My wife drove Mickey’s 442, since she wouldn’t let me drive, as we made our way to Highway 280, then 80 across the Bay Bridge, onto 580 to head back south to where the hospital was set back on Mountain Boulevard some distance from the MacArthur Freeway.
“Why do all the freeways from home to here end in eighty?” I asked, inanely from the passenger seat, Julie sitting in my lap.
Mary didn’t answer. We’d argued about the driving. I was fit to drive but she thought my mental condition was a bit tattered because of the coming surgery. I could see no sign of that myself but there was little point in arguing. If they kept me at the hospital, which I’d packed my small canvas sack for, then Mary would return home, leaving Julie with Pat and drive Mickey’s car back to the station. I knew she liked the Oldsmobile but also that she hated the wind blowing because the convertible top was down. For some reason, the electric motor operating the top would not function and I’d not wanted to mention any kind of complaint to Mickey.
Mary parked the car, against my wishes, in the emergency medical parking, the part of the lot reserved for medical personnel. I was fine to walk the longer distance from visitor parking, but I’d lost my decision-making powers once the trip had begun. She carried Julie on her right hip and I swung my small bag of shaving and toothpaste stuff as we went.
The emergency waiting room was actually the most ambient space in the hospital that we’d found so far. Mary would wait there with Julie until a decision was made about my surgical decision and any schedule.
I took the elevator up to dirty surgery and headed for the nurse’s desk. Lieutenant Johannson stood, leaning against the counter, talking to a couple of the nurses on duty.
I moved to where he stood, standing a couple of feet back from the counter, not knowing what to expect.
“You won’t be going back into the lockup if that’s what’s on your mind,” he said, noting my reticence to approach any of them.
There was no answer to that comment I could think of. “Thank you,” seemed totally out of place, so I said nothing. That Johannson was trying to be so solicitous and nice alerted me to the fact that I was probably emanating some of my interior fear about what I knew had to be coming. I looked at the very squared away lieutenant in his Class A Green Uniform. The only reason I could think of about wearing my own uniforms was the fact that they were so tightly tailored that they’d hold me together better than about anything else I could wear. However, there was no cause to wear a uniform, and the cleaning and pressing bills alone, if not living or working on a Marine Base, were beyond my current capability to pay.
I was ushered into a small room already occupied by several men, all dressed in surgical attire.
A tall man with short gray hair, a thin mustache, and a short goatee stood up, turned around, and then looked intently at me.
“This then is the patient?” he asked, apparently to nobody in particular.
“Lieutenant patient at your service,” I replied, making sure not to smile.
The man’s intent stare didn’t flicker a bit, as he turned, faced the other men, and then sat in the chair he’d been in when I walked into the room.
“We’ll need three or four hours of time in the morning to perform a complete exploratory laparotomy. Prep is at zero-five-thirty and the team should be positioned, ready and available by seven. The patient will be sedated and wheeled to surgery on a hard gurney.
“You can go,” one of the other two men, sitting across from the laconic and analytical surgeon said, waving me back toward the door I’d come through.
I made my way back to the emergency room waiting area where my wife waited. There was no way I was going to tell her about just what an arrogant ass the surgeon had turned out to be. There was nothing to be done for it. I was stuck where I was and going under the knife in the morning. All I could do would be to worry her more.
“I’m going to stay the night and be prepped early tomorrow morning,” I told her. “The surgery should start at seven a.m. and be quick. There are no complications they can think of without opening me up, but the surgeon is world famous at this. You better let the nurse’s station upstairs know where you’ll be.”
“No, I’ll wait outside of surgery upstairs,” she replied. “How long?”
“Three hours, or maybe less,” I replied, having no real clue.
I hadn’t liked the phrase ‘complete exploratory laparotomy’ at all. A laparotomy was the opening from stem to stern, up and down, of the entire torso. It was about the most serious and extensive surgery a human being could have, short of an autopsy.
Mary left but was back early in the morning. I didn’t think to ask her about how she’d made the trip, my concentration focused almost exclusively on holding my building fear in check.
When they came to get me, I was ready. The young doctor wasn’t present, only the tall mustache and goatee surgeon with no personality, and no name tag.
“Valium?” he asked Edith, the RN who stood nearby.
“Nothing,” she replied, being kind enough not to mention my now well-known addictive problem. She did smile weakly at me; her brow furrowed a bit.
“Twenty milligrams,” the doctor said. “I’ll be back. He’s going to need it.”
Edith returned only moments later to push the drug into my I.V. The effect was instant. I was not only calm about going into serious potentially life-threatening surgery, I was happy about it. I realized that morphine and Demerol weren’t the only drugs that really worked.
My wife held my hand until I was ready to go, and then Edith took over, but there was no more hand-holding. With two attendants she helped lift me onto a gurney they’d wheeled in. There were no goodbyes or any of that. Edith took me away, back into the world of passing white chicklet lights on the ceilings of the halls.
I didn’t come out of surgery into consciousness. I came out of it in some sort of different state of reality recognition, without reality being anything I was ready for. A Catholic priest peered down, his face protruding from his bent-over position, as he did whatever a priest was supposed to be doing at the time. I looked into his eyes, noting the white-collar and the black outfit. My mind went back to the First Med in Da Nang when the priest had been administering the Last Rights to me as my gurney was wheeled into surgery. My fear back then had been much greater than what I experienced looking up into the man’s eyes.
I reached my right arm upward and grabbed his arm as hard as I could, my hand clamped with as much pressure as I could generate, around his neck.
“I need morphine,” I whispered, with as much energy as I could manage, the words coming out low and raspy.
“I’ll get it,” he whispered back, trying to pry my choking hand from his throat.
He finally freed himself and stepped back to stand next to my wife.
“I think he already had a pain shot a bit ago,” Mary said to him.
I stared, all the energy I’d gathered together to assault the priest now completely gone.
“I don’t care,” the priest said, still looking into my eyes. Slowly he turned and then disappeared from my narrow field of view.
“Where am I?” I asked my wife, as she moved closer to peer more comfortably down at me over the protective rail.
“It’s the morning of the third day,” she replied, her voice soft and caring.
“The third day of what?” I asked, feeling my forehead curl and eyebrows come together in real question.
“The third day after the surgery,” she replied.
My right hand plunged, seemingly on its own, down and across the front of my torso. The bag was gone. I ran the hand softly up and down, then over and around, crisscrossing the many thick bandages taped to my belly and sides, as far as it could reach. There was no crinkle or plastic encountered, either under or atop the bandages, that I could detect. There was no bag.
Edith appeared and pushed the yellow liquid into my I.V., smiled, and then was gone. I presumed she knew how much of what I could or could not have.
The drug began to kick in, beginning to take me away, I realized, although the euphoria of no longer having a colostomy bag was as overwhelming as the effect of the pain and mind-numbing drug.
“Why, three days?” I asked, trying to comprehend what my wife had said.
“The surgery was twelve hours,” she replied. “I think it was some sort of record around here.”
“What did they do?” I asked, befuddled a bit. The surgeon had said that I’d be under for a few hours just before the anesthesia mask had been strapped over my nose and mouth.
“They had to take out your gall bladder too,” my wife replied. “It had gall stones the size of golf balls. The doctor said it was because they gave you the wrong blood in Da Nang.”
I thought for a moment about what she’d said. The pain that had been so terrible might have had a lot to do with the stones, but the blood type thing couldn’t be right. I was AB positive. I was a universal recipient. I could, supposedly, get blood from any other type and have it work just fine.
Edith appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, at the foot of my bed. She checked my chart, made a notation with a pen in her free hand, and then came around the side of the bed across from where my wife stood.
“He’s doing fine,” she whispered as if she wasn’t allowed to give out such information. “Prognosis good and condition good, which is saying something after what he’s been through. The surgeon said you’re tougher than shoe leather, which surprised us all…I mean, that he would say something so human.”
Without saying anything further, Edith left the room.
“How’s everything at home?” I asked, wondering how Julie and Pat were doing.
“Thompson has been over every morning to see how you’re doing,” my wife said. “Apparently, he’ll have to register the car and title to himself, at least as far as they’re concerned, in order to enter it into the race since you may not be there.”
“Oh, I don’t know why,” I breathed out, “and the GTO’s really owned by the Federal Credit Union, at least for two more years,” I went on.
In truth, I couldn’t create much interest within myself about the car or anything else except my own survival and trying to find some position or place of physical comfort.
“I’ve been unconscious for three days?” I asked the nurse, a woman I didn’t know.
She’d walked into the room to check my chart, but not said anything until I broached the question.
“No, you’ve been conscious since about twelve hours following the surgery,” she replied, her voice very matter-of-fact, “you have no memory of the three days?”
“He’s fine,” my wife said to the nurse before I could answer. She moved down the side of the bed until she was only a few feet from her.
“He’s fine,” she repeated, forcefully.
The nurse backed up a few feet.
“Okay, I’m sure you’re right,” she said, before turning and heading on out of the room.
“You were gone the whole time,” Mary said, coming back up the side of the bed to once again lean down over me. “You were gone until you asked where you were, and then I knew, plus you went after a pain shot, which you didn’t care about for three days and nights. I thought I’d lost you. I don’t want you stuck in here with psychologists, at least not just yet, so keep as quiet as you can.”
She didn’t cry, but I knew she was close. It hadn’t occurred to me just how much pressure, worry, and fright must have piled up on her shoulders and more. I’d been concerned almost totally about my own survival.
I wanted to tell her so much about how I was going to be okay, get off the morphine and get back to being normal again, but the effect of the shot would allow none of that. I slowly sank down into the pleasant morass it opened up under me without my being able to say one more word.
The days passed faster than the nights, which were stuttered and segmented with periods of hallucination from the pain drugs to actual memories of what had happened in the A Shau Valley. I took to sleeping with the light on, as I had no roommate. There was a spare bed in the room but it was never filled by anyone. I wondered if the staff was trying to make up for their previous behavior toward me, but there was also no social life on the floor until I could get ambulatory. My wife visited every day but could not bring my daughter because of the nature of the dirty surgery floor. I was able to get out of bed on the tenth day. I’d spent the two previous days sitting up, trying to balance on my own, with a pelvis not only riven through with cracks and bullet holes but the loss of weight eating away the muscles and fat of my butt and thighs. One of the nurses had described my condition as ‘having no real substance’ below me.
My young doctor visited twice a day and the surgeon once daily while making rounds with the other doctors. I quit the morphine on the first day I was allowed to walk, with assistance, very proud of myself after the nurse came with a syringe and I sent her back. My stopping the drug wasn’t all about courage though, as I lived in fear that the cold-blooded young doctor would return me to detox with the prisoners, who would no doubt be different than the rather kindly ones I’d been in the ward with before. I knew that I had no fear of such men or living in difficult circumstances among them, even men with violent criminal careers. That kind of fear of my fellow men had been driven so deep down in my psychology that I couldn’t tell it was there anymore. I did, however, have a bit of marginal fear that I wouldn’t have the equipment I needed in order to deal with such men if any situation grew too dangerous for normal communications or common human interaction. Equipment to handle trouble was the most important thing, I’d learned, followed very closely by the ability of the possessor to use such equipment.
I wanted to get back on medical leave as quickly as I could, so I dragged my I.V. stalk and catheter bag through the halls with me, trying to gain strength by walking as far and for as long as I could. The shower shoes the hospital issued me were so cheap that they became my biggest obstacle. I longed for real ‘go-aheads,’ like I’d been accustomed to when living out on Oahu when I was much younger. I was slowly losing weight again, which was a bifurcated indicator, in that I was weakened in my efforts to grow stronger through exercise, but helping me in that the doctors would be more motivated to let me go in order to build my weight and strength back up.
The analysis of that data worked the last time.
The day of reckoning came in the middle of my third week following the surgery. Everything had gone according to plan, except I was down to the weight level I’d been discharged last time for having. I took the initiative by having the nurses get hold of Johannson. It took him almost two hours to show up. I was so certain that I was going home again that I greeted him with smiling enthusiasm. My I.V. had been pulled the previous day, the catheter bag with it. All my digestive functions were normal. I was ready. My family was waiting for me, and the race preparations had to be in an advanced stage on the GTO. I was excited to not only be able to attend the race without a bag hanging from my belly but also to be a part of getting the car ready.
“You don’t have any more medical leave available,” Johannson said, as if that information shouldn’t make much difference to me.
“What?” I literally hissed at the man, coming out of my bed like a big King Cobra getting ready to strike. “What in hell are you talking about?” I asked, trying to control myself.
“You get two weeks of medical leave a year, and that’s it,” the lieutenant said, slowly backing away as if he was in front of something more distasteful than dangerous.
“You used all your leave to stay in Fort Sill because of your daughter’s birth before you went over.
“So, what in hell am I supposed to do, stay here and wander the halls day and night until I die of starvation?” I asked, controlling the volume and tone of my voice as best I could.
Johansson was all I had when it came to being in contact with the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps was very definitely the organization I would eventually have to deal with, and spend more time in.
“No, that’s not it,” the lieutenant replied. “You go back to work. In fact,” he went on, pulling out a sheaf of papers from the thin leather notebook he always carried, “I have your orders right here, once you’re approved for duty by your surgeon.”
I leaned back to gain some support from the edge of the bed. I waited, a bit in wonder and shock, only starting to realize that my experience with the Corps was so limited I had almost no idea how it all really worked as a military force.
“Treasure Island,” Johannson read from the paper grasped in his left hand. “You’re going to be assigned to Treasure Island as the Adjudications Officer in Charge of U.S. Marine Personnel Transport Goods and Material.”
“What?” was all I could get out.
“Adjudicate,” Johannson said, putting the paper back into a pocket in the folder. “It’s not a common word. Anyone would have a hard time understanding, so don’t feel bad. The word means, basically, ‘decider.’ You’ll decide what stuff is lost, stolen, and all that during moves by personnel between duty stations, and then put a value, if there’s to be a value, on such things so the Marines who’ve lost stuff can get paid for what’s been lost…if it’s been lost. There, that’s it. A desk job so your PULHES designation will be covered.”
I knew I was in shock then, as my body and head rocked slowly back and forth, and I wished I’d never given up the morphine shots.
“PULHES?” I got out, my tone having gone from suppressed anger and disbelief down into depressive resignation.
“Physical, Upper extremities, Lower extremities, Hearing, Eyes and Psychology,” Johannson intoned, interpreting the acronym in a way that made it seem like everyone should know what the letters meant.
“You get rated one, for good, down to a four, for bad in each area,” the lieutenant said, using the fingers on his left hand to mark off the numbers one through four. “If you average three or worse then you get IDS, which stands for ‘denial of service.’
“What am I?” I asked, afraid to hear anymore.
“Oh, that’s easy,” the lieutenant smiled. “You’re a four.”
I stood up straighter, hope returning. “So, I’m to be processed out?”
“Nope, not yet anyway,” Johannson answered. “You can’t be processed out until there’s a hearing,and you can’t have a hearing until you get to a permanent duty station and position.”
“What’s Treasure Island, and that duty station, then?” I asked, trying to figure it all out.
“Temporary duty,” the lieutenant intoned, easing toward the door to my room. “It’ll be sort of like being on medical leave but having to show up and do stuff…and report to Colonel Armand ‘Lightning Bolt’ Trainer, I mean.”
“I’ll have to show up every day in uniform to do whatever adjudication involves?” I asked, not quite being able to picture this new turn of events inside my mind.
Colonel ‘Lightning Bolt’ Trainer, sounded an awful lot like the man himself if he went by or allowed such a nickname. He was likely nothing more or less than a macho pail of crap.
“So, I’m not going home?” I asked, making the question more of a disappointed statement than a question.
“In a way,” the lieutenant replied. “You’ll be reporting to Treasure Island every weekday at zero seven hundred, work the day, and then go home at four. Regular Marine Corps hours.” Johansson smiled, as if I should be quite happy to hear this new development.
“I’m discharged back to duty, just like that?” I asked, my mind whirling in wonder.
I was still bleeding up and down my torso from the main incision. I would have to carry and change the four-by-four bandages myself. I thanked God that the new adhesive tape that had just been invented was not like the old. It held the bandages in place but was very easy to remove. It didn’t pull pieces of skin on either side of the incision apart. I could do it. At least I would be home at night and on weekends, and I was going to be out in time to make it over to Half Moon Bay and the drag races.
“When do I come back?” I asked, still not quite believing that I was being discharged back to duty, no matter how limited by some chart calculation.
“You don’t,” Johannson replied, closing my file. ‘You’ll be able to check in at your next full duty station if you have any lingering problems, until the board meets to consider your continuance in the Corps, of course.”
“If I have any lingering issues,” I whispered to myself.
Johannson held out an envelope, he’d kept from the file before he closed it.
“Your new orders,” he intoned, another smile crossing his face.
With that the lieutenant got up, placed my file under his left arm, and held out his right hand. ‘
“A great pleasure to meet you, Junior,” he said.
I stood there, staring into his merriment-filled eyes. This was all funny to him, and no doubt interesting compared to the normal duties he had to conduct. I was being given the bum’s rush, just like I’d been locked up with the brig rats. What could I say or do? They’d also saved my life.
I shook his hand, no expression on my facial feature at all. It was the best I could do. I was hurt again, and I just wanted to get away. I wanted to hurt back but that thought was fleeting, as I walked away from what had been my bed and out into the hall. I walked slowly toward the elevators, realizing that, unless circumstance turned terribly in the wrong direction, that I would not have to return to Oak Knoll, and I began to relax. Wherever I was going was better than where I was coming from. I remembered thinking the same thing when I was pulled out of the A Shau, then out of Japan, and now out of Oak Knoll. When would I arrive at a place that I had any chance of staying in while also staying sane?
I called my wife from the nurse’s station down in the emergency room using the special, and supposedly confidential numbers of 91 to access an outside number that allowed for long distance calls. I’d memorized the numbers from my close observation of the doctors when they were nearby. Daily City, located only a few miles across the bridge into the outskirts of San Francisco proper, was still a long-distance call, and therefore prohibited to patients or visitors.
My wife answered on the second ring, having an idea that I might call but not certain, as, until the liaison officer talked to me we had no idea what was going on. Pat was home, for whatever reason, on a weekday so the three of them would pick me up.
I went back up the elevator to get my shaving gear and other small stuff I had kept following the surgery. I was in mild pain but could move, walk and do everything necessary to be on my own, except I couldn’t stand up straight or walk without limping. I was hunched like an old man and moved back down the hall like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But I didn’t care, as long as I could navigate and do so without the colostomy bag.
Pat drove, while Mary sat in the front seat next to her holding Julie. I rested in the back seat. I’d wanted to walk toward the Oakland base of the Bay Bridge and have them pick me up on the way, but that idea wasn’t approved at all. Once on the bridge, I asked Pat to pull off into the Treasure Island complex. I pulled out my orders, only to discover that the address was the lighthouse on Yerba Buena Island, the main island that Treasure Island had been artificially constructed from. It took three stops until we could finally get someone to direct us to the lighthouse. Once there we were all stunned. The old lighthouse sat upraised at the very tip of the island, looking out over the waters of the bay toward San Francisco itself. It was beautiful, although I realized right away that the parking lot for the place was a good quarter of a mile walk from the lighthouse itself. I could do it. I breathed in and out deeply. Maybe my fortune was changing for the better. How bad could the “Lightning Bolt” really be?
“Stop at M&M” I instructed.
I just had to know how the car was doing in preparation for the big race the following week. Julie gurgled gently as we made our way along, Mary and Pat talking about the GTO as if it was more a thing of my imagination rather than being real. I started to nod off, truly relaxing for the first time since the last surgery, my head against the window and corner of the back seat. Pat’s Firebird was brand new and I loved the smell. I smiled to myself. Only a woman would buy a car named Firebird, and then make sure to get the car with the lowest powered six-cylinder engine that General Motors made.
Wow. .. My God, you can write. …
Thank you
Although your story takes the cake; the bureaucratic system of military medical treatments is legendary! I have stopped sharing mine after reading yours! God bless you!! Thank you for your service and sacrifices!
James – I truly can’t FUCKING believe how the Marine Corps shit on you at every turn! It really pisses me off. I’ve told you before I’m a Marine and a Vietnam combat vet (0331- ’66 – ’67 with Golf 2/1) and you were in more intense combat in 30 days than I was in, in 10 months. I was blessed to be with sone great guys and some very good leaders but we had a our share of shit birds too who I didn’t like then and hope a few of them died slow, miserable deaths after a life of turmoil! It’s too long a story for here but I applied for and was accepted into the Enlisted Commissioning Program but didn’t accept it for some unbeknown reason today and it sounds like I made the right choice. I’m proud as hell to have been a Marine and served in Vietnam and I’m proud as hell of you and all other Marines who served HONORABLY – but FUCK THE SHIT BIRDS and the Marines are FULL of them. They ride the honor wave of being a “Marine” because of men like us and so many that came before us, but they were useless, malingering skaters when they were in and now want the world to think they were bad asses. You seem to have run into MANY like that when you were more of a MAN and more of a MARINE than ANY of them! JEEZZUZZZ it pisses me off. That staff and buck you ran into at Mickey Thompsons garage were apparently the real deal as far as men and Marines go. God bless you James Strauss – I truly hope I get to shake your hand one day. Semper fi to you and to all “REAL” Marines!
I met some rea deal vets when I got home, but there were not many, because the combat guys mostly didn’t make it.
We combat guys, we just know one another on sight, without talk even. A wry smile, maybe. Waiting at the VA, the only guys
not wearing any military gear. Just us. I once voted on a special court martial board to let the perpetrator go. He was charged with possessing
and taking LSD. He confessed and said he was trying to get away. The chief judge of the court asked him what he was trying to get away from. The kid
said, “Vietan.” “But you’re here in California,” the judge said. The kid looked down. I understood. He wasn’t in California at all but only he and I knew that.
I had to write a minority report because I was the only one who wanted to let the kid go. He’d paid his dues. But I was alone. He was alone.
Part of coming home from combat.
Semper fi,
Jim
What the heck? After what you went through, the Marines still want MORE? Is that normal? Was that normal? I’m astounded, and horrified. Bless you, your wife, and your daughter. (And for that matter, all other service men and women and their families)
Thank you, Keith, for your support.
Semper fi,
Jim
After all, you went through I would have thought they would have given you a medical discharge and turned you over to the VA. Looking forward to your next chapter, Sir.
I was surprised after reading this latest chapter, to find my hands folded and myself saying a prayer for you. I don’t do that a lot. You are one tuff Marine sir.
I appreciate your sentiment, Charles.
There were many times that ‘toughness’ was questioned from within.
Semper fi
Jim
Great read. Another good hook.
Anticipating your meeting with colonel Trainer & the race with the GTO. Your lucky you had your wife in your corner.
Thank you
Treasure Island; I spent two weeks there in 11/1967 waiting for orders. Another place I don’t ever want to see again! Bureaucracy personified!
Another terrific entry. Your memory for details is amazing. I really don’t know how you endured the attitude or indifference of some the staff without lashing out. It appears most of your medical staff and aids know you or your reputation as Junior. Did you ever inquire as to what they actually heard about you and your time in the A Shau Valley?
Some stories do travel through the ‘grapevine’
Thanks for your support and share with your friends.
Semper fi,
Jim
Man oh man LT it does it ever go easy for you, hang in there, life sounds like it might get better. Semper Fi sir!!
Life did, indeed, get better, once I ‘made it through’ so to speak.
Thanks for the comment and interest…
Semper fi,
Jim
Where are you answers to comments showing. I seem to be lost.
I am a bit behind on answering all comments the past couple of days.
Thanks for the support
Semper fi,
Jim
Very happy to have you with us. I’m amazed at what you have had to go through so far in your recovery. Looking for your next installment. God Bless.
Thanks Raymond. Yes, it was, indeed, quite a time of strange adventure, discovery and a good deal of pain.
Semper fi,
Jim
Lt, you are an amazing person. Your emotional and physical strength is beyond imagining. I am so glad that you made it to the point that you can share your story with us. Bless you and your wife.
Clay
Sp4, USA, 1971-74.
Thank you, Clay
Semper fi,
Jim
James,
After my surgery for a ruptured appendix and perforated bowel, I was much the same way. I was in CCU for most of 4 days and my billirubin count was astronomical. Once, when I did wake up, I asked the Nurse why I was so drowsy and she pointed and said, Morphine drip, all I could say was OK. on the evening of the 4th day, I was moved to a general floor and went home the afternoon of the 8th day. This all happened in 1997, so obviously way different than your experience.
Damn, but I hang on your every word. Have since you started writing 30 Days. Don’t know what it is, but your story inspires me.
Finally (more or less) on your own two feet once again !!
SEMPER Fi
Hey, James – So great that Dan saved me all that typing!
Knowing the Naval service as I do, the bureaucracy doesn’t surprise me, nor the haste to get you back to earning your keep.
Wondering if your new duties include keeping the gears wound up in the lighthouse.
Coming along great on this Cowardly Lion book, we all appreciate your efforts at digging into the old memories.
Semper Fi
You and Dan Have been a fabulous help.
Thank you
Semper fi,
Jim
Look’s like things are changing , and Marines take care of each other. You deserve the best care and more good things coming to you . We wait to see , Sir !
Jim, just want you to know that I have the utmost respect for you and what you went through.
I have read everything twice.
If there is ever another gathering I would like to meet you personally and get real signatures for each of the books.
Your wife was extremely brave and loving of you. I admire her.
I know about Oak Knoll. Not impressed with them at all.
Your writing has let me feel all of your emotions and fears. All the smells, bug bites, noise, quite and poking from a lot of it.
Talk to you later. Wingnut.
Your story continues to amaze me Jim…one of my thoughts really fits your story….the Marine Corps accomplishes it mission at the expense of its Marines….I look forward to each new segment….you are my hero….
Recommendation: 1. My mind went back to the First Med in Da Nang when the priest had been administering the Last Rights to be as my gurney was wheeled into surgery. My fear back then had been much
Maybe change Last Rights to be….me may be better than be
2. The surgeon had said that I’d be under for a few hours just before I’d gone the anesthesia mask had been strapped over my nose and mouth……maybe put and after gone….I’d gone and the anesthesia mask..
3. Colonel ‘Lightning Bolt’ Trainer, sounded an awful like the man himself, if he went by or allowed such a nickname, was likely nothing…
Maybe insert lot….sounded an awful lot like the man…
Your story captivates me…well written…thank you for sharing your story…
I still have not received my three signed copies o Thirty Days has September that were ordered last year….I look forward to receiving them…thank you…Semper Fidelis….John Kosinski
Only the friggin “Crotch” would send a man back that quick. Great chapter L T.
I just went through my own medevac last wk on a chopper a little bigger than a Loach. I remember snickering at your description of Chiclet lights as I was being wheeled into ICU. Very accurate description lol.
“Just when i thought i was out they pull me back in”
-some mafia dude in some movie
What was that the biker sergeant said? Shit hole, Oak Knoll? They sure didn’t seem to be real pleasant there. But at least you’re done with them, hopefully for good!
The paragraph right after Mary told you that the surgery was 12 hours may need a bit of a rewrite. It doesn’t flow quite right.
Thank you for another great chapter!
Thank you for your support and suggestion, Monty.
I am working on a few details for a smoother delivery
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim, The first part of this chapter showed how strong Mary was – how lucky you were to have her love. Cannot imagine the pain you went through, the time in recovery & the pain you were still in, the knowledge of the pain ahead. And then being released back to duty until “the board met”? Well, I do remember spending 2 months in hospital w/ a back issue & getting 90 days ‘light duty’ back at my job. But then again, I wasn’t shot to shit & slit stem to stern. Enough for now – Still trying to ‘digest’. Regards, Doug
I am a blessed man to have been chosen by Mary.
Thanks, Doug
James, Good to hear your surgery left you in an improved state and able to function. You
hint that you verbalized during that unremembered time after surgery … and that Mary was aware of it. What a strong lady! You are truely blessed.
I’m appalled by the bizarre bureaucratic regulations you had to endure. “Thanks for your sacrifice and service. Take that!” These many years later prove “This too shall pass.”
Some editing suggestions follow:
I was fine to walk the longer distance to visitor parking
Maybe “from” instead of “to”
I was fine to walk the longer distance from visitor parking
and I carried swung my small bag of shaving and toothpaste stuff as we went.
Maybe drop “carried”
and I swung my small bag of shaving and toothpaste stuff as we went.
the most ambient space in the hospital, that we’d found so far
comma after “hospital” seems extra
the most ambient space in the hospital that we’d found so far
the Last Rights to be as my gurney was wheeled into surgery.
Maybe substitute “me” for “be”
the Last Rights to me as my gurney was wheeled into surgery.
The surgeon had said that I’d be under for a few hours just before I’d gone the anesthesia
mask had been strapped over my nose and mouth.
“I’d gone” seems extra.
The surgeon had said that I’d be under for a few hours just before the anesthesia mask had been strapped over my nose and mouth.
My I.V. had been pulled the previous day, the catheter bag with it,
Seems that last comma should be a period
My I.V. had been pulled the previous day, the catheter bag with it.
Johannson said, as that information shouldn’t make much difference to me.
Maybe add “if” after “as”
Johannson said, as if that information shouldn’t make much difference to me.
my experience with the Corps was so limited I had almost idea how it all really worked as a military force.
Maybe add “no” in front of “idea”
my experience with the Corps was so limited I had almost no idea how it all really worked
as a military force.
Colonel ‘Lightning Bolt’ Trainer, sounded an awful like the man himself, if he went by or
allowed such a nickname, was likely nothing more or less than a macho pail of crap.
Maybe add “lot” after “awful”
Maybe change the comma after “himself to a period.
Capitalize the “i” in “if” to start a new sentence.
Add “he” before “was”
Colonel ‘Lightning Bolt’ Trainer, sounded an awful lot like the man himself. If he went by
or allowed such a nickname, he was likely nothing more or less than a macho pail of crap.
was hurt again, and I just wanted to getaway.
Space between “get” and “away”
was hurt again, and I just wanted to get away.
Where ever I was going
Maybe merge “Where” and “ever”
Wherever I was going
I pulled out my orders, only to discover that the address, the lighthouse on Yerba Buena
Island,
Maybe substitute “was” for the comma after “address”
I pulled out my orders, only to discover that the address was the lighthouse on Yerba Buena Island,
May this find you enjoying the changing of seasons heralded by the returning birds.
Blessings & Be Well
As always, Dan, we appreciate your awesome editing.
You are a godsend.
Semper fi,
Jim
Dan C Your suggestions for rewrite are always spot on! By chance were you a English teacher? Thanks once again for assisting James
William, I have no history as an English teacher. I did attend a Jesuit High School. I seem to have a knack for close reading. If a sentence doesn’t flow I look to see why. A second reading sometimes finds additional minor issues. Other folks make suggestions I miss.
Editing our own work is difficult because we read what should be there – not what is actually on the page. A second pair of eyes is useful. Even after reviewing my own compositions multiple times there can be mistakes – found after the e-mail is sent.
James is doing the heavy lifting by remembering traumatic times and skillfully recounting them for us. I just do my little part by making suggestions. I never re-read the segment later to see if they result in changes. It remains James’ story.
Thanks for the attaboy. Folks have written such heartfelt and/or well crafted comments to these stories that I am left in awe. What a brotherhood / sisterhood! Be Well.
Really good. I can’t wait to read about the race. I didn’t catch you saying whether Smokey, was the real Smokey Yunik, but that is what I assumed. You certainly had an angel guiding you whether you knew it or not. Thanks for your service and the great reading.
James,
Your roller coaster ride continues…
Thank you, for continuing to open our eyes to realities.
KEEP THE CHAPTERS COMING!
Always appreciate your comments, Walt, and thank you for the support.
Semper fi,
Jim
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Another tough go but you got through it. I am thinking upcoming duty might be a surprise.
Man, looks like they continue to screw you over, unbelievable that you were treated like that, one would hope today things would be different. It appears you were just an inconvenience for the Corp, one would hope things will improve, maybe you should have tried to contact General Puller. It has to be painful for you reliving all this. How you keep your head straight I’ll never know. Semper Fi Junior. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🥰
Another great post. Thanks!
great, keep em coming!!
Glad you made it home and you’re healing do you know what happened to your company ? All 3 books of 30 days has September had me spell bound and I’ve reread them.
Typical military bullshit JAMES !!! Never changes !!!!
So proof of what a slacker you were
Somehow, except for my lack of physical wounds, I relate exactly to your situation….like being birthed into a different demention where each turn is a revelation! I am glad I don’t carry your detail memories….but we both just kept moving forward!
S/F