Snubby in Vietnam

May God bless our troops, support teams and every one that defends the USA. Nurses are the front line troops in any hospital, be it yours or any small town or metropolis any where.

Thanks for sharing the best part of your journal, we probably couldn't handle the bad.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
 
SF Vet- thanks for sharing your memories. Many ring true w/ my experiences, though I served later than you(84-04) - somethings just don't change.

Some of my memories while in Thailand include being in a flea market of sorts along the Thailand/ Cambodia border where I saw locals hawking dog tags- a little eerie.

While In Saudi, I recall visiting a meat market in Tabuk ( where their Armor center is- there Ft Knox if you will) - a nasty, dirty place, no refrigeration smelly. The memory that remains is what they used as a door stop- a camels head......

Overall I enjoyed my time in the service- was blessed with a wonderful wife who also served one tour- we met in ROTC. As such she understood the demands and was very supportive. Both my daughters were born in Germany- 89 and 90.

I too experienced great and less than great leadership. I recall after the Cold War was won, the Army seemed to struggle with its focus or mission, and we seemed to devolve into a zero defect Army who focused on not screwing up versus learning from our mistakes.

I had a reputation as a practical joker- some of the jokes I did would probably got me fired. One I'll share is this. I was leading a logistical task force supporting 8ID at Graf and Hoenfels and had a female LT who while not overweight, had to watch her weight. Every day, I was able to snip a 1/8- 1/4 inch off her belt. During this time, I was only able to eat 1 meal reliably a day, so I ate breakfast heartily. She initially did too, as my mess sergeant was superb. Then her breakfast got smaller and smaller, finally ending with just a cup of coffee. One breakfast I noticed she undid her belt to sit down. I figured we needed to take one more step; I had another female soldier keep her occupied elsewhere and was able to get ahold of her pants. I moved the top button of her pants over, tightening the pants. She had no idea of what we did.

The day we returned to home station we had a Hail and Farewell where she wore a dress that looked like Omar the Tent Maker made it and she confronted me and my partner in Crime Warrant Officer and our wives. Our wives were not happy, but later the LT thanked us .......

Happy Memorial Day- keep in mind those who served & their families - in peacetime or conflict - I always do and give a prayer for all those who sacrificed for our country
 
Field Expedients

In military terms, a field expedient is a solution to some sort of problem which occurs and is resolved at the unit level, and not something out of a TM or doctrine. Americans are surly one of the best at coming up with something to make a task better, or more often, easier.

With the rainy season ending, one of our troops had the idea of asking a unit with a back hoe to dig several slooping trenches, so that trucks could be backed down into the trenches, then they could be offloaded by merely walking onto them, and not having thus to climb up and down.

Here, a 5 ton is being off loaded with civilian wounded. The MAJ directing this is the chap who co-drove with me the 300 mile trip out to our site a month+ prior. He was active duty, and assigned permanently to our EVAC back in Topeka.

I am not sure in the end if we took care of more Allied or civilians when it was all said and done.

Being a pediatrician, I took care of most of the children, outside of their surgical needs. When children and infants died in our hospital, the army mortuary service, or the old graves registration units, would not accept deceased non-US. We were able to take their bodies to a Saudi hospital in a small city down the road and they would perform the appropriate rites and care.

On particularly sad case was a severely wounded young woman who was brought to our hospital. Virtually all of our wounded civilians were from Iraqi Republican Guard reprisals, and not from US actions.

A day or so after this woman arrived, her husband found us, and pleaded for information on their two young sons who had been with her. All we could tell him was that his sons were somewhere out in the desert, as she had come in without them.

About this time, we heard that in another US hospital a physician had picked up a shiny cluster bomblet, and was handling it in his tent, and dropped it, killing him and several others.

Memorial Day as dawn is breaking here in UpState SC. A time for me to remember especial my MIA friend lost 50 years ago in Vietnam, CPT Gregg H.

All the best... and stay safe... SF VET
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This Memorial Day I am reminded that the advances in military/combat medicine over the past century have resulted in less brothers in the ground, and more who have come home to loved ones, and, hopefully, a thankful nation.

God bless our troops, and may His light shine upon the medics, doctors, nurses, and other technicians who look after them.
 
What EPA??

Our patients arrived night and day, and our hospital worked around the clock. No day or night shifts, just all of us doing what was necessary, not even knowing what day of the week it was. By vehicle and BlackHawk, by CH 47, wounded came by the hundreds. But it was immediately apparent that if we didn't do something about our helipad, we were going to have a helicopter be unable to land and offload, or perhaps spin into our hospital. Can't have this....

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET

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For Every Problem, There Is a Solution

It wasn't my idea, but our hospital commander ordered an effective solution for our helipad's sand and dust problem. Diesel was free from the SA government, and we had tankers full of the stuff. So.....in a few hours our helipad was the envy of other hospitals. I suspect even 30 years later, one could find this spot of oily sand way out in the desert.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Business as Usual

And they came....

Not only wounded Allied, POW's and non-combatants but also commanders coming to visit their wounded. A time-honored military tradition, commanders seeing their wounded troops. Our hospital staff felt honored to receive praise and thanks from battle hardened, dusty field leaders. So many choppers were coming in with wounded, and leaving immediately for more, that aviation units established a refuel station at our helipad.

As I have said before, our EVAC saw more patients than any other hospital in Desert Storm. Somewhere later in this thread, how we cared for over 35,000 patients will be explained.

And still they came....

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Helicopter Takeoffs and landing in desert conditions resulted in "brown outs" force you to go IFR immediately. Desert sands played havoc with turbine engines and the leading edge of whirling rotors blades and propellers. Even on prepared helo pads if you got too close the the edge, you'd creat a mini sandstorm. We had at least one UH-1N that loss it's skids on landing in brown out conditions - too high forward speed, IFR, and an unseen sand raise.
 

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As for the trooper on the bike, it looks like he has a rifle on his back. I don't know who he is, he was't part of our unit. When I walked out to our helipad with my trusty Pentax, I saw him pedaling from the right, so waited until he was in full view in front of the MediVac helicopters to snap my shutter. I thought a pic with the contrast of aviation and a bike would be a nice shot.

Here is a pic of our residence row. Our Advance Party along with the later small influx of troops had put them up. We had bought in Dhahran lots of "tools" before we traveled up to our desert site, fortunately, lots of wooden sledge mallets for pounding tent pegs. Because we pounded hundreds and hundreds of them, and if one missed the peg, it would snap off the wooden mallet head.

Starting to be hot and dusty, and we didn't spend much time in our tents, it was unbearably hot soon. Later, when a tent caught fire, (more on that later), I realized we should have had firebreaks in between the tents, because we could have lost all of them and our gear with a fire on a windy day. Later, I put that in our After Action Report.

Up early now, with gourmet coffee and some of my wife's brownies for breakfast.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Home Sweet Home!

Here, my cot, with my field desk and gear. From my prior Airborne Army experience, I brought along a parachute bag, the large grey bag. These are used after a jump, for stuffing one's parachute and harness into on the drop zone. Holds a lot of gear.

All of us made "furniture" out of boxes,
All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET

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Probably just about everybody is familiar with the move/TV show of several decades ago, MASH, about a army hospital during the Korean War. So...

Of course, our troops had to emulate one of the signs of that show's set. Units with low moral don't do things like this sign. It is another indication of the high moral and focus and dedication of our hospital. After 30 years, I just so proud to have been part of the 410 EVAC.

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET
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My late lady friend(miss her so much)was an Army nurse for 22 years, retired as a Colonel. They were a special breed. She once held the hand of a GI who was run over by an Abrams tank for some hours before he died. She said it was a blessing. Training accident. So sad. They are true angels for our guys. May GOD bless them all.
 
Rudi, it seems like clicking on the "like" tab just isn't appropriate when one relates a sad experience or observation, like yours. Sort of wish there was a "tab" for something such as "...agree", or "...understand." None the less, my wife too is a nurse, and for decades gave her all to ill and injured people. The vast majority of people in health care are just different, and have a "caring streak" deep down in their hearts. No doubt your lady friend was just such a person.

So no "like" for your post, but I hope this message can suffice.

SF VET
 
These two physicians were part of our home unit in Kansas, the one on the right, a neurosurgeon, the one on the left, an orthopedist. Note the field jacket, it was still chilly at night. And still wearing our M17 masks. Something I learned is that just about every sort of injury or wound has an ortho problem. No matter where or what, patients needed orthopedic care. Another common wounded part of one's body is their buttocks. Kinda not funny for a soldier to later tell others he was shot in the "derrière", like Lee Marvin was on Saipan. But one's rear end is a large part of the body, so is commonly wounded with gun shot or shrapnel.

We could take care of just about every sort of casualty, but neuro-trauma and burns were immediately evacuated Stateside as fast as possible after being stabilized for transport.

Endless hours without rest for our surgeons and OR teams and nursing and support staff.

By the hundreds and hundreds they came. Our teams gave all comers triage based on how serious their wounds. Sometimes I wonder if any of the Iraqi POW's or non-combatant patients remember what we did for them.

We had a POW who had acute appendicitis, but refused a lifesaving operation, before he perforated and got peritonitis. Again and again he refused, until one of our Interpreters said "...let me talk to him." A few minutes he came back and said "... you can operate on him now.

We asked what he told the POW, and the SA interpreter said he told the POW "...if you don't let the Americans operate on you, they will take you out into the desert and leave you, and the Desert Dogs will eat you alive." Worked, and soon he was transferred post-op to a nearby POW compound, and more about that later.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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SF VET said:
These two physicians were part of our home unit in Kansas, the one on the right, a neurosurgeon, the one on the left, an orthopedist. Note the field jacket, it was still chilly at night. And still wearing our M17 masks. Something I learned is that just about every sort of injury or wound has an ortho problem. No matter where or what, patients needed orthopedic care. Another common wounded part of one's body is their buttocks. Kinda not funny for a soldier to later tell others he was shot in the "derrière", like Lee Marvin was on Saipan. But one's rear end is a large part of the body, so is commonly wounded with gun shot or shrapnel.

We could take care of just about every sort of casualty, but neuro-trauma and burns were immediately evacuated Stateside as fast as possible after being stabilized for transport.

Endless hours without rest for our surgeons and OR teams and nursing and support staff.

By the hundreds and hundreds they came. Our teams gave all comers triage based on how serious their wounds. Sometimes I wonder if any of the Iraqi POW's or non-combatant patients remember what we did for them.

We had a POW who had acute appendicitis, but refused a lifesaving operation, before he perforated and got peritonitis. Again and again he refused, until one of our Interpreters said "...let me talk to him." A few minutes he came back and said "... you can operate on him now.

We asked what he told the POW, and the SA interpreter said he told the POW "...if you don't let the Americans operate on you, they will take you out into the desert and leave you, and the Desert Dogs will eat you alive." Worked, and soon he was transferred post-op to a nearby POW compound, and more about that later.

All the best, and stay safe... SF VET
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Click to expand...

Amen on the buttocks wounds! Amazing how much shrapnel even my skinny little hiney was capable of catching, back in the days! I don't know if it was bad form or poor technique on my part, but about every other time I was wounded it involved the buttocks. Upper leg, hip, buttocks. Back, legs, buttocks. Head, buttocks.

I remember one time we were recovering from several passes of close air support, fleschette rockets and 20mm HE cannon fire all around us. Sure, you take all the cover you can, but someone has to watch the results and direct Peter Pilot on the radio. Time to di-di (make tracks as fast as we could) somewhere else. "Hey bud, did you know your (buttocks) is bleeding?"

Common enough that I would think the Army would have a special field dressing for that.

Gets a little tiresome answering questions from the grandkids. I'm sure they find it amusing.

Got a good chuckle out of Forrest Gump's line, when the Prez asked him where he had been hit. "In the buttocks". Welcome to the club, Forrest!
 
Rudi said:
My late lady friend(miss her so much)was an Army nurse for 22 years, retired as a Colonel. They were a special breed. She once held the hand of a GI who was run over by an Abrams tank for some hours before he died. She said it was a blessing. Training accident. So sad. They are true angels for our guys. May GOD bless them all.
Click to expand...

It's been my experience there are no words which fully cover this so I can only share, I too have known such loss. It is a pity there is not more but don't take this the wrong way brother, here's a heartfelt hug for you.

Llance
 
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Rudi said:
My late lady friend(miss her so much)was an Army nurse for 22 years, retired as a Colonel. They were a special breed. She once held the hand of a GI who was run over by an Abrams tank for some hours before he died. She said it was a blessing. Training accident. So sad. They are true angels for our guys. May GOD bless them all.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we're all involuntary members of the same "club"; not a term used in jest. The wound gets better but never heals. You have my deepest sympathy, Shipmate.
 
Our EVAC had two entrances, on front, and one rear, so to speak. We could not risk having trucks and vehicles just drive in and drive around our compound, too dangerous. So if absolutely necessary, we would ground guide them in, otherwise visitors had to park outside. Pretty windy and dusty now.

Our medical staff was of course briefed before we left Kansas on some of the specific illness we were likely to encounter. And the Saw Scale Viper, for which we had antivenom. About that time, we heard that in another hospital, a MaJ had suddenly collapsed and died, and there was concern it was a case of Hemorraghic Fever from an insect, but later we head it was likely an MI. We did encounter in the POW's and non-combatants Leishmaniasis, a larva which burrows under the skin. Not something found in KS.

We were a smoothly running hospital by now. Our ER and OR staff had no problems with "mass casualty" arrivals of 20+ at a time. It wasn't even necessary to summon all of our staff to take care of them.

I would hear an incoming helicopter, perhaps a CH47, and in a few minutes get a ring on a field phone, and when I would ask if they needed help, our ER staff would often reply "..., nah, it's only 20 wounded POW's, we can handle it no problem."

All the best... and stay safe... SF VET
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Our wards, pre-op and post-op could be pretty crowded. Patients were on litters, which were on collapsable metal "sawhorses", with metal poles for IV's and the like clamped onto the litters. When the litters were too bloody, our litter teams would wash and scrub them, although it was not easy to then get them to dry somehow. Our big generators provided power, and we had some capability to heat our hospital. But that meant big power cords laying about, something to trip over. One thing that made it easier for our hospital way out in the desert to function, compared to a Stateside hospital, is that our staff lived just a moments walk from their residence. It was a self-contained small city.

Just about every person, in their civilian life back home, was employed and skilled in their medical tasks and duties. So it wasn't necessary to train anybody, they just wore their uniform, and did what they did every day in the US.

But it wasn't just our ward/OR/ER medical staff that was working hard. Our motor pool had constant work to keep our generators running and safe. The risk of electrocution was real, and later one of our supply staff indeed died of electrocution after our return.

One of our big 5 ton trucks has "down" awaiting a replacement engine, so it was our gate barrier. Remembering the Lebanon Marine barracks bombing with 247 dead Marines, we used it to drive a few feet back and forth to lessen the risk of a suicide bomber driving in and detonating. And our guards were locked and loaded. Our water and wash team was now washing our hospital linen, and eventually, when things became less busy, did our personal laundry. Each of us had a plastic wash basin for doing our own laundry.

Life was much more complicated for our women staff, with personal hygiene needs, and their attempts to try to maintain some sort of female "prettiness." Most of the men just had our hair zipped off.

We had an issue Army barber kit, and it seemed to me that women have a latent desire to style hair. So us guys would sit and let them take turns trimming and styling our hair, before just zipping it all off. It was nice to sit with the ladies in their home tent for a few minutes. Us guys just lined up our cots side by side, but the women tended to hang blankets and other barriers between their cots, sort of like little cubicles. A female privacy thing I suppose.

Next up, "FIRE!"

Stay safe, and all the best.... SF VET
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You have noted all of the medical specialities in the unit and facility! Just like a civilian facility, though security was upgraded! 😁
I believe I read that your medical speciality was pediatrics? Given your military experiences before becoming a doctor I am curious how that entered into your choice?
 
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FIRE!

When our little Advance Party began to lay out our Line at our desert site, we noted another small party doing the same thing nearby. We walked over and found a similar Advance Party from the 148th EVAC out of Arkansas had been given the same mission as us, to co-locate adjacent to our own hospital. They too worked in the mud and the rain, and we talked with them a little, but we were separated by some hundreds of yards, and were too busy to have much interaction with them, or they with us.

To higher command, I am sure it seemed like a good idea, putting our hospitals together inside our berm, so we could share resources, and work together as a big "med center" or something like that. Share staff, supplies, support one another's needs and capacities and capabilities. As our two hospitals began to rise out of the desert, I did attend some of their staff meetings, but soon we had little if any interaction. I guess we were too busy coordinating our present and future efforts, other than loaning them our big road compactor, as they had really rutted up their area. In the latter months of our mission, I never saw the need to visit their site, and had no need or interest in seeing now they lived and worked.

Besides, our hospital's moral was very high, and I think we felt we are better than the 128th anyway. There was nothing we wanted from them, and I am sure their personnel felt the same way about my own 410 EVAC. We were superior to them in every way. At least, we thought so. I suspect they too accomplished their mission in a proud and masterful way. They were closed down and returned Stateside later sooner than we were. We just didn't need anything from anyone else.

Troop moral is dependent on many factors, but prime among them is good chow and mail from home. After some time, our mess team working hard got our "kitchen" up and running, and as soon as possible we had a hot breakfast, and a hot dinner; it was always MRE's for lunch. We had great cooks, who worked day and night to do the best they could out in the desert.

One early day, we looked over towards the 148th's side of the compound, and saw black smoke billowing up. They were on fire!!

So some of us grabbed some fire extinguishers, and threw them into a truck and raced over to help. Of course, feeling like they were dummies for letting a fire start, we pulled up to their burning mess/kitchen tent making all sorts of fire engine sounds, hollering out sirens and bells and alarms. Sounds mean and ill-spirited , but such was the competition between our hospitals. Of course, in reflection, we were fortunate that we did not experience the great risk of a fire too. Just an accident.

So we hopped out and helped put out their fire, and offered condolences, and drove "home'. But now they had no kitchen for their staff and patients, so our cooks gave them all the equipment we could spare, so in a few says their mess section was again up and running. As far as I know, helping rebuild their kitchen was the only time the two hospitals supported one-another.

I am sure the Arkansas folks would have done everything possible for us, if necessary. But deep down, all of us knew we were the best medical unit in the War. I think our males also thought we had the best looking female troopers too.

Here, what a burned out kitchen looks like. We were lucky it wasn't ours.

All the best, and stay safe.... SF VET
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