How Can You Mend This Purple Heart (13 page)

Once the word got around, everyone lay muted, waiting for the brown double doors to swing open.

A corpsman from OR came through first. He was alone. He walked quickly to the center of the ward and took Becker by the shoulder.

“Ms. Rowland says we need to rearrange a couple of your guys so we can get the bed coming up next to the nurses' station,” he told Becker.

“What is it?” Becker asked.

“A special bed for burns. He's pretty bad and has to be watched real close.”

The beds were shuffled around, and a slot was opened up to the right of the two desks. The nightstand was pushed off the ward, and an electrical cord with a double outlet box was plugged into the wall. The blinds over the window were pulled shut.

The brown double doors jerked, closed, and jerked again as two corpsmen backed their way in. Becker and the other corpsman each grabbed a door and pushed it against the wall.

It came through the gaping square hole in slow motion—two shiny chrome hoops, five feet in diameter, separated in the center by a bed of two padded shelves. The bed was mounted on a stainless steel frame with a large electrical motor bolted to the four-wheeled base.

Lying face down, sandwiched between the two shelves, was twenty-year-old Corporal Jesse P. Hall.

The pain from all the wounds on the ward eased profoundly at the sight of this man. Every eye was fixed on the chrome-ringed bed and its occupant. Heads and necks were turned as tightly as possible to take in this odd-looking medical advancement. It looked like something from a magician's act.

I wondered what it could be and why it was shaped and made that way. Why did the bed have a second plank above Corporal Jesse Hall? It was only inches away from his back. Was it protecting his back from accidents or something new to help heal the burns or the amputations? Was the bed made to roll on the chrome rings instead of on its base?

Are phosphorous burns as deep and cruel as they say they are?

My curiosity would eventually turn to fear for the life of Jesse Hall and to hatred for the man who had created such a machine that would make another man suffer so hideously.

Dr. Donnolly was at the far end of the circular bed as it finished its way inside. Corporal Hall's head and face were half protruding from under the padded sandwich. His eyes, glossy and drooping, were fixed on the waistband of Dr. Donnolly's green surgical pants.

“Careful. Take it slow,” Lt. Rowland said. “Is the space ready?”

“Yes ma'am, right here,” Becker pointed.

Dr. Donnolly and the three corpsmen gently rolled the bed into the open slot and locked the wheels down. One of the corpsmen unwound the cord near the motor and was about to plug it into the extension outlet.

“Wait!” Dr. Donnolly warned. “Make sure the main switch is off to the bed and the safety switch is on!” He reached for the back of the motor panel to check it for himself. His shouting had surprised everyone.

Dr. Donnolly pulled a chair from around the desk and was sitting face to face with Corporal Hall. They both knew the severity of his pain—Dr. Donnolly from a clinical understanding, and Corporal Hall from the eternal burning of his flesh. He had been burned over eighty percent of his body following the mortar explosion that had taken his legs. The phosphorous spray had covered him like molten jelly.

Dr. Donnolly had two priorities: keep Jessie Hall comfortable, and keep him from infection.

The surgery to his legs had taken nearly twice as long as usual. Jesse Hall could not remain on one side of his burned body for more than an hour at a time. He had to be turned over several times during the surgery to relieve the pressure on the melted flesh. The anesthesia would be wearing off soon, and Lt. Rowland had already prepared the next tray of hypodermics with their potent liquids.

Dr. Donnolly and Lt. Rowland lowered the upper padded platform down to where it pressed against the dressings on Corporal Hall's backside and tightened it into place. Dr. Donnolly placed his hand on the young man's head, gave him a couple words of encouragement, went to the back of the bed frame, and turned the main switch to “ON.” He moved to the front and placed his hand on the safety switch. A few more words for Jesse Hall and Dr. Donnolly released the switch. With the motor humming and the patient locked in and sandwiched between the two padded planks, the bed began its slow rotation upward.

The bed was nearly at a forty-five-degree angle when Corporal Hall began his cries. His own weight was sliding him downward, chafing both sides of his body against the planks, igniting the raw, lava-like pools of flesh and muscle. By the time the plank had reached its highest point, he was straight up and down, and Corporal Jesse Hall's screams became a continuous deafening plea for mercy.

“OH GOD! JESUS, KILL ME! STOP! STOP! NOOOO! NOOOOO! KILL ME! KILL ME! JESUS, JUST KILL ME! PLEASE!”

Jesse Hall's entire head, the only part of him not squeezed into the padded vise, had turned blood crimson, and the veins on his temples were popping out like rubber hoses. His face contorted and twisted. His mouth gaped open, quaking and gasping for breath. At the peak of the rotation, the blood rushed downward, rippling through his half-body, blazing every nerve ending, his shattered legs throbbing and exploding with pain from the sudden surge of blood.

“NOOO! KILL ME! LET ME DIE! JESUS, LET ME DIE! OH GOD! SHOOT ME, DOC! HELP ME! LET ME DIE!”

“Turn it off! Turn it off!”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“Leave him alone!”

The cries came from every direction. They were repeated over and over, interrupted by sporadic sobbing. Lt. Rowland and Corpsman Becker scurried between beds to calm those they could; others had to be sedated. Those with combat still fresh in their past were pleading the loudest for the mercy of the man in the rotating bed.

The bed finally reached its mechanical pre-set journey of one hundred eighty degrees, and Corporal Hall was prone, his face still bloated and nearly purple, staring toward the ceiling. Dr. Donnolly loosened the upper plank, releasing the pressure from against Jesse's stomach and chest. He grabbed the tray of hypodermics and injected him with as much dosage as humanly possible. The powerful medicine went to work instantly, and Lt. Rowland began preparing another tray. The next turnover would be in the opposite direction in about two hours.

Every man on the ward was begging for a needle. Not for his own pain, but to rid his flesh of the icy bumps and to silence those tortured cries still echoing through the ward.

Dr. Donnolly, Lt. Rowland, and Corpsman Becker went to work on Corporal Hall's open wounds and burns, removing the bloody gauze wraps, pulling the dead flesh from around the open thigh muscles, and letting the burns on his chest and stomach cool as much as possible. The twenty-year-old Marine remained quiet and motionless. The drugs would wear off soon.

We all lay sedated and heavy-eyed, trying to bury the past thirty minutes somewhere in the deepest pits of our minds, somewhere so deep that it would be impossible to dig out.

The two hours passed unexpectedly fast, and the bed was set on its rotation to return Corporal Jesse Hall onto his stomach again.

Ward 2B became a crying jungle. No one could bear to see and hear this man suffer so much. A fellow Marine, who they saw suffering more pain than any man should have to endure. His desire for death over pain was understood, and every man cried out for the mercy of death to give him peace.

Corporal Jesse Hall was rolled out of Ward 2B about an hour after the rotation back to his stomach. We never saw another rotating bed, and if we had, we would have burned it. Corporal Hall was transported to a civilian hospital near his hometown. We never knew if he ever got his wish.

Earl Ray slipped into his wheelchair, shoulders trembling, his steely blue eyes glossed over with despair. He wheeled silently down the ward and plunged himself into the womb of the solarium. Dr. Donnolly followed him in.

They emerged twenty minutes later, and Dr. Donnolly looked as if he had lost a favorite son.

The Solarium

“C'MON, SHOFF,”
Bobby Mac commanded. “Get in that rickshaw of yours and let's go have a smoke.”

“It's raining out, man. Haven't you noticed?”

“We ain't going out,” he said. “We're going to the room.”

My heart started pounding and the butterflies churned in my stomach. I felt like I was going to vomit. My hands started trembling.

“Relax, Shoff. I ain't taking you to the fucking gallows,” he laughed.

“Don't be so sure.”

At the south end of Ward 2B was a set of tall, square-panel, solid wooden doors leading into the solarium—a sanctuary for anyone able and willing to indulge in the solitude and seclusion of its window-clad half circle. It was completely empty except for three two-foot-high sand-filled ashtrays and one of the beige-colored bedside nightstands. It would comfortably hold up to eight wheelchairs and their occupants.

The solarium looked over the front lawn of the hospital grounds and the main street in front. Two large oak trees nearly brushed the windows, their branches splintering the visibility of the wide sidewalk below and its constant flow of military and hospital staff pedestrians. The windows would open outward, letting in the night air and a feeling of home. It was referred to only as “the room.”

The room was off-limits to all hospital staff and anyone not a patient on 2B—or anyone not invited. It was a place to relive and share the nightmares of war. It was a place where it was okay to cry, okay for the guilt to spill out. Okay to hate again, laugh at death, and let your buried nightmares come into your consciousness. It was a place inside the walls of the hospital where men could open their emotional wounds and let the poison seep out.

It was also a place to make friends, to joke, to laugh, to relax, and to escape the boredom and monotony of life on the ward. No one ever knew who had ordered the solarium off-limits, but Dr. Donnolly and Ms. Berry were given thanks by anyone who had experienced its ability to heal.

The spontaneous gatherings were reserved for weekends, with the first one generally beginning after evening chow on Fridays. One by one, the solace seekers would quietly slip into their wheelchairs and glide toward the solarium doors with an occasional quick stop at the end of a bed to motion an invitation.

The decision to join the group for the first time was a giant step that many would never make. It was too difficult, too fresh, and too real to go back in time, to remember out loud, even to fellow Marines. It was easier to just let it stay buried and remain forgotten, at least for now.

The uneasy sounds of laughter, the screaming shouts of anger, and the hurried cries of anguish flowed eerily from under the doorway. I would listen for every word and sound echoing down the ward, reaching my bedside, as I strained to discern every syllable, and felt only a slight disdain for my eavesdropping.

Every word, every muffled cry, and every burst of nervous laughter—I shamelessly listened to it all. It was satisfying a perverse curiosity and a deepening need to belong. I wanted to be a part of their brotherhood. But I knew the voices of the young boys coming from behind those confessional doors shared horrible and beautiful life experiences that bonded them ever closer and excluded all others.

Once inside the solarium, time was of no concern. A gathering could go from a half an hour up to two or three hours. Several packs of cigarettes, their charred, crooked butts filling the ashtray, were telling evidence of a long night of profound emotions and released rage. I longed to join them.

It was a Saturday evening in late September when Sgt. Bobby Joyce sat over the edge of his bed facing me and motioned with his clubbed right hand.

“C'mon, Shoff,” he commanded again. “What are you waiting for?”

Here was the opportunity I had thought about so many nights, the moment I longed for, yet I was hesitating like a kid on a high dive—quivering back and forth, walking to the edge and stepping back.

This isn't going into combat, for God's sake. This is joining a group of guys for a smoke. Yeah, right—this is stepping into a world I know nothing about. A world I don't belong in, no matter how much I think I should. I'm not part of it, and I don't have any right being there.

I swiped the puddle of sweat from my forehead with my pajama sleeve.

“Don't you dare fucking say no to me, Shoff,” Sgt. Joyce warned. “Hey, Ski, Shoff's coming. You want to join us?”

“I wouldn't miss eet for nothing,” Ski grinned.

I rolled my chair tightly behind Bobby Mac, and as we approached Moose's bed, Bobby Mac pointed toward the solarium. Moose was in his chair before we got the doors open, and he rolled in next to me, with Sgt. Bobby Joyce sandwiching me in on the other side.

Ski, Earl Ray, and Roger rolled in, and I began to tremble as our half circle took shape.

“Did you guys call down for Big Al?” Moose asked.

“He's on his way up,” Earl Ray said.

“We'll wait,” Moose said.

I felt like I was on sacred ground. As if I had entered a supernatural place that was forbidden for mere mortals like me. I felt as though I had committed a cardinal sin and this was Judgment Day.

“Smoke 'em if you got 'em,” Bobby Mac said.

We pulled smokes from our bathrobe pockets, and the blue haze quickly filled the room. The thick smoke swirled lazily overhead and crowded its way out into the damp night air through the only open window.

Big Al came through the doors and completed the assembly for my first venture into their private and secret world. He gracefully backed in next to Ski just in time to light up a Kool from Ski's fading cigarette butt.

It was the most frightening and profound experience of my life.

Here I was, the pathetic eavesdropper, the shameful dreamer, the great wannabe, the non-combat motherfucker, sitting in the room, encircled by men with the highest measure of dignity, bravery, and honor—men who had made the greater choice.