Gunny

    While a patient in the orthopedics ward of Camp Kue Army Hospital I lay many hours in bed.  The first week and a half was nothing but bedtime.  I was not allowed up at all.  Then the doctor put a requirement on me leaving the hospital.  Since I had to do physical therapy I had to be able to lift fifteen pounds before I could leave. Fifteen pounds was a lot when your leg shrinks down to nothing.  They call it atrophy.  A new word learned through first hand experience.   The muscles wither away or shrink because of a lack of use.   So between the left leg shrinking and the pain of the joint due to the operation fifteen pounds looked like a ton. 
    It was on one of the bed ridden nights that they brought a Marine Corp Gunny Sergeant into the ward.   He was groaning after they put him in the bed diagonally across from me.  He actually was probably groaning before they put him in the bed.  He was hurting pretty bad.
    They had the curtain drawn for the longest time.  Nurses, attendants and of course the doctor came and went really anxious like.  Back and forth they would go into the curtain and disappear for a bit.  Pretty soon they had him drugged and quiet and the rushing around stopped.  The ward was quiet again with an occasional cough or snore.
    The next morning all the bedridden patients looked over to the gunnies bed and the curtain was still drawn.  “They must have had him drugged real good,” we’d say.  We did not see him or hear from him for about four days.  
    Most of the patients in Okinawa came from local bases, however many came directly from Vietnam. So there was a lot of speculation on what had happened to the gunny.
After my surgery they had me heavily drugged for three full days.  The doctors had me on morphine for those three days and afterwards they put me on a weaker pain killer.   They said, “ a person can get addicted to morphine so they limit it’s use.”   I don’t remember those three days.  It was weird waking up three days later and wondering where the time went.  A small glimpse of what an amnesia patient would go through.  A whole big blank spot in the memory stayed with me for the longest time.
     We all would sit around in our beds wondering what was up with the gunny.    The doctors and nurses would not tell us a thing other then he was a hurting puppy.  It was a total mystery. We could not wait to hear from the horse’s mouth whenever he woke up.  We were surprised when he did not wake up after the third day. Since most of us had been on morphine we were experts at military medical routine.  So the extra day threw us.   
    Since we didn’t have anything better to do we would all talk about gunny sergeant Castle.  He became the subject of many a time killing hour.   Some thought it could have been a car accident.  Others thought it might be since he was a marine that it was a field maneuver exercise accident.  The four days he was out was like an eternity.  The anticipation was really the only thing we had to look forward to besides the three square meals a day.
     I was in the hospital a total of three full weeks. They kept their word as soon as I lifted the fifteen pounds they processed me out.  Back to my command I went.
     So what was the rest of the story with the gunny.  Well he finally woke up and it was my first day out of the bed. We both ended up in the bathroom at the same time. So just the two of us and I got the story straight from the horses mouth.
     Well he was stationed at Camp Hansen. It was just north of us and out in the boonies. No paved roads, all dirt and rocks and brush. The route was real windy and along the cliffs. It was real rough terrain.
Well it seemed he had decided to have a vasectomy.  The doctor did the surgury and he was sent back to his bunk in his room.  While in the bed he was in a lot of pain and started swelling. He called the infirmary and told them what was going on with him and they told him to pack himself in ice. So someone came and brought him ice. The ice was tremendously cold so it did not feel to comfortable.
     About an hour passed and he swelled up real bad and the pain was terrible so he called the infirmary and they decided to send him to the hospital at Camp Kue.  It was late at night and pretty dark. They did not have an ambulance so all they had was a spare jeep.  Jeeps are rather stiff in steering and driving and the springs are pretty hard.  So they loaded the gunny in the Jeep and headed down the windy, bumpy, pitted roads to the hospital.
     This guy was really in agony by the time he arrived at the hospital emergency room.  When we saw him come into the ward it was after this gunny went through so much.
     The gunny told me in the bathroom that they had tied the wrong tubes off and he had been  bleeding. This man had been through a pretty tramatic vasectomy that ended up a nightmare.  It was a simple procedure that went wrong.
     It was also a story I never forgot. Perhaps like any guy I am vulnerable to the effects of the story. Ouch!