Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

  Though it was great to be back in the U.S.A., I was beginning to grow concerned about my leg. Since I'd been wounded on 5 May, I had undergone surgery in a string of hospitals. Each time, the doctors had been less and less optimistic.

  On the night before I came to Valley Forge, I had an emotional reunion with Denise and Margie, who had driven the three hours from our home to Fort Dix with our friend Betsy Hassler. It was a reunion not much different, I suspect, from those many of my fellow soldiers experienced when they returned home wounded from Vietnam. At first Margie was not permitted to come to my room, but a sergeant snuck her up the back stairs. Sergeants just know sometimes.

  When we were all together, few words passed. We hugged each other and did not talk about the obvious. By now, some of the wounds on my hand, arm, back, and both legs were healing, although there were still bandages and stitches. But there was still some concern about my ear, which had been damaged by the grenade, and my smashed lower left leg. If Denise had any thoughts about my condition, she never let on, although she told me later the wounds were more extensive than official communications had indicated. We tried to put a positive face on it all.

  Valley Forge General Hospital was a World War II-type hospital, with two stories, a wood frame, and a sprawling design. (Most of these facilities have since been torn down or used for other purposes; Valley Forge was closed in the late 1970s.) There was a central nurses' station, with long wings reaching out on each side, and a corridor connecting them all. The wards were open, with four to six beds on each side, for a total of eight to twelve per section, and three sections per wing. A few private and semi-private rooms were sandwiched in between the nurses' station and the wings. With four wings per ward, on two floors, each ward had a total patient population of 150 to 200, and the total patient census at the hospital at that time was somewhere around 1,400 or 1,500. The military installation included the hospital itself, plus other activities supporting it, such as the troop barracks, gymnasium, chapel, small PX and commissary, service club, and even an officer and NCO club. There was also a nine-hole golf course. Later, an amputee instructor gave some of us instruction there on how to play golf as an amputee. The facility was not large, but covered maybe 200 acres, including the golf course. The orthopedic ward--3A and 3B--held approximately 300 soldiers, all male. We actually had more patients (about 400) than we had beds. The hospital got around that by putting about 100 people on convalescent leave at any one time. The hospital was full.

  Valley Forge was a general hospital, in which every kind of medical problem was treated. There were psychiatric patients, an entire ward devoted to amputees, and an orthopedic ward devoted to non-amputees.

  I was admitted to Ward 3A/B, the non-amputee orthopedic ward. We had a lot of badly hurt soldiers there, a lot of them much worse off than I was. At first I was in a room by myself, but later shared one with a warrant officer aviator named Tom Merhline. Though Tom had severe abdominal wounds and couldn't get out of bed, he was a tough guy and fought his battle day after day. I admired his courage.

  As for me, the next several months, I ran up against a wall I could not get over no matter how hard I tried.

  DECEMBER 1970

  After more than six months in the hospital, I knew I had to make a decision about the leg. I talked about my choices a few days before Christmas with Dr. Phil Deffer, the chief of orthopedics at Valley Forge.

  "So, Doctor, what are my options?"

  "You have two," he said. "First, we can continue to work on your foot and ankle to try to stop the infection and help you walk better. We'll leave you with something that looks like a foot. Chances are you'll be able to walk a few blocks without too much pain, but you might have some continued bone infection."

  "What's the other one?"

  "Amputate your left leg below the knee and hope we got high enough so there is no residual infection. We'll probably have to leave the end of your leg open for some time, to be sure there is no infection in the remaining bone. No guarantees."

  "What about staying in the Army?"

  "There's no way to do that and keep your leg. The Army does allow amputees to remain on active duty. But that depends on your motivation and the medical board recommendation."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it."

  "Okay, Dr. Deffer. Tough choice, but that's what I needed to know. I'm going to talk about it over Christmas with my wife and daughter.

  "The choices are clear to me."

  Nothing had worked.

  CHRISTMAS 1970

  I do not like to think much anymore about the six months that had just passed. I was in a real losing streak and did not seem able to do anything about it. I was losing not only physically, but in other, less visible ways.

  Multiple operations at many hospitals up to and including Valley Forge had failed to halt the infection or ease the constant pain. For the first eight weeks after I arrived, it had been surgery every week to debride the wound. In July, they'd stopped operating to try to get me to walk. We tried it all. I got a special shoe to keep weight off what was left of the ankle and foot. Then we tried a brace above and below the knee to take more weight off the ankle. Physical therapy was twice a day, but I was walking with a thirty-degree list. I continued to lose weight. During those six months, my weight dropped from a normal 165 down to less than 130. The only thing that worked was a skin graft to the side of my leg to replace a large area of lost skin, but even that took three attempts.

  The days were long but the nights were longer. I was running temperatures almost every night, followed by night sweats. They checked for malaria and everything else likely, but they found nothing except the leg wound and the resulting infection. The cultures from my leg were not good, and I had received four or five pints of blood because of blood loss during surgery. Meanwhile, the multiple surgery had taken more of the bones away. Even with all that, my ankle remained dislocated, and I could barely move my toes. I had maybe ten to twelve degrees of motion in the ankle.

  By now I could change my own bandage, which was necessary because of the constant drainage from the wound. I did that about twice a day. It was ugly. I had been on pain medication for almost eight straight months, every four to six hours. I would watch the clock, waiting for the time to pass between medications. Try as I may, I just flat could not walk straight or put much weight on that foot and ankle. I even tried to kill an ant on the sidewalk but could not put down enough pressure to do that.

  I was losing the physical battle--and another one as well. I was rapidly becoming someone different. I was absorbed in myself and this wound and my inability to overcome it. I could not concentrate for long periods of time. I raged, but did not know at what or whom. Anger would erupt for no apparent reason. The events of 5 May 1970 ran like a video in my mind, often starting at times I least expected. That instant replay was a source of great mental anguish, and played itself over and over again, always the same. And I second-guessed myself without letup: Why? I would ask. Why didn't you do something different? Then, Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? Then the guilt: Why am I alive and all those other soldiers were killed in action? Why me?

  I had to do something. I was in free fall. I knew I had some steel in me. I had to find it, grab hold, and start back. My battle was a lot like that of many others from that generation. Some would never make it back.

  The doctors and medical staff at Valley Forge had done all they could. It was up to me. It was my choice.

  I was home on convalescent leave. I had Denise, who was both my wife and my best friend. She had been my daily companion in the hospital ever since I had come to Valley Forge in the middle of May 1970. Many times she was just there after I'd come out of surgery and was not very coherent. Always there. A squeeze of the hand, a kiss, talk, and listen. Trying to help, but puzzled by this man who had gone off to war almost a year ago and was now in another battle. "I'll get by," I had inscribed in her wedding band when we were married. The rest of that song g
oes, "as long as I have you." How true that turned out to be.

  Denise had her own battles. She had given birth to our second child in May 1966, a son who had died shortly after birth and whom we had buried in the cemetery at West Point. Denise knew about pain. For her there would be more. She knew the difference between pity and compassion. My friend.

  Our daughter, Margie, was now nine years old and also part of this battle. We would write stories together. I'd write a sentence, then she would add a sentence, and so on until we had a made-up story. Our favorite was about whales. She was, and is, a strong girl, and our future.

  And then there were my fellow soldiers at Valley Forge.

  During physical training sessions, I saw men who were amputees move around with a lot more agility and a lot better attitude than I had. Many of them had wounds far worse than mine. I was far from being the only one in a fight. We all were; many had much bigger battles than I did. We helped one another. I was fortunate to have so much help. Not everyone there had my good fortune.

  Denise said she was ready to help in any way she could, but she agreed with me. I needed to do something.

  It was a tough Christmas.

  We did what we could to make Christmas the usual joyful time it has always been in our family. Denise even bought me a La-Z-Boy chair, black like Blackhorse, with a raise-up footrest so I could keep my foot elevated. She did it, she said, because when a wounded combat veteran talks to visitors, he should sit up with some pride--when I'd been home on convalescent leave, my practice had been to lie down on the couch with my leg elevated. She was trying to help me save my dignity, but I did not get it at the time. I was too absorbed in myself.

  I would sit looking at that foot and ankle. Was I giving in too soon? Should I fight it some more? Maybe some other kind of treatment was possible. More second-guessing. It was a tough Christmas, all right, not only for me, but for Denise and Margie as well. I was not much fun to be around.

  As I look back on it now, it amazes me how much my world had shrunk and how absorbed I was in myself. It happened, and I didn't even notice, but I'm sure others did. I know Denise did, but she kept holding out a hand to pull me out or to shock me into an awareness of where I was.

  One day, she arranged for us to go bowling with lifelong friends Carl and Betsy Hassler to a place called Colonial Acres on Route 222 just outside Shillington. I would stand at the foul line and, without any steps, roll the ball down the alley. We used to like to bowl together, but this was no fun at all. I was thirty-four years old and had been a decent athlete. And here I was, standing at the foul line, struggling to roll the ball from there: not exactly the image of self I'd had in mind for the rest of my life. I got the message.

  It was that Christmas that I reached the bottom.

  It was up to me.

  VALLEY FORGE GENERAL HOSPITAL JANUARY 1971

  "Doctor, I've made the choice. I want you to amputate my leg."

  The surgery took place later in January, the morning after the Super Bowl. I watched the game from my bed in Ward 3B the night before. The morning of the surgery, just for the hell of it, with my cane, I struggled on the leg I was about to have amputated down the hall to the common latrine to shave. Then I came back and they wheeled me to surgery. I would not look back.

  It was my choice. I had to win this battle and get on with my life. I had to be thankful for what I had rather than what I did not have, to focus on that and drive on. Life would not be the same. It never is.

  Following surgery, Denise was waiting for me in my room. She said nothing, but she squeezed my hand. We both knew what was going on inside. Looking down the length of the bed and seeing only one peak at the end in the sheet was a shock. It was gone. No looking back. No second-guessing. Time to get on with my life, one day at a time.

  And that is what it was. One day at a time.

  Within days, I started to feel better. My appetite returned. The pain was still there, but it was a different pain, the consequence of the open end of my leg. Changing the dressing was not my favorite time of day. We had a female Army medic who called herself "Charlie"; Charlie had such gentle hands that we all asked for her for those dressing changes.

  Due to the gross infection, they had to leave the end of my leg open until they were sure there was no residual bone infection. When I asked how long that might take, they told me it could take months. It turned out to take nine. They initially had me in traction to keep the skin flap pulled down over the end of my stump. Later, when I went home on convalescent leave, Denise and I hooked the contraption up to the bedroom doorknob to give the necessary tension. I had to stay in that for three or four hours a day for the first six weeks. I also had the usual phantom pains amputees get--the sensations that my foot was still there. They never completely go away.

  A few weeks after surgery, they fitted me with a pylon--a temporary plaster of Paris prosthesis made to go over my stump to lessen swelling and to get me vertical and bearing weight. I was anxious to walk and start moving again. I wanted to get on with my life. I was feeling better physically and now had a goal: to get moving. I could get on top of this, maybe even stay in the Army.

  As I looked back on it, the difference in my thinking before and after the operation was that of night and day. It's okay, I was able to say to myself. I've got to go on now. I'm going to get well physically. I've got a mission in life. I've got to pass from here. I've been like a fool with my family. I've got to focus, get back up off the deck swinging. I've been down long enough. It felt good to be able to fight back.

  Valley Forge itself had long traditions for our country, of course, and the courage and sacrifices of the patriots of the Continental Army, who in 1778 had rebuilt themselves into a tough army, were not lost on me. Nor were the battles my fellow soldiers in the hospital were going through. I drew strength from them. It is hard to overstate the courage of the young Americans there in the amputee ward, people such as Angel Cruz, Jim Dehlin, "Big" John, Mike Stekoviak, and Dave, who went back to being a ski instructor as a below-the-knee amputee. They were all heroes, and they inspired me.

  We all go through Valley Forge experiences in our lives. At that time, I thought Denise and I might have to rebuild the relationship that had so dramatically changed during the two years from July 1969 until March 1971. Denise had been doing everything, running the home and raising our daughter on her own. We had to get back to doing that together, to rebuild our life based on where we were, not where we had been. We began to make that happen.

  I also talked to others. One whose influence was great was retired Colonel Red Reeder, an old friend and former assistant baseball coach at West Point. Wounded five days after D-Day on Utah Beach commanding the 12th Infantry Regiment in the 4th Infantry Division, he had had his leg amputated below the knee. At that time, he could not remain on active duty. Among the things Red told me was how Mrs. Anna Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the 1950s under George Marshall, had changed U.S. military regulations to permit amputees and others with disabilities to remain on active duty. Red actively encouraged me to stay in the Army, and he gave me a book to read, Reach for the Sky, the story of Douglas "Tin Legs" Bader of the U.K., who had lost both legs in an airplane accident in 1929, but went on to fly Spitfires in the Battle for Britain in 1940. I met Bader in London some years later.

  Colonel Jimmie Leach, one of my 11th ACR commanders in Vietnam, came by one day, and so did John "Mac" MacClennon, who had been an Air Force forward air controller in Vietnam (and is now in the Connecticut National Guard). His call sign was Niles 06. One day in Vietnam, Mac had gone out and flown with me, and I damned near got him killed. Most days I was in the OH-6 talking to him on the radio while he flew in his FAC fixed-wing aircraft. One day, though, I put him in the backseat in my helicopter while I was directing an air strike; I wanted him to see firsthand what we did. Did he ever! Despite that, though, Mac and I still exchange correspondence (he came all the way down to Fort Myer for my retirement in November 1994
). Jim Sutherland, my assistant S-3 in Vietnam, also came to see me. One day he was riding in my helicopter when we got hit on one of our rotor blades by ground fire. He had been asking to go along, so the day I said OK was the day I damned near got him killed, too! And Grail Brookshire came with his whole family. The brotherhood of combat.

  And one day there was a letter from General Omar Bradley. Though I did not know him at all, he'd been told about my case by Red Reeder. The day the letter came, I had been away from the house. When I drove up to the curb and got out of the car, Margie ran up and said, "Daddy, you got a letter with five stars on it!"

  "You've got to be mistaken," I said.