THE COWARDLY LION
Chapter VI
Shoot appeared from seeming nowhere. I hadn’t noticed the doors swinging at all.
He helped my brother back to a vertical position and gave him a towel, and then went to work cleaning up the mess on the floor.
“So sorry,” my brother said over to me, and then followed up with “you don’t look that bad, really.”
“Army, you’ve got to be Army,” Puller commented from the bed on my right.
“He’s on drugs,” I quickly added, to my brother, to counter Puller’s stinging rebuke.
“We’re all on drugs,” Masters said.
“Who are these men?” my brother asked, wiping his mouth and lower face.
Shoot was done and out of the room in seconds, leaving the four of us alone.
“You’re in the I.C.U., so take a guess,” I replied.
“Marines?” he asked, looking from one bed to another.
“Navy,” Masters said, which surprised me.
If Master was in the Navy and he was a lieutenant, then he held a rank equivalent to a captain in the Marine Corps.
“Thank you, sir, for your comment then,” my brother said.
My meeting with my brother was not going well, I realized. I needed something to normalize it in some way, but both Puller and Masters were not about to be put down or left out of anything.
The Navy Captain’s wife, Barbara, stepped through the double doors.
“How are we all doing in here?” she asked, her tone overly sweet, but I could see the glint of humor in her eyes.
The woman had an uncanny ability to figure out what was really going on, I knew, and here she was again, tossing me a life buoy.
“This is my brother,” I said, weakly waving what I could of my left hand toward where he stood, next to the bed.
“Pleased to meet you, Barbara said, moving toward where my brother stood and extending her hand, which he hesitantly shook.
“You were wounded and were just released from Yokohama Army Hospital,” she intoned, not in question, as if reading from a non-existent chart. “My name’s Barbara.”
I knew what she was doing immediately. She was letting Puller and Masters know that my brother was one of us and not some slick ‘in the rear with the gear’ support officer.
“Army Ranger, it says on your shoulder,” Puller said, his voice not strident like it had been before. “Knew a few of those guys back home. Not bad.”
I knew it was going to be alright then, as long as my brother didn’t blow it.
“When you get home, you might consider minimizing my injuries a bit,” I said, as Kathy walked into the room, moved to my bed, and then pulled the sheets over my open wounds. “I wrote home but the reply from dad was pretty terrible.”
“I’m not going there,” my brother replied. “I’m headed for Virginia and a transfer into intelligence if I sign up for a career doing this.”
“Your face, it looks better,” I said, realizing for the first time that his pock-marked facial skin was no longer pock-marked at all. My brother had unaccountably suffered from a series of years where pimples had covered most of his face.
“Yeah, I was burned by the fuel in the APC that got hit,” my brother replied. “the heat melted the top layer of my exposed skin and this smoother stuff is the result. Not all bad.”
He held up his hands. I could see that they’d been exposed too, but must have taken a stronger hit from the heat, as the tops of them were pretty badly scarred. Two of his fingers were still bandaged together. He held up that hand. They broke two fingers getting me out of the burning APC. They said I wouldn’t get a second purple heart for that though because it was caused by friendlies.
I laughed out loud. “Me too,” I rasped out, trying to hold up my own bandaged right hand, but it was taped to the side of the bed.
“When you were getting aboard the chopper?” he asked.
“Something like that,” I replied, my crooked smile disappearing.
There was no way I was going to try to explain to him that I’d cut myself trying to get morphine to deaden my pain. Maybe I could tell Puller and Masters later on, as both, I knew, would enjoy the story. But not my brother. I didn’t want to risk alienating him in any way.
“You want to play chess?” Barbara asked, from the foot of the bed, Kathy at her side.
“What?” I asked back, not being able to quite keep up with the change of subject.
“Your brother wants to play,” she replied. “I’ll have Shoot get a small raised and swinging table if you think you’re up to it.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering why my brother might choose to spend our time together playing a game he almost never won.
I’d been a chess prodigy since early in high school. But there was nothing to be done for it except give in.
“What’s your time like?” I asked.
“I’m out of here tomorrow morning, so I’ve got the day, and a bit tomorrow,” my brother responded. “This Naval base is huge and quite something else. The airstrip is big enough to catch a direct flight to Hawaii, and then on to the continental USA, unlike the small airport at Yokohama. They have Yokosuka Curry here too, and I’ve just got to have some of that. You order a Rolex yet? The overseas PX is great and cheap as hell. You can get a Rolex for about two-fifty.”
I stared at my brother like he was an alien just landed on my planet. With a wife and new daughter, and iffy pay going home to her, I was in no shape to buy any kind of watch, much less one that cost about the pay I took home in any month. There was nothing to be said, although my brother went on and on about the great deals on Sansui, Aiwa, and other brands of Japanese stereo equipment pieces that were an absolute steal at the base PX.
Shoot showed up, pulling along one of the tables used to feed the patients, those getting real food, which was none of the three of us in I.C.U. He carried a box in his free hand as he maneuvered the table to my bed and then swung the long, extended top of it to a position that was slightly in front of me. He opened the box and unfolded a portable chessboard.
“You want to set these up, sir, because I don’t play chess,” Shoot said, before going to work on untapeing my left hand from the bed frame. “You won’t be getting any transfusions for a while and your blood count is good,” he went on, while he worked.
My brother set the pieces up.
“You can be white, since you’re the wounded one here,” he murmured.
“Generous of you,” Puller said, with a note of sarcasm in his voice.
“Yeah, but he’s Army, and you know how that is, even if he is a Ranger,” Masters added.
“Don’t fatigue yourself too much,” Barbara said to me, ignoring the comments made by both Puller and Masters, “you’ve got to get through a few hours, starting pretty soon here.”
Kathy smiled at my obvious happiness in having my brother by my side. I didn’t care about the chess or the comments of my fellow I.C.U. residents. My brother being there was like having a bit of home at my side.
Barbara, our volunteer, Kathy, and Shoot all exited the room as my brother and I squared off across the board.
I opened the game by advancing my king’s pawn to the fourth square. The Sicilian Defense was my favorite opening game, the proper moves and counter-moves well memorized, until now. My brother responded by advancing his own king’s pawn. My mind would not work. I could not remember the sequences to the brilliant opening. I started moving pieces without really knowing what I was doing. My brother took every advantage. We played silently for half an hour before I was forced to resign. My brother was quietly jubilant, I could tell, but all I could do was smile at his obvious happiness. He’d won few games against me through the years, and here he was easily able to defeat me at will, and I didn’t care.
I suddenly began to perspire heavily. I’d entered the zone of pain, with the morphine’s effect diminishing. I could not play another game. I knew that in a very short order I was not going to be able to communicate much, either.
Barbara and Kathy came through the double doors.
“Time for a break, lieutenant,” Kathy said to my brother.
“He’ll be undergoing a few procedures for a bit,” Barbara said, also to my brother. “Why don’t you get lunch at the cafeteria and come back about one.”
Shoot reappeared, cleared the table, and then ran it against the wall next to the red waste container. I tried to rest, back to breathing into the pain, riding the waves, and trying to think about reconstructing the chess game. In the past, I could always replay almost any game I’d played, at least for a while. But there was no hope. It had still been fun, particularly the part where my brother had been so happy to win. I wondered if I shouldn’t have lost on purpose many times in the years past. Maybe our relationship might have had a chance to develop earlier. I didn’t truly care about the game of chess. I was just really good at playing it.
“Your brother looks pretty damned good, for an army pogue,” Puller said, his voice hoarse, the approaching pain having its effect on him too.
Masters was breathing hard so I knew he was already deep into fighting the monster. Neither Puller nor Masters had abdominal or torso wounds and it was said that those were the most painful of all, but I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that there was plenty of pain to go around the entirety of our small I.C.U. area.
I was relieved to have Barbara, Kathy, and Shoot (who wasn’t supposed to even be working the I.C.U.), because I knew they wouldn’t let my brother back in until I was a few minutes into my next shot. His worry, concern, and awful attempt to accommodate my condition, had been evident by his physical reaction to my appearance. He’d been wounded himself, and God knew what his mental adjustment issues might be from his time in real combat.
My brother came back and then left again, twice more until the night came. The next morning he was back, and we got to spend two more hours before he had to leave for the airport.
I didn’t want him to go. I was hanging on by my fingernails and I knew it. The surgeries were not over, and neither were some of the more dangerous tests. We’d spoken only briefly about what might be available to Mary and Julie if I didn’t make it, but he’d really wanted nothing to do with such a conversation. I wished, for the life of me, that I hadn’t asked him about what happened to him outside of Bien Hoa. The armored personnel carrier he was in charge of ran over a booby-trapped artillery round. Of the eleven men aboard the carrier only he had survived, and he was not that badly injured. I knew he felt bad that he’d not been hurt worse, and I also knew that was natural. I’d only done thirty days of my 13-month tour and I’d always regret the fact that I didn’t serve my full time in hell. I also understood that such thinking was unreasonable, and quite possibly downright stupid. But it was real and I couldn’t get around the emotion of it by applying even the best of logic.
“That’s about it for my tour,” he’d said, when his very brief and abrupt explanation was done.
I understood that his very short explanation was anything but complete, but there was not much to be said for it. After that, he closed up. There was no more smiling or any of that. I could tell that he just wanted to get out of the hospital, Japan, and back to the continental USA.
I had to live, or my wife would most probably be on her own, with the twenty thousand dollar life insurance, plus overdue pay and unused leave, of which I didn’t have very much because I’d had to use it to be on hand for Julie’s birth at Fort Sill.
With little more than a goodbye, he was gone. We’d played three chess games and he’d won them all. We didn’t discuss the enormity of his triumph before he left. He was single, although engaged to a neighbor who lived across the street from my parent’s house in Tonawanda, New York. He had his Rolex Submariner, and a load of Japanese stereo gear shipped to his next duty station in Virginia.
“Sounds like he had a bad tour,” Masters offered, when I remained silent right through the normal drug administered time, right after which I would normally have been animated and engaging in social dialogue with both men.
“I note that he didn’t ask you about your tour,” Puller said, a comment which surprised me.
“He couldn’t know anything about me or what happened in the A Shau,” I replied, trying to defend my brother’s seeming lack of interest, as to what had happened to me.
“He couldn’t miss it,” Masters said. “Everyone kind of knows you’re Junior from the A Shau. How many officers come through this hospital where they convene a full Naval Board of Inquiry and hold it right on-premises here? My dad says none. You probably haven’t guessed that you were in a private room instead of down here so they could assemble and do that.”
“What if I’d died?” I asked in shock, not having had a clue that the board of inquiry might have been causal in my not receiving intensive care treatment right away. “This room was full, though,” I went on.
“There are three of ‘these’ rooms,” Masters said, “or at least so dad says.”
The pain and the awfulness of what I was being told, plus the lousy ending to my brother’s visit was sending me into a depressive spiral. I had nowhere to go. I had no contact with my wife. My Marines were all to hell and gone, or dead, and here I was, in some anonymous I.C.U., one of many, set away in a country where English wasn’t much spoken or cared about. But I had to live. My wife and daughter needed me. Puller and Masters could not see me weaken and fall. I breathed in and out and tried to get aboard the waves of pain that were getting larger and larger as they came at me.
“My dad,” Puller started out, then delayed a few seconds, before continuing, “said that he’d heard about you and would have been proud to have had you with him at the Frozen Chosin.”
“Your dad? Chesty Puller, has heard of me?” I was shocked, awed, and deeply impressed.
I wondered then what he’d heard. Korea was a war that had never even been discussed in my whole time in the Basic School, or at the artillery school in Fort Sill. I’d fought my war at about in hundred-degree temperatures in a fetid misting rain and even more fetid stinking jungle mud. I couldn’t imagine what it might have been like to fight in the depth of winter, without proper winter equipment and against such overwhelming odds. I got aboard the waves of pain and rode. I could do it. I’d used Chesty Puller as a motivator when I’d been down in the Valley and he was now becoming my personal motivator here, strictly out of a fortune. I would meet him. He would find a way to come to his son and I’d meet Chesty Puller. I fought the pain up a swell and then rode down the other side. Fifty minutes to go. Three thousand seconds. Chesty Puller could do it. I could do it.
The days and nights came and went, although there was no descriptor other than ‘all ahead slow’ that could be applied to the time. A specific pain in my back developed. It grew worse as the days passed. Dr. Ahtai was called in, once again, because of his prowess as a cardiologist. After examining me thoroughly, he concluded that my heart was fine. The pain was caused by either gallstones or cancer of the pancreas. He called for an IVP, an intravenous dye/X-ray test, to rule out gallstones because of my age. Twenty-three-year-old men don’t usually get gallstones of sufficient size to cause such pain, or at least so the doctor said.
I was relieved to get the test because it was my first visit outside the I.C.U., and just being wheeled down the long halls felt like a form of releasing freedom.
The radiology department was ready when I arrived, after a journey of only a few minutes. The technician prepared the X-Ray machine I was to be placed inside of and then injected the dye into my I.V.
“You’re not allergic to iodine, by any chance, are you?” he asked, smiling down at me.
That smile was the last thing I remembered until I came back to consciousness in the I.C.U. I had no memory of my heart-stopping, the application of the life-saving paddles once again, or the return trip to rejoin Puller and Masters.
“Never a dull moment with you,” Junior, Puller said.
“Glad you made it back to the room,” Masters added. “We might get an even worse roommate if you’d cashed in your chips.”
Shoot came through the doors and moved to stand right next to my bed. He cranked away a bit until I my upper body was propped up by about thirty degrees.
I looked down at my open exposed torso. “No wonder he threw up,” I whispered to myself, although there was no whispering to oneself that was going to escape either Puller or Masters. Neither had had any damage to their ears.
“Yeah,” you’re a beauty now,” Puller replied as if I’d spoken to him. “You can forget about picking up the chicks down at the beach.”
I looked down at my chest. The open incision extended all the way up to my breastbone, but that’s not what bothered me.
Barbara walked in with Kathy following her. I knew Kathy carried my shot just by the way she conducted herself. She was bringing good news in a syringe, although I wasn’t in terrible pain, even though the clock called for the injection. The shock of my cardiac arrest had somehow thrown my normal schedule into the wastebasket. But, I said nothing, not wanting to find out that the pain might be merely hiding around the corner, lurking and waiting.
“My chest hair,” I murmured to Shoot, “it’s gone.”
“Well, not all of it,” Shoot replied, pointing plaintively at a couple of patches remaining. “the higher voltages cause electrolysis,”
Barbara said, viewing the damage. “you lost much of your chest hair where the paddles were applied, but it’ll grow back over time.”
“You can become a weightlifter,” Masters said. “They shave all their body hair when they get ready to do a posing.”
“Yeah, you can be in the single-digit class, lifting seven or eight pounds at a time,” Puller added. “I think your Marines called you Junior because of your face, anyway. You look like you belong on the wall of a church or something.”
Dr. Ahtai came through the double doors, alone this time, and all conversation stopped. The severity of his plain, but meaningful, looks usually had that effect on everyone around.
“You have gallstones the size of golf balls,” he remarked, “although we won’t have a hard copy of the results until tomorrow. “Not likely, those gallstones, but better than pancreatic cancer.”
Dr. Ahtai turned around and left without further comment.
Kathy injected my I.V., and then Puller’s and Masters’ I.V.s, as well.
“You’re going to need surgery to get the gallstones out, but that’ll have to wait until you get back to CONUS,” Barbara said, using the acronym for the Continental Unites States instead of saying the actual words.
“Great,” I breathed out, not really concerned with surgeries that might be coming in the future. I had to pay attention to the hours, minutes, and seconds of my current existence to make it, and I well understood that. The morphine kicked in, and I felt immediately sleepy. I knew the sleepiness must have something to do with my heart stopping again, but couldn’t be sure.
“Dr. Ahtai said you could go to 3Qh, a shot every three hours if the pain gets really bad. Gall stones can cause a lot of pain, although the pain will only come from time to time.”
“When do I go home?” I asked.
“First you have to be healthy enough to be ambulatory,” Kathy replied. “We’ve got to get you up and around.”
“Fine,” I replied, “I’m ready now. I tried to sit up all the way in the bed, but then I was gone, just like that.
When I awoke again, the lights were dimmed. I’d passed out, I knew. I tried to see the rest of my chest but it was too dark. I didn’t want to lose any more hair to the paddles. Had they used them on me again? I had no idea.
“You’re awake,” a voice whispered in my left ear. It was Shoot.
“Fessman?” I asked, before catching myself. “Shoot, I mean, so sorry.”
“Who’s Fessman?” Shoot asked.
I tried to form a picture of Fessman in my mind and all that he had been, but I couldn’t do it. I was overwhelmed with who and what he’d been. I couldn’t talk so I simply laid there, tears flowing down my face. I hoped it was too dark for Shoot to see.
“I’ve been napping here, waiting for you to wake up. I’ll go now but you can always use the buzzer. He carefully placed the small cord-connected button device in my hand.
“Fessman must have been one of your guys,” he said, walking to the foot of my bed, and almost disappearing into the dimmed light. “Thanks for that compliment.”
<<<<<< The Beginning | NextChapter >>>>>>
FOOTNOTE:
I posted this reflection 4 years ago discussing my brother’s visit
Dear Uncle Jim,
I got choked up over the news from your father and your grace in handling the negativity from others both in your story and in your responses to the posts here. I shared with my father how well you have used several literary devices to foreshadow events and tie up lines in the story that other authors might have missed or forgotten.
This chapter takes the cake. You have written Fusner / Fessman so well in the previous three books and conveyed so clearly that Junior was preoccupied with trying to stay alive in the hospital that he consciously was not thinking about the loss of him. Then Shoot triggers juniors subconscious just by being so close in the moment I couldn’t help but cry for his death, Junior’s loss and as I wiped away my tears to try and finish reading, the fact that Shoot picked up on the honor Junior bestowed upon him by calling him by Fusner’s / Fessman’s name. Thankfully my wife was in the other room and I was able to compose myself before she saw me. This could not have been written any better to make it any more poignant than how you have managed to deliver it here. Every time I think on it now I have to hold back the tears. Kudos is not enough praise for your mastery of the writing arts. Wow! Powerful! Thanks yet again!
V/r Dennis M. Pustinger
It’s been a while LT. Praying you are well!
Thanks JRW, I’m back. Life can come at us all and it can be really
hard to stay in the groove when other things get critical.
Thanks for sticking with me…and TCL is a different sort of
even more personal book.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim: I so enjoy your work. Please keep it up. I’m looking forward to reading all your words about your return to the World. Hopefully we’ll get some more of the cowardly lion real soon. I’ve shared your works with others, and they are all stumped for words other than “WOW.” Thanks again! And Happy New Year.
Haven’t seen an update in a while. Hope everything is ok and you guys are happy, healthy and had a great holiday season! Can’t wait to find out what happened to the rest of the company and the result of your visit from all those officers.
semper FI
Waiting patiently for another chapter Lieutenant!!! Merry Christmas
Starting back this day Stuart…and thanks for the motivation…
Semper fi,
Jim
What a great after-Christmas Day comment Lt, to let us know you are doing OK, and looking forward to follow the progress of the “Lion.”
I believe a lot of guys have been quietly slipping in and out of here just to check on you and to follow your progress. It helps us in untold ways as we all deal with the challenges of 2020, and the unknown to come.
All the best, Tom Thank you
About time for another chapter Lieutenant!!!!
Today.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, Sir, LT, Junior:
I got the two copies of the ‘THIRD THIRTHY DAYS” the other day in the mail and it made my day.
One if for me to keep and anther to gift to a friend.
I now have all three and I cherish them all.
I so appreciate your eye-opening, heart-pounding writing of your experiences.
I have learned a LOT–about the realities of the Vietnam War, the real and harrowing life and death struggles you and your men daily faced. And when I read each chapter, I found myself right there beside you!
*******************************************
I often think about how close I was to being a Marine in Vietnam back in 1968. Back then, I was supportive of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In late summer of ’68 I was a 20-year old college student with a double major and had a 9th semester coming up to do my student teaching; I was an emotional and mental mess as the gal I was head over heels in love with decided to dump me in August and go back to her long time boy friend (who she married). So in a way, I guess I wanted to escape to somewhere and channel my anger and emotional turmoil in a positive way. And try to make sense of me and the sudden turmoil of my life…
I figured I could leave college, join the military, volunteer for Vietnam and be out in a year and 9 months. My parents were not rich, so when I would come home from Vietnam I could use the GI Bill to help fund my last semester, eventually take advantage of other veteran benefits. My parents nor anyone else knew I had gone to talk to the Marine recruiter. Twice. All I had to do was go back the third time and sign the paperwork.
Shortly before the fall semester commenced I decided to break the news of what I was about to do to three of my college buddies (fraternity brothers) when we went out drinking that night. They spent the next 3-4 hours talking me out of going back to sign the final papers–and they were successful. They asked if I had thought of the possibility that I might not come back? Or if I did, would I come back with all body parts I currently had? I genuinely had not given either of those things any thought.
I have often wonder if I HAD followed through with my plan to serve in Vietnam, how different my life would have been. Or would I have even survived.
Some good friends of mine are Vietnam vets, but they rarely speak in detail of those days.
I have nothing but the deepest respect and admiration for you and all those who served–many of whom faced incredible hardships and perilous situations; experienced the frightful
horrors that mortal combat brings; and who–after returning home–struggled as they wrestled with their personal “ghosts of war” that followed them home from Vietnam.
May God Bless them all, and bring them peace.
May God bless you ,LT–and bring you peace.
Thanks for that great lengthy message. I am glad you did not go, in the end.
No bliss came out of that conflict that I know of.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, reading what you have written, I can picture everything as if I was there. Very special talent you have. I love to read and you are the best. I thankfully missed out on Vietnam. Graduated in ‘74 but did have my draft card. I’m in my 28th year of LE. Retired and went back. I like it too much. Swat 11 years, now in 12th year of investigations. Knew a lot of older guys that were in Nam, one went was blown up in a duster and was only one who survived. Another got the full treatment from an AK and survived. I commend all the guys who elected to or had to put it on the line in the service. So hope and pray you are well and keep the writing going. Question are you finished with The Cat and Island of Sand? Det. From Clovis NM
A bit into your ICU hospitalization, in addition to your intense physical pain, you still had the possibility of sudden death hanging over you.
Once again, I have never read anything like this…
Thanks for another great chapter Jim,there’s never a dull moment in your stories. I think I have siad it before but I feel as if I’m there with you in all your adventures. Keep them coming!
Thank you, Sir, for sending me the corrected link. Reading about your brother was horrifying, if there is an all-knowing God, he sure has a sick way of dealing out fate.
Standing by for your next chapter.
Semper Fi, Sir
Appreciate your support, Paul.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim I ordered the last 30 days on 8/28 for two copies $51.90 i have received only one copy in the mail last week. Am I to expect another copy at a later date? I know there have been glitches with the publisher. Please advise. Thank you.
As always, thanks for the ride LT. Semper Fi.
Great to see another chapter, LT. This is going to be one hell of a survival story. I do have a question. Is “30 Days” available in an audiobook yet? In the future?
Semper Fi. Stay safe and healthy.
Joe, The First Ten Days is currently available as an audiobook and the Second Ten Days in progress.
It is available for download or Flash Drive here on the website.
Download
Flash Drive Audio
Joe, The First Ten Days is currently available as an audiobook and the Second Ten Days in progress.
It is available for download or Flash Drive here on the website.
Download
Flash Drive Audio
Well, James, another riveting, tear duct clearing masterpiece!
Anything coming up in the near future, LT? Hope you and the family had a great Thanksgiving and you are staying healthy and safe!
Semper Fi
Working slowly on the Cowardly Lion and will try to finish two Arch Patton adventures in 2021.
Thanks for your support, Joe
Semper fi,
Jim
Thank you for your writing of the continuing story. I believe to this day that for those of us who were hurt, both physically and/or mentally, that this segment of their time is far more…and I don’t know quite how to say this, but far more haunting(?) than the actual time up to getting hit.
For those of us with residual injuries, and that is all of us, It is here every day to remind us of an incident that no one can understand. We each went through the hospitals by ourselves even though we were on wards of 40 to 50 people just like us.
I could write about this for a long long time and still never get the point across of what happens when you send young ones off to war. You have the skill. Thank you for this, the most important part, of your story. Keep writing. Like I said, you have the skill. I, and all of us, will be Patiently waiting. I learned patience is the hospitals. It was the hardest thing to learn as a young man.
I am sorry to hear of your brother. I can imagine that your later years would have been very comforting to each of you. But as you know you take it as you can because nothing is for sure. You had the time together and it reads like you had a good time. Thank the good Lord for that.
Take care, be safe.
You just keep pulling us in. Nothing but respect for what you are. Thanks for the ride.
Thanks so much Steven, much appreciate the compliment in your words and intent.
Semper fi,
Jim
I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for you. A lot of people would have given up. You truly are a a source of inspiration. It doesn’t matter what many of us go through. You have what i term as “inspirational motivation” and it can help inspire more people to overcome their own difficulties. Many thanks James because you have motivated me to be better.
It was the greatest compliment to me to get home and read General Masters letter to my wife. I still have it.
I had no idea that I had such an effect on his son during such a tough time for him. We go through life so unknowing.
I had a Marine caption, now gone, friend of mine who got flummoxed over something and could not go on. I asked
him what was wrong with him. He shocked me with the truth. “Strauss, I don’t know me.”
I laughed at the time, but no anymore. It is very hard to know yourself.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hey Lt. Just finished Chap VI OF Cowardly Lion. First off , sorry to learn about your Brother. Seems to me a crappy turn of fate after what he had previously gone through. Also learned we have a bit of common history In that I too, at a late date in my life, learned to live without the aid of “man made” religion. Won’t belabor the point nor reasons. Suffice to say I am still learning from the account of your recovery so far. As others have said, will stay with it all the way. Take care Lt..
Thanks for the great compliment in your choice of words Charles. Means a lot to me to think
the work is helping rather than just being something to build the brand or sell other books.
I put it all out there for free for several reasons. One of them is to keep me from being
arrogant. Another is that a lot of vets end up with little money.
Semper fi,
Jim
Wow Lt., had no idea this book would be as gripping as the 30 Days series! Now I eagerly await each new chapter. Looks like recovery is going to be a long hard road. BTW, I already purchased the First Ten Days book, is it possible to purchase the Second and Third Days separately or together? Thanks.
Yes, Tim,
Chuck will send you an email with details.
Thanks for your support.
Semper fi
I received the Thirty Days books a few days ago. Thank you. I have a friend who was a Marine FDC on Hill 55 in 69. I have been telling him about Thirty Days since I started reading chapters on line. He is eager to read these books. Thanks again. Cowardly Lion is great.
Mike R.
Thank you for your support, Mike.
Remind your friend he can purchase the
eBook versions
Autograhed Paperback Versions
Or read here on-line.
There is a modest access Fee for each book after the second chapter of each.
Semper fi,
Jim
This sentence “But it was real and I couldn’t get around the emotion of it by applying even the best of logic.” It is exactly what I need to hear. I am so tired of people telling me to “get over it” or “you did the best you could” and all the other platitudes. Why I don’t tell people that I am on meds for something almost 50 years ago. Why I spend so much time camping in my truck by myself in Yellowstone or Alaska. Logic fails at times. Great words. Thanks.
Yes, I too have heard that phrase, many times. Just get over it. I no longer become enraged at hearing it.
The first time was from a VA psychologist back in the old days (70’s). I had a lot more to get over back
in those days, however. I am rather complacent in my existence at this age and with this body of
wisdom and life experience.
I sure get the camping at Yellowstone. Did that.
Alaska too. I came to realize over time that I did not really belong out
there alone. Hope you realize that too.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, Thank you for continuing your history of your Marine Corps experience. Your post-combat recovery is an important part of what you, and other combat veterans went through.
Thanks James, the recovery is almost as strange as the tale of 30 Days. Sometimes I wonder if I was
not in some drug induced coma and made the whole thing up…but then, the devil is in the details. Nobody
could make up all those details. My memory of even the pain inside the old Yokosuka compels is right with me…
the bad tiles in the shower, the squeaky hand cranks on the beds and the crispness of real starched and ironed hospital sheets…
and so much more.
Semper fi,
Jim
I find your writings therapeutic, hanging on every word. My own traumatic experience in combat and the aftermath pales in comparison, but by the slightest of margins I can somehow relate. As with Thirty Days, I cannot wait to see which direction you take the story and how many tangent tales you delve into along the way. Keep it coming.
God was strange with me, all the way up to now. I was constantly exposed to people of high rank and fame, although I never
sought those positions to be in. Interesting stuff though. I never found many of them living in any kind of bliss, however.
Thanks for the great compliment and your comment about it all here…and your own service, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
Hell yeah, we want to read it!
Thanks a lot Mike. Much appreciate the attaboy, and I will continue.
Semper fi,
Jim
“Fessman” I guess each of us has a “Fessman” somewhere in our past. That guy who is just out of sight, ready to come to the fore in the middle of the night, on a long lonely drive, or just when letting our guard down.
We love him, hate him, wish he would go away and cry for him to stay, just a little longer. That one sentence brought my Fessman back to me and I cried a little, thanks for giving me that moment.
Thanks Gordon. His grave is in Hawaii, where I went to visit one day many years ago.
Yes, I think of him all the time, to this very day.
Some humans are special. You don’t get many of them in your life, or mine.
I call them ‘affinity twins.’ You just know they are one with you.
It’s important to recognize and then remain in contact with them.
If you have a few, you’ll never be truly alone.
Semper fi,
Jim
James we are all still here on this saga with you…I noticed you said in a comment that you didn’t know if anyone would care about the Cowardly Lion….well…I can only speak for myself, although I think others feel the same way, of course we care…you have brought reality, truth, clarity and some understanding to an otherwise largely forgotten set of events…and when you said “Fessman”, I have to admit…I got a little misty…but what a great response from Shoot…thanks again for telling your awesome story….
Yes, the support people saved my life, but lifting my mind from the pit of the A Shau.
Doctor North, being black, also nailed down the fact that it was not going to be possible
for me to resent blacks because of what had happened in the company. And Zippo, of course.
Semper fi, and thanks for the great compliment inherent in your own.
Jim
Your’e 100% correct about abdominal pain being the worst of the worse. Just reading this I get a tummy ache!
For some reason the abdomen is like the center core of our being. That deep aching pain is like no other.
Thanks for the comment and the reading.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, I can’t even imagine the pain you went through. God bless you for surviving to tell your story. Semper fi Marine, if you will allow me to use that term!
I was and remain a Marine. You cannot really much take that out of a man.
I’ve always felt terrible for those guys who got a BCD or DD and how they would live
with being turned away in the worst way. I sat on special courts back in the world.
I never went against any vet just coming home. Couldn’t do it. So they finally took me
off of those.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, your writing is so very powerful. Yeah, touched me in a unique way. Thank you, brother.
So happy to be of service and so pleasant to get such a grand compliment. Most writers would kill for that kind of personal review.
Thank you from the depths.
Semper fi,
Jim
The last short paragraph brought tears to my eyes.. I had to recover a bit to read the comments.
A sincere thank you John. It was a tough time, although it is somehow easier to write than 30 Days was.
I get fact-checked less too, as the story of coming through the medical system, that part of my return, is
something so many people can identify more. I’m not running totally against mythology.
Appreciate the sentiment and compliment imbedded in it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Agonizing ordeal, dealing with gut wounds! Thank God you survived at all! Thanks for the read.
Another Junior, and you are all of that. Thanks for being with me through time here.
Yes, those wounds have never been equalled in my life and I hope they never are,
particularly since they now really hold back on the morphine.
Thanks for the great comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
I was floored by one of the comments saying, “lost your brother”! Did I miss something? Something happen to him? Thanks for continuing the saga. I love your work.
Buck, I wrote about my brother in a Reflection 4 years ago.
Thank the Living Christ
Great to be reading your words agiain, James. I had an Aunt and Uncle who lived in Tonawanda. Peggy and Chuck Lyon (oddly enough).
Thanks for the association. Tonawanda. Huge suburb. I used to drive around in it
until I was lost in my brother’s crummy little Triumph Herald sedan. That thing only had a big speedometer on the dash and about thirty horsepower. It was unknowing fun to live
in such a truly American suburb of the time and check out all the people that would be out in summertime back then.
Semper fi,
Jim
That just may have been your best chapter yet. I have read them all.
Thanks Robert, as I wasn’t sure the anyone would care about the The Cowardly Lion.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, Thanks for adding the link “Thank The Living Christ” so we could better understand what happened after your brother left visiting you in the hospital to finally return to the states.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ IT TO UNDERSTAND A LOT OF THINGS better, and thank you for sharing this link.
I’m so sorry about your brother, and the things that occurred upon his touchdown in the states.
That era sucked, and the pain and heartache never got better . . . and it seemed for many, the pain never stopped. God Bless You for sharing with us all. All the best . . . Tom PS: My email address had to change and is now new.
Losing my brother was terrible icing on a really bad cake. Thanks for understanding.
Got the email address change and thanks for that, as well as the great comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, the edge of the chair is starting to hurt my butt, I can’t wait for the next chapter!
Great complimentary comment, and I thank you for that.
I don’t try…it just comes out and it’s a bit easier to write than
the combat part, at least that combat part.
semper fi,
Jim
I am with you there, I know nobody could ever understand your pain, I was in ICU for a long time too and the morphine was just as you say. My pain didn’t seem nearly as bad as yours. I wish I could have been there with you. We may have helped each other.
Japan, and the guys and gals there, saved my life…although the morphine and the surgeons were a lot of that too.
Thanks for understanding and for writing about it here.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, thanks for another great chapter!
Thank you again for sharing, and particularly the reflection on your brother’s visit.
Thanks H. Kemp. Means a lot to me to hear from you and to read the thanks.
Semper fi,
Jim
James I do not know your feelings about religion, but better to believe and be wrong than die and find you were wrong !! Like be DAMED IF YOU DO BE DAME
D IF YOU DON’T ?
I try to keep my feelings about religion out of it here, because those feelings have gone through such change. I fully buy into the New Testament
but cannot be part of any church…and believe me, I tried. The same critical questions to me that I asked in grade school that got me
sent to the cloak room get be tossed out of regular churches of today…at least Christian.
Thanks for the question and for caring enough to ask…
Semper fi
Jim
We are so so lucky to have you with us LT, you are truly a fighting Marine. Keep it coming sir, Semper Fidelis
Well, my wife would like me to limit my ‘battles’ a bit more. I do have a newspaper to run,
and it’s not like much of anything else you might read…as you might expect. I also had to
pay for bullet proof windows on my car. Yes, some of the locals don’t approve of the writing.
Having the PTSD I do, however, I don’t mind a bit.
Semper fi,
Jim
PS The Geneva Shore Report is available for free online and on Facebook.
Chest hair… we mourn for the small things because the real stuff is too much to deal with. I read the Footnote and all the comments. Had things been different maybe in later years your brother and you might have shared your stories with one another. Then again, my brother (who knew of the Sullivan Act) and served in Thailand never asked me about my RVN experience. It is what it is.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
“Everyone kind of knows your Junior from the A Shau.
Suggest “you’re” instead of “your”
“Everyone kind of knows you’re Junior from the A Shau.
“Frssman?” I asked, before catching myself. “Shoot, I mean, so sorry.”
Maybe change the “r” in Frssman to “e” the same as Shoot’s reply.
“Fessman?” I asked, before catching myself. “Shoot, I mean, so sorry.”
Keep healing – both in this narrative and through the telling of it.
Blessings & Be Well
As always, DanC, your attention to detail and continued support is so appreciated.
Even with two of us going over these chapter mistakes are missed.
Semper fi,
Jim
Awesome that your brother was able to visit at that time and place even under those shared conditions you both had suffered.
My brother (drafted Army) was based at Bein Hoa and he was somehow allowed “in country” R&R and flew up to the I Corps area where I was at Marble Mountain Helicopter Facility. We had a great 3 day visit before he had to return South. I talked with him about going back to CONUS because of the Sullivan rule and I had time and grade on him, he of course refused too.
He later died of horrid cancers from Agent Orange and is still missed.
I read your story about your brother, such a damn waste…..
Keep on writing Lt. it means alot to many.
SEMPER Fi
Sorry about your brother too. The war’s toll on some families back then was quietly huge.
Unfortunately, the ‘Sullivan Rule,’ and it’s not a rule, just an informal code of conduct,
is seldom allowed in the real world of combat.
Semper fi, and thanks a lot for the great comment and your own personal addition to the story.
Jim