you again. You’re a good writer.
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