I was awakened by the pain and by the noises being emitted from within my room. I stared over at the figures of Pus, Kathy and Barbara, gathered together as they worked to set up an additional bed and get all the connections correct. Barbara was the first to notice that I was awake.
“How was your shower?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before going on, “and, you’re getting a new roommate. I know it must be hard to be in a room alone, after the kind of relationship you established with the other two lieutenants you were with.”
I didn’t reply, my relief at not being back in the A Shau overpowering my communications ability. I breathed in and out deeply. I was okay. I was in Japan. Nobody was coming for me. I looked over at the big clock placed up above the bed they were assembling, and then up at the television mounted high up on the wall in front of me. Would the mysterious new roommate argue over what channel to watch? I smiled at my own unintentional humor. It was all Japanese television. Channels didn’t matter, as there were also no subtitles to any of them. The clock was mounted on the wall, which placed it high above where the new patient would be ensconced. I’d have to look at the guy every time I wanted to see how much time had passed, which meant I’d be looking over at him often. I was one hour from another shot, I saw, glancing at the clock.
A one-armed man was wheeled into the room, the chair pushed by Shoot.
The man was handsome but his facial features were mildly contorted in such a way that it took a lot away from his strong-featured appearance.
“This is Lieutenant Rory King,” Barbara introduced, waving her left arm in a needless gesture to alert me of the new patient’s arrival.
The man in the wheelchair didn’t look over at me, his eyes fixed on the bed.
“When’s the next pain shot?” he asked but didn’t seem to direct the question at anyone.
“Let’s get you into the bed,” Barbara said, ignoring the lieutenant’s question.
Without any delay Kathy, Shoot and Pus surrounded the man, lifted him bodily, as if his wounds were to his legs instead of one arm, and eased him up and then over the higher edge of the bed.
“I can do this myself,” Rory said, his tone surly and low.
Everyone stood back as he eased himself around and then came slowly to a sitting position, with his butt on the bed, his back to the wall.
“Unless you have a shot for me, you can all get the hell out,” he whispered, looking at each person in the room one by one, except for me.
“Okay, then, our work is done here,” Barbara replied, heading for the door.
“You’re not due for an injection for another three hours,” Kathy said.
“Sir,” Rory stated, looking Kathy in the eyes.
“Sir,” Kathy muttered, before turning to follow Barbara out the door, followed by Pus. The wheelchair remained next to Rory’s bed. Pus gently closed the door upon leaving, his look through the closing crack not missed by me. I was being left with a problematic patient and Pus was sorry about that. That I had been so effective and popular with Puller and Masters hadn’t been ignored by the medical staff.
“What’s your rank?” Rory asked, looking over at me for the first time.
“Second Lieutenant,” I replied, knowing what was coming next.
“So, you can call me sir, too. I have the rank that is equivalent to your service’s designation of a captain.”
“Okay, captain,” I replied. “My men called me Junior down in the valley so I guess you can call me whatever you want.”
“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Rory said. “Not the best of tours. Me either.”
Rory turned his body gently around and then laid down on the bed, his head in the very exact center of his pillow.
“They didn’t turn up the bed,” Rory complained. “I need some angle to this thing and don’t call me captain. That’s a much higher rank in the Navy.”
“The button’s on the left side of your bed, to call them, I mean,” I replied, not knowing how to address the difficult man.
“Left side, very funny,” he replied.
The naval officer was missing his left arm, I suddenly realized. I pulled my thick-wired control unit to my side and pushed the button for assistance. Pus appeared within seconds.
“Angle the head of this bed up, Snuffy,” Rory said.
“Yes, sir,” Pus answered, going to the head of the bed to operate the crank located there. He cranked away until Rory told him to stop, and then he was gone, nearly running out of the room.
“They’re a great crew, you know, the people working here,” I said, unable to stop myself. “They called me Junior in the valley and now you’re calling the corpsman Snuffy. Neither of those two nicknames were or are complimentary. You lost your arm, and that’s got to be terrible. I’m not even certain yet what parts I’ve permanently lost, but I sure as hell know it’s not the fault of this team of medical people. Don’t call the corpsman Snuffy again, at least not in my presence.”
“Sir,” Rory hissed back. “And just what in the hell do you think, from your own mess of a bed, that you can do to control anything I do?”
“I’m friends with important people, but you’re correct, sir, that I can’t do much. Maybe all I can do is call my friend, the Navy Captain of this hospital, and make certain that you don’t get a pain shot in three hours, or any more, since obviously, they’re giving you morphine to help accommodate your mental, rather than, your physical state.”
“Who the hell are you?” Rory exclaimed, looking directly over at me. “Where’s this valley you keep mentioning? And why are you defending enlisted naval staff who are required to do our bidding? We’re both officers and combat-experienced officers at that.”
“And…” I replied, almost instantly.
“And,” the naval lieutenant replied, looking away from me, “please don’t stop the shots. They’re all I’ve got right now. They’re sending me to Bethesda Naval Hospital from here, but I can’t go there, and nobody will listen. My wife, down in Amarillo, Texas needs me back badly, and I can’t seem to get anyone to understand just how badly I need to get back to her. I don’t have an arm anymore. She may not want me.”
Rory held out his small stub of an arm, to illustrate his condition.
I looked at the man and my sympathy went out towards him. “So, you’re worried that she won’t want you anymore because of the arm?”
Rory looked at me, his answer to the question fully delivered by his facial expression alone.
I noted that the Navy Lieutenant had not required that I call him sir again.
“We need Barbara,” I replied.
“Barbara who?” Rory asked.
“Barbara ‘I’m getting you to Amarillo’ Barbara, that’s who,” I replied, as I hit the button on my electronic unit for assistance, again.
I had no idea what I was doing, but ever since I’d heard Barbara was not just some anonymous volunteer at the hospital, that her husband was the commanding officer of the whole place, I’d treated her gingerly, with respect, as well as a low level of fear.
Pus came into the room, his response time astoundingly fast, but he stood uncommonly at the door, avoiding looking over at the Lieutenant.
“I need to talk to Barbara,” I said, and then stopped talking.
Pus looked over at the Navy Lieutenant finally and meaningfully, no doubt thinking, I realized, that I was probably trying to find a way to bail out of the room they’d put the more than difficult Navy Officer in. Pus left, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before he returned with Barbara or she came alone.
Barbara was there within minutes. I wondered if she remained on her ‘volunteer’ hours all day and all night long, and what area of the hospital was she assigned to, as she always seemed to be nearby and it was a very large hospital.
I explained the situation Rory was trying to live through, as best I could. Rory didn’t comment at any time or interrupt at all.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Barbara said, before leaving.
“Thank you,” Rory said, but I couldn’t glean any sincerity from his tone or the use of the words.
“Think nothing of it, and I don’t have any idea whether she can pull it off,” I replied.
“I meant, thank you for trying…after the way I was a bit ago.”
My shot came on time and then Rory’s, both delivered by Kathy early, as the pain management system set up and efficiently operated by Yokosuka Naval Hospital worked to perfection, with slight modifications and changes worked in by the staff.
Rory looked over at me meaningfully, as if I was the one who’d got him the morphine, but I’d had nothing to do with it. Kathy was sensitive, crisp, cool, and brilliantly able to understand the wants, needs, and attitudes of her patients.
I faded away with the shot, knowing I’d have another coming in the middle of the night. The Navy Lieutenant had nothing to say, once receiving his own injection of pain medication.
I awoke in the morning, having remembered the morphine shot in the middle of the night, but not thinking much about everything else that transpired. I looked over at the Navy Lieutenant’s bed but the bed was empty.
I pushed the button for attention.
My feelings ran from being happy for the Navy Lieutenant to my own sense of strange alienation from having ‘lost’ another member of my company, even though he’d never been anywhere near where I’d served. I couldn’t even remember his last name, my near eidetic memory not working at all, just as it didn’t seem to when I thought about the guys in the company, or exactly where the A Shau part of the valley I worked back and forth across was in relation to the rest of the country. It was north of most of the south, it was west from the ocean but I couldn’t picture just how it fit in with how’d I’d come to be there or even how An Hoa or Da Nang fit in.
I half-walked down the hall toward the single shower stall, more interested in looking out the window than having the shower itself. Pus was there with the wheelchair and I accepted a ride halfway down the hall. Following my hot hard water shower, I was refreshed to the bottom of my being, however. I remembered the life-giving power of the Bong Song when I’d been able to swim in it. Water could be magical in its healing power. Why there was a window low enough for me to see out of in the wing’s only shower, was based on a logic I couldn’t comprehend. Who looked out of a shower window when they were washing and rinsing down? I did, but I also knew I wasn’t normal by any stretch of any definition I could think of. I’d once been normal and wanted to be again, but whatever state I was in was different than that, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on the details of just how. The snow had been coming down outside when I’d visited the shower days earlier. It’d been heartwarming to observe, although Japan in winter was a very cold place I knew, and that weather was only inches from my view.
I was so tired out from the staggering, brushing and bouncing-off-walls travel from my room to the shower that I accepted Pus’s offer of a full free ride in the chair on the way back.
We passed Captain Jackson’s room quickly. I forced Pus to stop, just beyond the uncommonly closed door. It had been closed when we passed it earlier, I realized.
“Let’s visit the general,” I said, forcing Pus to turn the chair around.
“He’s not there,” Pus said, placing my chair right exactly outside the center of the door.
“They shipped him out,” Pus said, his voice low, nearly unhearable.
“Oh,” I replied, shocked that nobody had said anything about his leaving.
“Where’s home for him?” I asked.
“They didn’t ship him home,” Pus said, his voice sounding like he was filled with misery and regret.
“Where did they send him?” I asked, imaging the many hospitals connected to the Naval operations medical system.
“They cleared him and sent him back to Vietnam,” Pus said.
Thoughts of crazy apparitions blasted into my mind. General Jackson flying a helicopter over the enemy in Vietnam. Johnson forcing his subordinates at some base to get his boots on and keep them polished.”
“How could they have sent him back,” I asked in amazement, but Pus didn’t reply. I knew they simply couldn’t have sent him back in his condition, but deep down in my heart of hearts, I knew they had.
“Who came to interview him?” I asked, anger beginning to replace the grief I was feeling.
“There was no interview,” Pus replied, wheeling me along toward my room. “He was determined, from the medical reports, to be serviceable as an officer and pilot, and okay to serve out the remainder of his tour. There’s no place on the report for a mental condition.”
I made the trip back to my room in silence. Johnson was a dead man and I could not save him. The people with him on any Huey he flew would be dead too, but I couldn’t save them either. I was reminded of the crew that the colonel had sent out in the night to investigate me, and the terrible KIA numbers coming from my units in the A Shau. They didn’t know. There was no way they could know because the system was not set up to let the rear areas know what was really happening in the field, or even in the hospitals they operated.
Pus helped me get back in bed. I waited for him to leave since unlike Shoot, he didn’t stay inside the room all the time. That was a good sign, I knew but at the moment couldn’t reflect on that thought.
I pushed the button for help.
Kathy appeared in less than two minutes, as I looked at my big clock on the wall, Rory gone, gone like so many in the period of my life I was living.
“It’s too early for your next shot,” she said, looking down to check her watch.
I didn’t reply, merely looking away, as I was not surprised. I knew the schedule of shots better than any nurse might.
“They sent Captain Jackson back to Vietnam,” I said, not wanting to meet her eyes.
“Yes, I heard that,” Kathy answered, before turning and leaving through the room’s double doors. She reappeared in minutes, a syringe in her hand.
“This one’s on the house,” she said, plunging the needle into my I.V tubing.
“There’s nothing right about any of this,” she said, tossing the syringe into the medical disposal box.
I didn’t reply, as there was no reply necessary. I was still in combat and there was no rational ability to conduct almost any social or structured action in a combat situation. The combat area and its effects structured everything. Anyone within the surrounding area of its effect reacted, and, mostly died.
“What about Barbara?” I asked. Barbara had single-handedly saved Rory and got him back to be with his wife.
“Orders,” Kathy replied. “Neither she nor her husband can change or affect Marine orders in a combat zone. I know you’re thinking about Rory, but that was different. He already had orders sending him home. They don’t change orders given out when you’re still part of the combat team in actual conflict.”
I wanted to ask questions, like who had certified the man to be okay to not only continue active service but return to full-on combat service, but I knew it was hopeless. Combat zones, even in rear areas and supporting operations like the Yokosuka Naval Hospital, functioned in a state of managed chaos. I’d gone to Tachikawa Air Force Hospital because my file had been stamped M.C. and the people transporting me thought that meant Medical Corps instead of Marine Corps. That fact might have been bad enough alone, but instead of treating and stabilizing me they’d immediately dumped my grievously wounded, likely dying, body into a jeep and driven me to another hospital. Managed chaos, the same kind of nightmare logic that ruled life and death at the bottom of the A Shau Valley survived insidiously throughout the war arena. Johnson was as good as dead, like Sugar Daddy, Fessman and so many of the rest, and there wasn’t one thing I could do about it. He’d gone back into the charnel house of violent death.
I knew I couldn’t make it the distance over to see Puller and Masters. There was no way they were going back into combat, not with fathers who were general officers in the Corps.
The morphine hit me before I could feel even worse. I liked the man playing at being Stonewall Jackson. I wondered before I went out, whether it would be different when I got to a hospital back in the Continental U.S. and, for the first time since being hit, also wondered if I too might somehow be patched back together and sent, once again, into the valley. My dad was only a warrant officer in the Coast Guard.
Dear Uncle Jim,
I know I’m not worthy, but I did have some experience writing for a local magazine for ten years here in Orlando and had to do much self-editing. Your “product” is so well written it is my desire to help you deliver a read to your following that is as smooth, crisp and clean of a reading experience as possible. I reverently and respectfully submit the following edit notes:
which meant I’d be looking (over) him often. Looking (over him to see the clock or looking over at him or just looking at him every time he looked at the clock? Should (over be either; over at or just at)?
“When’s the next pain shot?” he asked but didn’t seem to direct the question at anyone (directly). Having direct and directly in the same sentence feels clunky, may I suggest (in particularly.)?
(I’ve) equivalent to your service’s designation of a captain.” Should this be (I’m) or (I’ve the equivalent of)
Pus left, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before he returned with Barbara or (she came) alone. Should this be (she’d come)?
It was north of most of the south, it was east from the ocean but I couldn’t picture just how it fit in with (how’d I’d) come to be there or even how
An Hoa or Da Nang fit in. Should this be either (how I’d come or how’d I come). The former feels smoother mentally since it is (how I had come vs. how did I come)
I did, but I also knew I wasn’t normal by any stretch of any definition (I could think of.). Proper English would have this as (of which I could think.) so as not to end the sentence in a preposition. That being said if you are just conveying how Junior would speak normally then the current form is acceptable.
That was a good sign, (I knew but) at the moment couldn’t reflect on that thought. Do you think this sentence could benefit from a comma after (I knew, but)
Kathy appeared in less than two minutes, as I looked at my big (close) on the wall, Rory gone, gone like so many in the period of my life I was living. Should (close be clock)? <—this one was previously mentioned in another comment.
“Neither she nor her husband can change or (effect) Marine orders Should (effect be affect)?
Managed chaos, the same kind of nightmare logic that (ruled) life and death at the bottom of the A Shau Valley (survive) insidiously throughout the war arena. Should (survive be survived)? Rules with survive or ruled with survived to keep the tense the same throughout the sentence.
(Fusner) and so many of the rest, Should this be (Fusner or his pseudonym Fessman)?
I can’t emphasize this enough, but very, very respectfully submitted, Sir!
V/r. Dennis M. Pustinger
Thank you for your keen Observation, Dennis.
I believe I have corrected it as suggested.
Semper fi,
Jim
Two of my sons served as Marines in Iraq. One served 2 tours. He left after his second tour with 6 years under his belt. “His” men left shortly after that for Afganistan. They were charged with clearing a valley. It was deemed impossible by most. But as usual they did it but lost 10 men in the process. To this day he carries the weight of his decision to leave. That somehow those 10 might have been saved had he gone back. Doesn’t matter that he got his men safely through 2 tours of combat or that he was blown up by a roadside bomb on his last tour, spent 2 weeks in a small field hospital and went back to his unit. None of that matters only that he somehow failed “his” men.
Thanks for sharing this.
Your son is carrying a real burden.
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding writing would like to be able to get all of your books what I have read has been moving. Sometimes I wonder how my life might have been different if I had been in viet nam. Just missed going by months. Always wonder what my reaction would have been if I had been under fire. Sorry just felt that I needed to write this. Thanks to all who served
Thank you, James.
My books are available autographed, and personalized direct here on the website.
Order Books Here
Semper fi, Jim
“It was north of most of the south, it was east from the ocean”
…. shouldn’t it be “it was west from the ocean” ? ….
YEs, exactly. Thanks for the help Dave…
Semper fi,
Jim
Brought back a bunch of old memories. The navy hospitals weren’t bad it was just getting used to being back in the world.my family told me i was not the same person that left when I came home.
I ache for more, Jim. I’m on to Duke now! Batman
The Cowardly Lion is more poignant but Duke was a lot more fun to write…thanks for liking the work,
as usual Batman…
Semper fi,
Jim
Thouroughly enjoyed the Duke. Just wish there was more conclusion for the other chacters as well. Maybe someday a sequel a sgort conclusion to tie things up. I look back over my life and it’s different chapters and in each there are those that have disappeared into the mists of time forever. You get connected, you enjoy the company for a time, and then gone forever.
The Duke is Book One. I am writing Book II right now and resolution of many of the characters is a part of that.
Thanks for identifying so strongly.
Semper fi,
Jim
I can directly relate to the lasting pain of losing friends , and comrades , who were under our personal charge . I can also attest to the fact , we are not the same when we return , nor will we every be. Divorce’s , children who take their own life , and many other things that happen, that we blame ourselves for . I thank you for sharing your story with us , as it makes us understand things , even many years later ! HooRaa Sir .
I’ll say it again — I have never seen better writing about war and pain than this…
Thank you again, Jim
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
I believe the A Shau would be situated West of the ocean in your latest narrative. Keep on writing and thanks,
Ed
Corrected. Thanks, Edwatrd
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, once again, your writing touches me deeply, and also answers some questions I’ve harbored for 55 years now.
Like many of we Vietnam Veterans, I have given up on trying to remain in close harmony with relationships. Couple marriages, several kids, grandkids, great-grandkids. Best for all that I live alone with my Service Dog and a few cats.
And I think that there is a fear inside that, once again, people close to me will “disappear”, and therefore I disrupt that by acting first, thus not allowing “them” to disappear. Weird, but I hope that you get my drift.
Only one comment/correction: Mostly, Vietnam is WEST of the ocean. But you can go east enough to reach the Philippines, and eventually, Central America.
Words cannot describe how much I enjoy your writing – all from the heart. Thank you. Craig
Thank you for the kind words and I have corrected the ‘geography’
Semper fi,
Jim
I think this sentence is incomplete or, at least, not the way you intended: “I remembered the life-giving power of the Bong Song when I’d able to swim in.”
Your story (both 30 Days and The Cowardly Lion) are windows for me into combat trauma and its results on the human body and psyche. I work with veterans with PTSD and other combat trauma issues (and their spouses) Your work gives me valuable insight. I am a veteran but was not in combat. My own disability and hospital time were a result of pneumonia and not gunfire or shrapnel so your experiences are helping me understand theirs. Thank You.
Once again a riveting piece. You had been gone so long I was getting worried. Glad you are back. Semper Fi
Great writing, but that’s what you’ve caused me to expect from you. Minor edit: “… the Bong Song when I’d able to swim in. ” when I’d been able to swim in it. I see someone else already caught clock for close.
Thanks for your sharp eyes.
Corrected
Semper fi,
Jim
Catch 22
Yes, Heller had it perfectly correct.
Semper fi,
Jim
as I looked at my big close on the wall, big clock
Thanks for the help Paul…
Semper fi,
Jim
Good stuff!
very toveting
Thanks Joseph, and for saying out in such a public forum too…
Semper fi,
Jim
Ive been waiting to here this part of the narrative. I also had a return from country thru NSA Da Nang, the Yokosuka Japan, Travis AFB, then to Long Beach Naval Hospital. I found dealing with the trip home as challenging as my time in country. When in country it wasn’t what would happen just more of when, and I wanted to handle what came like a “real man”. Because we went thru whatever went on in country, with others, we were strengthened by our comrades. Suddenly we’re no longer a part of a team, we’re alone, and we have no control over our life, our schedule and a feeling of worry and guilt for abandoning our “guys’. I found the naval staff at each facility to be compassionate, and truly caring. I was totally in their care from late Oct 68 to April 69. The transition back to the “world” was more difficult than the transition to combat – because you did it alone, and without any control. I’m looking forward to your narrative of the return to the world and being re-United with family and friends. Because there is no way for them to have any understanding of how you have changed, and how much you’ll never feel comfortable trying to explain.
Vietnam combat vets coming home did so much, in their way, helped the VA and so many others
come to understand that you are not going into a war zone, function there, and then, if you make
it home, come home as anything like before the experience.
Thanks for that great writeup.
Semper fi,
Jim
Thanks Jim. I spent some time in Tachikawa, wounded by a young doctor at Cam Rhan Bay who was trying but obviously no idea how to treat me, but he tried. I metal several young Marine and army grunts being medevaced. A experience I will never forget. Your writing brings up those memories along with damp eyes all these years later. May the good Lord bless you and all those who survived!
Thanks for the comment Joe. Yes, “T” was the most strange of all the hospitals I came to
know and experience.
Thanks for that shore write up.
Semper fi,
Jim
Outstanding! Keep up the good writing. Thanks
Thanks Allen, appreciate the encouragement.
Semper fi,
Jim
Great read again!! The struggle and sacrifice that you gave for your country and ultimately me is beyond appreciated. Thank you..from the bottom of my heart thank you.
Side question… does anyone still call you junior? Or when was the last time you were called junior by any of your guys?
My nickname was a badge of honor to me and I haven’t been called it in years.
Not very often…~~smile
Semper fi,
Jim
Another great read. Thanks, JIM!
Outstanding details of you time in that hospital. The up and down of emotions had to be tough to live with. Question, is there more coming on what happened to the men your were with at the end of time in the valley. I’m sure we all look for information on what happened to them.
There will be a few anecdotes.
Semper fi,
Jim
General Jackson rides again,…..sadly!
Kathy said, ‘There’s nothing right about any of this’. She was correct.
Congratulations on your recuperations, LT.!
Managed chaos, the same kind of nightmare logic that ruled life and death at the bottom of the A Shau Valley survive insidiously throughout the war arena.
“the bottom of the A Shau Vally, survives..”
I’m at a loss for words to describe my thoughts and feelings when reading your story. War is indeed hell…..
With respect,
Thank you for the comment and correction.
Semper Fi,
Jim
Is this the end, seems like a good place to stop the madness of the war in Vietnam. Times back then where just as crazy as today, maybe even worse, Thank you LT for letting us in you mind!
Only way to understand why or how JAMES is to live it !!! SAD BUT TRUE!!
Comment: Jackson was sent back to probably the only place he understood and could function…he would have been put in a rubber suit back in the “world”.
2. You are amazingly effective when you have a mission impossible to accomplish….rather than being “not Stonewall” but Don Quixote,
😎 S/F
Bye the way are you sure that is Gen Jackson not Longstreet
Great Observation.
Thanks Col Jim,
Semper fi,
Jim
Welcome back LT.
It was north of most of the south, it was east from the ocean but I couldn’t picture just how it fit in with how’d I’d come to be there or even how The A Shau was west from the ocean…not east
Well written account James….have a lot of respect for the Marines who fought on the ground and the A Shau was a very bad place…waiting to purchase this book my Brother…..I still have not received the three autographed books for 30 days has September….I do anxiously await them as they were intended as a Christmas present for one of my squadron mates from HMM-262….Semper Fidelis…
James, thanks for another great chapter! Semper Fi.
Another touching segment. I never thought about where the wounded went and whether they came back to Vietnam, went directly home after being stabilized or transferred from hospital to hospital. I always felt they got very good care from the very best medical staff. Every day is a gift. Semper Fi
James, That you were able to get under Rory’s angry shell to bring out his true pain and then act to reunite him with his wife says much about your character. Snappy salute to you, Sir.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
it was east from the ocean
?? maybe west rather than east
it was west from the ocean
I remembered the life-giving power of the Bong Song when I’d able to swim in.
Maybe “been” before “able”
Maybe “it” after “in”
I remembered the life-giving power of the Bong Song when I’d been able to swim in it.
I was tired out from the staggering, brushing and bouncing-off-walls travel from my room to the shower that I accepted Pus’s offer of a full free ride in the chair on the way back.
Maybe “so” before “tired”
I was so tired out from the staggering, brushing and bouncing-off-walls travel from my room to the shower that I accepted Pus’s offer of a full free ride in the chair on the way back.
OR period after “shower”; drop the “that” and begin a new sentence with “So”
I was tired out from the staggering, brushing and bouncing-off-walls travel from my room to the shower. So I accepted Pus’s offer of a full free ride in the chair on the way back.
“How could they have sent him back,” I asked in amazement
Maybe question mark after “back”
“How could they have sent him back?” I asked in amazement
He was determined, from the medical reports,
Add quotation mark before “He”
“He was determined, from the medical reports,
as I looked at my big close on the wall
Maybe “clock” instead of “close”
as I looked at my big clock on the wall
Neither she nor her husband can change or effect Marine orders in a combat zone.
Maybe “affect” instead of “effect”
Neither she nor her husband can change or affect Marine orders in a combat zone.
They don’t change orders given out when your still part of the combat team in actual
conflict.”
Maybe “you’re” instead of “your”
They don’t change orders given out when you’re still part of the combat team in actual
conflict.”
ruled life and death at the bottom of the A Shau Valley survive insidiously throughout the
war arena.
Maybe “survived” instead of “survive”
ruled life and death at the bottom of the A Shau Valley survived insidiously throughout the war arena.
A moving segment. Thank you for being so open. Blessings & Be Well. Stay Safe.
Again you shine, Dan.
Thank you and I believe all are corrected.
Semper fi, Jim