The Burn Ward
Glasser, Ronald J.
The Burn Ward Ronald J. Glasser Edwards picked up the stethoscope from his desk. "Look," he said, "You can say what you want about the Army and its problems, but I learned this much from...
...Tell the ward master...
...Taking an admissions chart off the wall rack, Edwards sat down on a chair next to the huge tub...
...OK, John," Edwards said...
...Why don't you take a sleeping pill and get some rest...
...I've seen worse, Bob...
...But I'll wear it when I can...
...There isn't a better platoon leader in the whole cav...
...The boy was awake, nervously looking at the needle the corpsman had stuck into the back of his hand...
...David had stopped shivering...
...Edwards asked...
...I know you can do it...
...Took an AK round a little in front of the right eye...
...Probably right, he thought, continuing on his way...
...White count...
...At least Major Johnson thought it was second degree, but it's beginning to look like it's all third...
...The skin on his face had been seared red and all his hair and eyebrows and lashes had been burnt away...
...Edwards hurriedly bent over the frame...
...The skin grows back from the areas around the hair follicles...
...Debrided under general anesthesia at the 60 evac, Chu Ci...
...For openers, burns look bad and the patients die...
...You need not convince the deceased's relatives...
...I can't keep anything down...
...The stairwell was empty and he walked slowly down to the first floor and out onto the concrete walkway...
...How's the blood pressure...
...The corpsman found a small, unburnt area near the elbow and plunged the needle into the skin...
...How much kanamycin and Keflin...
...Nice kid...
...The next morning, after rounds, Johnson got him alone...
...Yes, sir...
...I can't think of anything," David said, closing his eyes again...
...Think I'll take your advice," Edwards said, closing his clipboard...
...How long have you been in Nam, David...
...Same old thing...
...Better add some kanamycin and Keflin to the chloromycetin...
...It was a long walk...
...The deceased, where the remains are viewable, will be buried in full military uniform...
...He's OK, Major," the air evac sergeant said, "The head injury's over there...
...I'm going to have to take him up to the operating room and save what I can...
...David Jensen, MOS B11...
...he said loudly...
...David would die...
...You want to go on rounds...
...I know you're nervous," Edwards said soothingly...
...one of the corpsmen was shouting above the whining of the motor...
...Grimly, with the chopper coming nearer-louder-Edwards walked up a slight rise, past a small, dimly lit sign: KISHINE BARRACKS 109th UNITED STATES ARMY HOSPITAL United States Army, Japan Burn Unit "Coastal Airlines loads the bodies on an angle...
...The patient, partially hidden by the nurse and doctor, was lying naked on the treatment table...
...Edwards opened the drawer of the nightstand next to the frame...
...How's his urine output...
...He woke up in the morning exhausted, put on his wrinkled uniform and went to the ward...
...David, I'm going to stop your IV," he said, straightening up...
...Regardless of the branch of service: The emblem of the Infantry, crossed rifles, will be carried on every coffin...
...Suddenly David let out a scream and the scream, echoing off the spotless tile walls, pierced Edwards to his heart...
...He looked up, checking the blood running down into the IV tubing...
...Nam...
...How's Jensen doing...
...He cleared his throat...
...I can feel myself growing...
...Grant had stopped to talk to them and stayed with each much longer than he had to...
...The day before he had mentioned there were 16 different colors in the floor tiles...
...It was a rather bright letter, careful, measuredly written, filled with support and concern...
...Is his name Grant...
...No, my family...
...He was standing in the reflected glare of the landing lights, with the windy noise of the chopper rushing past him...
...You sort of build up a tolerance to it...
...When Edwards visited him again that evening, he complained that his head hurt and the sulfamyelon was stinging even more...
...Just leave me alone, will you...
...Quickly turning the pages, he read: "Eighty per cent second degree and third degree...
...The soldier looked up at him apprehensively...
...Once you know what's going on, it won't be so bad...
...Get the blood," Edwards ordered, reaching for the oxygen mask...
...Remember...
...He pressed the oxygen mask over the boy's mouth and he could feel the new skin slipping away under the pressure of the mask's rubber edges...
...At Kishine, the respirator was the sound of death, not life...
...He was very much at ease...
...As he pulled back the blanket the soldier grimaced...
...David was already in the tub, being debrided...
...Hard to find a vein...
...I'll be your doctor for a while until you get better...
...That way it won't be as painful...
...You feed yourself...
...David...
...That evening, down in the hospital bacteriology lab, his second blood culture started growing out another patch of pure Pseudomonas...
...I haven't written Mom and Dad about it...
...Cramer asked...
...other than that he looked dead...
...You're going to get better.' "Yes, sir...
...a lot worse...
...I'm going to have to put you on a respirator...
...I've been doing this a long time, David, and I know when it really hurts and when it doesn't...
...David," he said wearily...
...I11 be careful, Bob...
...What about the cultures...
...A lot of guys get out of here OK, and despite what they say, they're better for it...
...Hi...
...Listen," Edwards said, lowering his voice...
...His unit was on their way to getting their ass whipped...
...Just goddam hang it, And call the general surgeon...
...Not the war itself, God knows that's hopeless enough, but what happens to you because of it...
...Yes, sir...
...It's just to help you breathe...
...Really...
...What do you think about his burns...
...Every time he drifted off, he'd see Grant's tag: "Remains, non-viewable...
...Dying in the burn unit is not normally that dramatic...
...He stopped a moment near one of the steel-arched Stryker frames to listen...
...105...
...An effort has been' made to find an escort whose personal involvement with the deceased or presence with the family of the deceased will be of comfort and aid...
...It caught Edwards off guard...
...It will help you breathe, so I'll have to make a little hole in your windpipe...
...I'm sure you haven't caught up with the time change...
...I'm going to make the hole now," Edwards said, removing the mask...
...Better fill the whirlpools...
...ply...
...Edwards asked...
...Respirator...
...Now he was down to the four-by-four surgical pads, and finally to the wound itself...
...David was still there, sobbing...
...David was about to go on when, gasping, he suddenly bolted upright and, struggling against the restraints, vomited up a great flood of bright red blood...
...Grant's age...
...Cramer looked at him and quickly left to get the antibiotics...
...He suddenly realized what he was doing, and for a moment, as he stood there staring at the burns, he looked stricken...
...From you...
...I know...
...Still normal...
...Set up a cut-down tray, and get a tracheotomy set...
...He was reaching for the first letter when the intercom buzzed...
...He pushed open the double doors to the burn unit...
...From the far end of the ward came the faint mechanical hissing of a respirator...
...lightly ahead of him...
...Slowly he opened his eyes, but there was no light in them, no gleam...
...Where you from, Doc...
...No, this morning's grew out Klebsiella...
...Looking over Cramer's shoulder Edwards saw that the surgeon's fingers were deep inside the half shell of the boy's skull...
...What will you do when you get home...
...You've got to be more positive than that," Edwards said coaxingly...
...It just keeps stinging...
...five months," David said, watching the corpsman pick a chunk of skin off his chest...
...His eyes, hollow holes, stared coldly and defiantly at Edwards...
...Please, Doc, I don't want to go alone...
...They were standing right next to me...
...I swear to God, I didn't even hear it...
...Edwards stuffed the stethoscope into his back pocket...
...I can see it in myself: I'm getting older over here in a way that I could never do at home or maybe anywhere...
...Do you have any relatives in "Yes," Edwards said, "I do...
...Leaning wearily against the wall, he pressed the button, and without looking stepped in even as the door was opening, almost colliding with one of the patients...
...The lab technicians are doing it "Let's see his electrolytes...
...Burns look and feel a lot worse than they are...
...I saw him about three weeks ago...
...Pieces of dead skin were already floating free...
...David...
...The choppers usually came in about 10 in the morning, but when a bad burn was evac'd to Japan, they were flown in the same night...
...Doc," David gasped...
...You sort of look like him...
...What's new, White...
...I know what you said about my flack vest, but you haven't been here and you just don't know how hot it can get...
...You've got to start using your hands sometime...
...But I can't hold a fork...
...106," the medic said, reading the stool-smeared thermometer...
...Outside he passed groups of patients from the other wards, some standing around talking, others doing nothing, or being pushed around in wheelchairs by their buddies...
...He walked down the corridor to the elevator...
...Coming in from the dark around the back of the evac building Edwards was dazzled by the sudden lights...
...The Burn Ward Ronald J. Glasser Edwards picked up the stethoscope from his desk...
...Edwards sensed the despair in his question...
...I know," Edwards said...
...At some places, on the thighs and chest, he could see down to the muscle fibers criss-crossing under the burnt fat...
...There was a section about Carol, how much she loved David and how happy she was that he was finally out of the fighting...
...A few of the dressings had already soaked off and the medic was picking them out of the water...
...Your mission as a body escort is as follows: to make sure that the body is afforded, at all times, the respect due a fallen soldier of the United States Army...
...The new skin just keeps growing out from them, creeping over the burned area, until all these little growing areas come together...
...Your brother...
...David was on a Stryker frame halfway down the ward, lying on his stomach...
...School, I guess...
...For the first time in my life, everything seems to count...
...Yes, sir...
...No, just send him up...
...I didn't know how...
...Nothing, Doc, really...
...Stinging him...
...Yes, sir," the corpsman said...
...He waited while the medic searched for a place to give the injection...
...Edwards opened his eyes...
...That's what we want to avoid, because if the burns get infected no new skin will form...
...But after it, a comfortable time o f unconsciousness, where nothing is done and everything-even the last breath-is rather a leisurely giving up...
...No one was there to feed me," David said, watching the corpsman open the medicine cabinet and fill the syringe...
...Oh," the cabbie said, pulling away from the curb, "thought so, saw the Fuji patch on your sleeve...
...Your girl...
...They told me about your brother and your taking him home...
...Excuse me, sir...
...he asked...
...The ward master unhooked the IV from its bottles...
...Johnson had gone to X-ray to check on a few films...
...burns die inside out, down at the cellular level, where the billions of struggling cells just simply give up...
...We might have to operate tonight...
...What was left of his lips were clamped tight against the pain of the water churning against his blistered skin...
...All the covers were off and he was trembling...
...The point is that you need it now...
...Hurt...
...Removed the right eye, traversed the left orbit, removing the left eye and came out near the left temple, apparently blowing out the left side of his head...
...Oh, Edwards," Cramer said as he reached the door...
...We're going to have to be doing this for some time and we don't want to make an addict out of you, so we're only going to use the pain medicine when we have to...
...How do you like the Vietnamese women...
...Edwards hung up his jacket...
...Honest, I'll be careful...
...How does the skin grow back...
...If you don't keep it loose, you'll leave here as much a cripple as if someone had shot off your arms and legs...
...You didn't have to come, not all the time...
...What...
...Whatever the case, no casket will be allowed to leave the Oakland area without a proper escort...
...There were blood-soaked clothes and bandages all over the floor...
...It's all right," Edwards said...
...Sorry, I didn't see you in the dark...
...He was probably, all things considered, dead the moment the round hit the rucksack...
...I'm handling it, dammit," he said belligerently...
...One hundred and seventy," the corpsman said as Edwards approached the litter...
...Sorry it took so long, sir," he said...
...I'll give you that," Edwards said...
...He had been drafted and assigned to Kishine...
...Edwards said...
...He didn't ignore their wounds, or pretend not to see that they were so obviously dying...
...The first thing we're going to do is put you in a whirlpool bath to soak off your bandages and remove what dead skin we can...
...Is that clear...
...I've checked on the way to the whirlpool...
...Does he have any blood crossmatched...
...73 "Dear Bob: We are fighting very hard now...
...Blood cultures growing out anything...
...Julian, we're gonna start rounds...
...David said sullenly...
...We'll treat his burns up there...
...White put his scissors back into his pocket, "He's doing all right...
...We can help you grow new skin, stop your infections, graft you-if it comes to that...
...Even the tips of his toes and fingers were charred and oozing, nothing had been spared...
...three the next morning...
...I'm telling you, you're going to be OK...
...The huge overhead lights were off, leaving only the night lights to flicker feebly across the shiny, tiled floor...
...Would you like me to write her David closed his eyes...
...Look," he said, "You can say what you want about the Army and its problems, but I learned this much from going home: the Army treats you better dead than alive...
...Within three days, the cadaver grafts failed, refused to take, and Edwards had to order it pulled off, like the rest of the dying skin...
...1/30 E-2, Fourth Division, 20 years old...
...Believe it or not sulfamyelon is one of the major breakthroughs in the treatment of burns...
...Nice place, huh ? " driver asked...
...I know how close you two'd become...
...Seventy per cent second degree and 15 per cent third...
...You mean, you get those guys in "Yeah," Edwards said, "We get Japan ? " those guys...
...White sulfamyelon cream was smeared all over his burnt back, buttocks, and legs...
...The ward master told me that you did all right at supper...
...Cramer turned his head for a moment, looked at Edwards, and went back to work...
...I must have taken a round in my rucksack...
...When he got back to the burn unit, he found David in the treatment area, already floating full length in one of the whirlpool baths, his head supported on a padded board to keep it above the waterline, the water gently churning about his burnt body...
...How's it going...
...Edwards watched unseen while the corpsmen hurried out to the chopper to off-load the patients...
...seems as if the sulfamyelon is bothering him...
...A certain distance entered David's stare, a vague confusion that was more pathetic than his glaring hopelessness...
...the follicles go down pretty deep, down into the area below the skin...
...How did it happen...
...Like all army hospitals, Kishine is fantastically spread out, its buildings and wards acres apart so that no one shell or bomb can get it all...
...It was summer outside and the night was as warm as indoors...
...Sorry," he said, lifting the cover more carefully...
...Jessie, why don't you give him 25 of Demerol...
...Thanks for the R & R. Say Hi to all the guys in the burn unit...
...I know I'm not...
...Four days after you left...
...The bacteriology lab called the ward and the ward master called Edwards...
...I'll be back in the morning and I want an answer...
...He hesitated a moment and then went on matter-of-factly...
...I know...
...Can you hear me...
...Yes," Edwards said calmly, putting the letter back in the drawer...
...Got to go...
...I figured I'd leave the cuff on, sir...
...Now, dammit," he said, "I want you to think of an answer to that letter...
...I'll be down at the landing pad...
...What's his temperature...
...David," he said, "we're going to debride you a bit-take off the dead skin...
...Why am I going to have to be grafted then...
...How come...
...Then yesterday, he became confused and agitated...
...Six liters plasmonate...
...He's becoming disoriented...
...Sir...
...The least you could do is help them out...
...Edwards walked out into the unit...
...If we don't take it off, it just stays and decays, forming a place for bacteria to grow and divide, and you'll just get infected...
...Edwards fumbled across the night table for the lamp switch...
...They did get whipped...
...I mean, where's it gonna come from...
...Take him to C-4," Edwards said to the corpsman...
...I make the point wear his, but then someone else carries his gear...
...It is for the most part a kind of gentle going...
...It keeps your skin from getting infected and gives the new skin a chance to grow...
...DOC...
...The ward master met him at the entrance to the unit and followed him hurriedly down the ward...
...That stuff you keep putting into my IV bottle-the only other guys who get it are the ones on respirators...
...I'd give you the chance to tie things up, understand...
...We killed 'em all...
...Someone had once said he'd signed more death certificates than any other doctor in Japan...
...Your hands aren't that bad, David...
...Y work in a burn unit...
...The patient, his bathrobe slung over his good shoulder-the other was wrapped in a plaster cast-smiled politely, and was about to look away when he saw the doctor's name plate on his uniform...
...Not too good, sir...
...A lot, a lot...
...David, lying in the water, saw him as soon as he walked into the treatment room...
...furacin and sterile dressings...
...He was turning up the oxygen flow, just as Cramer came running back with the blood...
...In his arm," he said...
...The corpsman had just got the IV started...
...I can't believe the things that used to bother me, or even that I thought were important...
...Besides, it wouldn't stop a round and that's what we've been getting lately...
...All that new skin and scar that will be forming has a tendency to contract with time...
...He had been surprised at how well Grant had handled himself in the burn unit...
...It's like your complaint about patients demanding penicillin-sometimes you just can't use it...
...the medic asked...
...The surgeons trached him today, and Dr...
...David was looking anxiously at him...
...Four units...
...His IV bottle was still working, hanging down from a ceiling hook...
...Yeah," David said...
...I'm sorry...
...I've been throwing up all day...
...You don't have to call me sir...
...David was lying on the frame...
...He's been confused for the last hour," the medic said...
...now...
...I shouldn't have got involved with taking the body back...
...He sat down at his desk and looked at the two weeks of correspondence that had been piled neatly at the corner of his desk...
...Burns are a very special kind of wound, and no physician anywhere wants the responsibility of caring for them, not even for a little while...
...Major Johnson put him on IV [intravenous] chloromycetin and tetracycline...
...This article is from his book, 365 Days (George Braziller), and was published in the April, 1971, issue of The Washington Monthly...
...It won't hurt...
...He was doing fine until this morning...
...Escort duty is a privilege as well as an honor...
...I'm not complaining, don 't get the wrong idea...
...If you don't exercise and keep the scar tissue and new skin over your joints loose and flexible it will tie 'em down like iron...
...We had to give him Demerol every time he went into the whirlpool, but he's very hard core...
...Fine, sir...
...No," Edwards said...
...Johnson was right, he thought...
...I wasn't even point...
...The morning culture again grew out Pseudomonas...
...He's 47 per cent burned," the sergeant said, reading the cover sheet of the soldier's medical record...
...Five...
...It's not going to be comfortable, but your temperature...
...Just hang it," Edwards ordered, holding open David's jaw, trying to get out more of the blood...
...These families have already been convinced of the death by either the presentation of personal effects or the relating of an eyewitness report from a member of the deceased's unit...
...David was sullen...
...The corpsman, kneeling down beside the tub, began picking off those pieces that were still attached but had been loosened...
...Each body in its casket is to have, at all times, a body escort...
...The air smelled sweet, like a dying orchard...
...Detonators...
...We are going to have to do it every day, a little bit at a time...
...I thought so," the trooper said, obviously pleased...
...And David...
...There's a war on...
...He gave the empty chopper one more look and then followed the medic into the air evac area...
...Each of the next of kin listed in the deceased 201 file has already been visited by a survivor assistance officer...
...Understood...
...Its crew chief and co-pilot were already in the open hatchway unstrapping the litters from their carrying hooks...
...After rounds, Edwards went down to the bacteriology lab and then to his office...
...But we are getting hit and badly...
...It was 107 before we put him on the cooling blanket...
...Oh, get many burns over there...
...That afternoon they took David to the operating room and covered his legs and part of his stomach with cadaver skin...
...No, sir, I "All right...
...Yes, sir...
...It has to be done...
...I couldn't even goddamn hear it...
...Chewing on what remained of his lips, David winced...
...Why didn't you eat...
...How's he doing, Sergeant," Edwards asked the ward master who was standing at attention by the machine that was slowly, insistently hissing air into and out of the charred body...
...All the fuzziness is gone, all the foolishness...
...Just to breathe...
...Be sure that if the body you are escorting is being carried by Coastal Airlines that the caskets are loaded head down-this will keep the embalming fluid in the upper body...
...How's the fellow on the respirator...
...Hi," he said, turning around from his desk...
...I'm the only first lieutenant in the company who hasn't been hit yet...
...But it will all be for nothing if you leave here with all your joints tied down by scar tissue...
...Yes, sir," he said, his voice trembling...
...He turned his head on the board and looked at Edwards...
...Edwards "No...
...Is that understood...
...breathing becomes labored and distant, circulation falls apart, hearts dilate, livers and spleens grow to twice their size, lungs gradually fill with fluid, and there is always a certain period of confusion...
...OK, listen, you have an ulcer...
...Stable...
...We'll put wooden blocks on them, and as you get used to handling one size, we'll make the blocks smaller...
...Call Johnson...
...Sir...
...Hi," Edwards said...
...Edwards grabbed the suction off the wall and, pulling open David's jaw, began sucking out his mouth, trying to clear the blood and vomit out of his airway...
...I'll be right over...
...I told you about the pain, didn't I?" he said angrily...
...Specifically it is as follows: 1) to check the tags on the caskets at every point of departure...
...It's coming,'' the corpsman said, stepping away from the window...
...Edwards refolded the letter...
...Excuse me, sir...
...I know," he said, almost triumphantly...
...There is usually very little blood...
...Blood began oozing from the new patch of raw skin on his chest, and Edwards could see the tears rolling down his burnt cheeks...
...Yeah, that's where I'm going...
...Unfortunately you only see one end of it...
...I'm not going to make it, am I? No, no, don't interrupt...
...catheterized...
...Can you believe that...
...David slowly turned his head...
...By the way, you're beginning to sound like Mom...
...Edwards watched the corpsman wheel the boy out of the evac area, and then left the area himself to go to the neurosurgery ward...
...Yes, sir, thank you, sir...
...No, David, I'm sorry...
...Don't worry...
...It's the same with a flack vest...
...David, clenching his teeth, nodded...
...By the time he reached the building, the medics had placed the two litters on the movable stretcher racks and one of them, working on the patient nearest the door, was already setting up an IV...
...Still Pseudomonas...
...I told the corpsman to leave you alone...
...I saw you with some letters this afternoon," Edwards said, noting how the whitish scar tissue under David's chin had a pale greenish cast to it...
...I'm going to have to put you on a cooling blanket...
...Edwards nodded as the elevator suddenly slowed to a stop...
...Every effort is made to pick an officer from a similar racial and economic background...
...His frontal lobe is torn up," Cramer said...
...All the patients had been settled in for the night...
...Let's go...
...Look, if you were going to die, I'd let you know...
...Oh, Crowley," Edwards said, coming to a halt near the little cubicle at the back of the ward...
...Yes...
...When Grant visited, there were two ghastly 90 per cent burns stretched out, blistered and dying on their Stryker frames...
...He simply talked to them, interestedly and honestly with a concern so palpable that no one could doubt his sincerity...
...I'll check on him later...
...Yes, sir, the lab called back tonight-Pseudomonas pseudomallei...
...The ward master told me you didn't touch your breakfast...
...I can see it in myself and my men...
...Right...
...Sometimes," he said, trying to sound reasonable, "if the burns are too deep, deep enough to destroy the follicles, then there is no skin to grow back, so we have to graft...
...Did you answer...
...Tried to tear my gear off, but my hands...
...This was done in person by an officer in uniform from the nearest army unit...
...This is Sergeant Cramer...
...This stuff stings, honest, Doc," David said...
...Don't worry about the burns," he said, turning to leave...
...Don't know," David said, painfully engrossed in watching the corpsman go after another piece of his skin...
...First Air Cav...
...It's going to hurt, and I'll give you something for the pain when I think you need it...
...You only have a few days for your R & R. You might as well have a good time...
...The emblems on his uniform will be that of the service to which he was attached at the time of his death...
...It was the ward master...
...You could destroy his kidneys with that much polymyxin...
...The machine's slow regular rhythm was almost soothing...
...The story is true, but the names and dates have been changed...
...You have a lot of blood and stuff in your lungs...
...By the time he got to the ward, the neurosurgeon was already in the treatment room...
...He pushed himself away from the desk...
...Edwards pinched his neck, but there was no response...
...Send him to neurosurgery," Edwards said...
...David grimaced, barely suppressing a groan...
...You know you didn't have to work today-or yesterday, for that matter...
...He told the ward master to restart David's IV and put him on 200 mg of polymyxin every four hours...
...These linings are like nature's reserves...
...Johnson pressed the button on the intercom...
...What would you suggest...
...When he came back to the ward, he found David lying on his back, and the corpsman was smearing on the last of the sulfamyelon, spreading it over David's charred stomach as if it were butter...
...Edwards got up...
...There have been a lot of troopers, just like you, through here, and I know you're as fine as they are...
...You can't carry a 60-pound rucksack in 110 degree heat and an 11-pound flack vest...
...2) to insist if the tags indicate the remains as non-viewable that the relatives not view the body...
...He had to tug to get it off...
...The beds lining the wall were barely visible, the patients no more than lumps against the frames...
...The blood is still ice cold," he said...
...Even with the oxygen David was having to fight to breathe...
...If it hurts, just let us know...
...Unconsciously Edwards began adding up the percentages of burned area, tallying them in his mind...
...Far away he heard the muffled dull thudding of the chopper whopping its way through the heavy air, and suddenly he felt alone and desperately tired...
...A moment later, the ward master came back with the antibiotics already drawn up into two syringes...
...Johnson had been the plastic surgeon working with the burn unit at Duke University...
...Little bits of skin came away with it...
...It had a sick metallic green cast to it...
...HOW...
...You married, David...
...Yes, I know," Edwards said gently...
...Just try to relax...
...Just get it...
...They know you're burned...
...If the body is loaded incorrectly, namely, feet down, the embalming fluid will accumulate in the feet, and the body may, under appropriate atmospheric conditions, begin to decompose...
...Come on," Edwards said pleasantly, holding the door...
...The noise coming from inside the lungs was getting louder again...
...David looked nervously from him to the corpsman...
...been...
...Tell Sergeant Dorsey I'll be right there...
...How many times he'd heard it before...
...David asked, speaking to the floor...
...He walked quietly down the center aisle of the ward, his footsteps echoing Ronald J. Glasser was a major in the U. S. Army Medical Corps, 1968-1970...
...David...
...When did he go sour...
...Yes, sir...
...I was just walking...
...The ward master was in the treatment room, cutting adhesive tape into 12-inch strips...
...the cab "Japan...
...Later that evening, one of David's blood cultures began to grow out Pseudomonas arinosa, a bacillus resistant to most antibiotics...
...I know, it was my fault...
...We don't feed you- here," Edwards said...
...He walked across to the other wounded trooper...
...And last week I lost two RTO's...
...The evac sergeant handed him the patient's medical jacket...
...Why don't you go into Tokyo...
...Surprised, Edwards turned around...
...There is, honestly, something very positive about being over here...
...OK, be right there, thanks...
...Suddenly, with the blood still welling out of his lipless mouth, David went rigid and, arching backwards, collapsed against the frame...
...I know...
...Stretched out on the bed, barely lit by the dials of the respirator, was a shadowy form...
...The wounded soldier, his head wrapped, was lying unconscious on his back, with the blood pressure cuff still wrapped around his arm...
...It gets a bit spooky...
...But J want to see what you're "It's not nice, " "And where do you think I've doing...
...He began to unwrap the gauze from around the patient's head...
...The evacs should be in soon, Major...
...I71 never be the same again...
...I'll check on you later...
...Major, Major...
...OK...
...Remember that non-viewable means exactly that-non-viewable...
...David, David," Edwards leaned over the frame...
...The gasping stopped and there was the more comfortable sound of air moving in and out...
...You have enough, you don't really need very much," he explained...
...No need, sir, you'll have your hands full...
...As he unwound the gauze it became wet and then blood-soaked...
...I know," he added quickly to keep the captain from talking...
...Nice handwriting...
...He was very proud of his younger brother...
...I didn't see it," David said reproachfully...
...You never know who it's going to bother...
...About what's been happening lately...
...By the time he reached the evac area, the floodlights were on and the chopper had landed...
...Have I bullshitted you yet...
...He had some difficulty using the blocks, but he got a few bites down...
...Even as he was hanging up, he was reaching under the bed for his shoes...
...We drew two blood cultures on him this evening and sent a titer off for moniliasis...
...DOC...
...The boy was breathing...
...Edwards asked...
...Yes...
...It does that sometimes, but it will get better with time...
...I wanted to," Edwards said...
...Are you sure, Grant...
...Depressed and angry, he left the ward...
...When Edwards came to work up the new admissions, he stopped by to see David and found him on his stomach again...
...That evening, despite the fact that Johnson was on call, he went back to the ward...
...OK," Edwards said, switching on the light and sitting up...
...They just blew up and then I was on fire...
...Do you think his kidneys are good enough to handle that big dose...
...in all his time there, he could not think of one patient who had got off the thing...
...We can get it any time...
...the medic asked, scooping a piece of skin out of the water...
...The point to remember is that the survivor assistance officer has been there before you and the next of kin have already accepted the death...
...Edwards said...
...There's one down in central sup"What about his moniliasis titers...
...He cut across the empty silent field separating the hospital's squat buildings from the helipad, where the red lights of the landing strip flickered softly in the misty dark...
...There's really not much else to do...
...David...
...I was carrying detonators...
...What did they say...
...I could save him, too...
...Despite himself, he closed his eyes...
...Well, he's 80 per cent burned and his blood culture is already growing out Pseudomonas...
...On the night shift his temp spiked and he became unconscious...
...That's a bit sad, because there are other endings and even middles...
...If he's going to die," Johnson "You sure...
...It's in the drawer...
...Yes, sir...
...It's going to hurt...
...Twenty years old," he thought, handing back the chart...
...It was all there in his eyes-the pain, the suffering, the loss of belief...
...Just goddamn leave me alone...
...He was one of them and, for a moment, watching his brother sitting by their frames, Edwards felt suddenly very much outside it all...
...And all that time in the States, he thought he could handle it...
...The door opened...
...An IV...
...Edwards asked quickly...
...One of 'em's got a head wound, the other is just burned...
...Carefully he lifted up the last pack...
...He looked on the cover sheet...
...As he walked away, Edwards could hear Crowley drawing the curtains closed behind him...
...The burns, red and raw, ran the whole charred length of the boy's body...
...The corpsman had set up the tracheotomy, and Edwards held the oxygen mask in place while the ward master quickly cleaned David's neck as best he could...
...It works on you, grinds you down, makes you better...
...It seems to me they're holding up quite well...
...I heard that Japan was paradise...
...Yeah...
...That evening David ignored his presence...
...While he shot the drugs directly into the IV bottle, Edwards said, "We'd better put in a central venous pressure...
...You're going to have to start eating...
...We're going to put you into the whirlpool every day and all the skin that is loose, or loosening, is going to be removed...
...Honest...
...Those flights back from the States are tough...
...As tired as he was, though, he couldn't sleep...
...Both he and Johnson had shared the same office for almost a year now...
...Johnson put him on the respirator this evening...
...Edwards examined the crust about the boy's swollen neck and chest...
...He had seen more than one visitor walking through the ward trying desperately to be natural, moving stiffly from bed to bed, smiling and talking as if the boys weren't burnt at all...
...I'm the chief of the burn unit...
...Demerol . . 64 mg q three hours...
...David...
...Engaged...
...How do you feel...
...Take me home, too...
...I was positive before I got burned...
...The Huey, low and glistening, its rotors still whirling, sat like a toy exactly in the middle of the arc lights...
...Jensen's temperature just spiked to 105...
...David, watching him, visibly relaxed...
...The side curtain had been partially pulled...
...Yes, sir," David said, his voice wavering...
...Edwards knelt down by the side of the tub and checked the burns...
...Gentlemen: You have been assembled here at Yokota Air Base to escort these bodies home to the continental United States...
...Edwards bent over to look more closely at the restrained body spread-eagled across the frame...
...Down 60 cc in the last two hours...
...The phone woke him a little past "Major...
...he asked, peering at the grotesquely crusted body...
...I'll have you called if anything changes...
...Those caskets on the plane that do not at the present time have an escort will have them assigned at Oakland...
...From your friends, David," Edwards said gently, "from your friends...
...He wrote a Demerol order for David and then went to his room...
...You really see yourself over here...
...Johnson was already in the office...
...Can't I have something for the stinging...
...On the move, it's just too damn heavy...
...Call the neurosurgeon," Edwards shouted back...
...David stared up at him, his eyes strangely clear and deep...
...Below the burns the new skin grows out from the lining of these follicles, like grass out of a valley...
...Where are you going to get the skin for that...
...About Jensen's polymyxin," he said...
...But I can tell you this, they were handing him some shit to do, when I saw him...
...His eyes clenched tight, the boy was fighting valiantly for control...
...He died this morning," Johnson said, picking up his notes...
...We'll start today with them...
...Sorry," he said, moving over to the other side of the elevator...
...When did he come in...
...Edwards pulled up a chair...
...David had been staring up at him the whole time...
...he asked gently, carefully dropping back the covers...
...Didn't meet any gooks...
...But I did...
...I don't want to worry them...
...He don't look too good...
...Yes, sir...
...Major, Jensen's in the whirlpool...
Vol. 4 • February 1973 • No. 12
