Robert Barrow's Air Force 1968-1972

A closing note, September, 2008: 

As military memories go, the bits and pieces of my four Air Force years displayed here don't add up to much.  Thousands and thousands of military men and women who served during the Vietnam years sacrificed tremendously, while I never even left the country, working instead within the relatively safe confines of stateside USAF hospitals.  The personal accounts of those who found themselves involved in life-and-death encounters and engaged in activities heroic and infinitely more tangible are the truly important "war stories."  My World War II father and uncles (particularly one who served during WW II and also risked his life to save others during the Korean conflict as a medical corpsman) knew the essence of such stories well, as do, and as will, those involved in current and, inevitably, future world conflicts.

For me, remaining in the states during the Vietnam Era was a toss of the dice.  The Air Force had the option, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to send me anywhere in the world as a medically trained airman.  As it turned out, my only big transfer was from Texas to Georgia. 

In these Web pages, I've taken the opportunity to leave a few memories.  Why?  I'm not quite sure.  In medical terms, maybe this blog, accomplished so long after those years, is my "phantom limb" of sorts.

  -- Robert Barrow

It isn't true that members of the armed services are just numbers.  Each has a name and, trust me, you'll never know your last name better than during those daily occasions when basic training instructors bark it out forcefully.  Your name even gets top billing on the dog tags you're forced to wear   Later on, you achieve rank and discover yourself addressed by name with considerably more politeness.

Air Force fatigues had our names stitched into the uniforms,  but everybody was issued plastic name tags to pin on dress blues, khaki attire and medical whites, and one is pictured here.  I keep it as another reminder of those years, but it also serves as a witness to the thousands of patients who passed my way from 1968-72 in Air Force hospitals, each face reflected in the shiny blue tag's surface, maybe just once or maybe twice daily for weeks.

Yes, the names exist, and I don't remember them or their individual medical circumstances anymore, but the small blue and white name tag endures simply as a little "you were there" reminder. 

 "Your brain has never been in more danger than it is right now," warns the author as she begins a true literary journey to hell and back.

Why am I featuring a book whose contents have no bearing on the usual material covered in this blog?  Well, first of all, I volunteered to edit the book,  Brain Jolt:  A Life Renewed after Traumatic Brain Injury  for Jo Ann Jarvis, RN, DHM, a medical professional whose knowledge extends far beyond that of many others in her field.

Aside from that, I also want to mention this book because it's a little different, timely beyond disturbing, and Jo Ann lays out a story that nobody should have to live.  Unfortunately, she did, and her descent into a depressing world of horror began the day she experienced what some would call a minor auto accident.  Trouble is, it wasn't minor at all.  As the driver behind plowed into her car at low speed, the effect nevertheless caused an instant, traumatic jolt to her brain that changed her mental abilities and transformed her into a different person, unable to comprehend even the simple things with which she had been accustomed throughout her life. 

Jarvis's resultant problems, to say the least, involved apprehension and mental torment caused by attempts to deal with her health insurance company, with state officials and with the very medical system for which she had served long and honorably.  She became a stranger to her own family, spent hours alone in her bedroom for months and even lost her best friend during her ongoing ordeal.

Eventually, only because Jo Ann finally encountered medical personnel who understood the effects of traumatic brain injury and its near-invisibility to conventional testing, she slowly lifted herself back to a real life -- changed forever, but able to cope once again and to return to providing health care to others.  She also claims more than a little help in recovery from a source the reader may find surprising, a source encompassing the spiritual realm and something beyond that.

Jo Ann Jarvis's story is not only remarkable, but told just as thousands of U.S. military personnel return with severe injuries, including a high number with traumatic brain symptomatology.   Aware of this, she cautions us that the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries can hide from conventional testing while intimately affecting the victim and everybody around them.  Trauma does not require a "direct hit" to the head from an object.  A nearby explosion or any event sending a powerful concussion wave through the air may produce such trauma.

Through her story, the reader acquires an entirely new respect for the human brain's magnificence, as well as its penchant for emotional disaster when tragedy strikes deep inside where modern medicine might not discover the essentials via modern means.

This is the second edition, tightened up and expanded from the first released several months ago, now with a homeopathic index added for those working in the field. 

While this is definitely not a book instructing the reader to abandon current physicians and care, it is intended to inform those affected with or by traumatic brain injury what to expect and how to manage the resultant social, emotional and internal struggles, which can indeed be quite scary and overwhelming.  The quagmire of obstacles hiding out as rules and regulations, set forth by insurance companies, workman's comp and the medical industry itself can appear extremely intimidating to both patient and family, as Jo Ann Jarvis learned under the worst of circumstances.

I wouldn't have helped edit Brain Jolt if I didn't think the author had something to say, and were she not writing from personal experience.  Of course, as editor I can't properly review it because I'm obviously highly prejudiced.  However, because I have no financial stakes at risk here, I think I can say in all fairness that this should be a most welcome book for those families, other laymen and medical professionals who wrestle with the horrors and frustration of traumatic brain injuries.  May it provide comfort for those afflicted, and an education to those charged with providing therapy and guidance to brain trauma individuals.

Brain Jolt may be ordered from several sources, but might be easiest to order through lulu.com, the publisher.  I believe the price is $23.96 for this expanded edition.

 

 

 

 

 Military Kids in USAF Regional Hospital Sheppard

Air Force hospitals, like those in other branches of the military, accomodate dependents as well as active duty and reserve personnel.  I recently discovered among my momentos a 1969 "coloring book" given to hospitalized children at Sheppard Air Force Base's Regional Hospital.  Almost 40 years later, the scene described in these pages remains pretty much the same in military and non-military hospitals, despite major advances in medicine that changed so many aspects of patient care which aren't at all visible on the surface.  I'll begin posting this eight-page document today; and the other seven pages will appear in weeks to come.  I have tried unsuccessfully to post all pages at one time, so one here and there may be the best approach.   Sorry for the delay!

(Photos kindly provided by Mark M.)

Many communities honor residents who served during periods of war or military action with some sort of monument featuring a list of names.  My own hometown in NY State did this, placing a plaque on the front lawn of its town hall, thus joining memorials which display names from previous conflicts going all the way back to the Civil War.  It's a little strange to see your name on one of these while you're still walking the earth, particularly when you know all too well that so many others named on the memorial lost their lives in battle or through other means.  My name, my late father's name and those of his three brothers, and numerous uncles on the other side of the family (all WWII veterans), are also displayed inside the Onondaga County War Memorial, where lists of names continue to a degree far beyond disturbing.

Yes, I remember it well:  Paper, a material usually derived from trees and various chemical procedures upon which one could write messages with pens (ancient writing instruments) and pencils (Stone Age utensils, as I recall).  Now, it's e-mail, text messaging or nothing.

I did keep a couple of blank pages of Air Force stationery, the kinds one could buy on base in order to stay in touch with friends and relatives.  The portions shown here from the sixties display both the Air Force name and a format specifically offered at Sheppard AFB, Texas.   If you were in the Air Force at that time, you probably wrote the family back home on something similar -- unless you were one of those rare airmen who could afford frequent and outrageously expensive "long distance" phone calls, dialed personally by a phone company operator, instead.

Thirty-six years after I last saw him, then a civilian following his Air Force enlistment, I was surprised to get a note from Dan a few days ago.  We worked in physical therapy at the large Sheppard AFB Regional Hospital in Texas, and he was a great friend to me and to others.  Thanks for finding me, Dan, and all the best to you and your family.

I contend that many of the best doctors in the country are those with military experience, particularly on the battlefield, where skills are honed under the worst and often most improvisational of conditions.  In Air Force hospitals, whether stateside or elsewhere, physicians from all walks of medical life see it all.

I remember the doctor, an Air Force major, shown in this picture.  He was fairly new to the USAF Regional Hospital at Sheppard AFB and clearly one of the the best surgeons on staff.  One Sunday, I drove to the small Wichita Falls, TX airport to pick up my roommate, returning from leave in California on a commuter flight.  By coincidence, the major arrived on the same plane.  We didn't know him well, but since his destination, too, was the base, I invited him to accompany us, instead of trying to scare up a taxi on a Sunday afternoon.

This otherwise forgettable event sticks in my mind because of one scene, a perfect snapshot moment that the great artist Norman Rockwell might have immortalized for The Saturday Evening Post of olden days.  I had gone to the airport in my old Ford Falcon, a car not noted for the luxury of space inside.  By the time my roommate climbed into the front passenger side, with the major secured in the back, attired in full dress blues, buried under numerous pieces of luggage, all I could see behind me was a head, a little bit of blue uniform and a gold leaf designating rank.  

I guess one would have to be there to experience the absurdity of it all, but to me the sight of a highly trained surgeon dressed in his elegant officer's uniform, held captive on the back seat of a beat-up Ford Falcon, cramped into submission by an avalanche of luggage was a delightfully rare moment. But, I wonder, would Norman Rockwell have troubled himself by painting any scene involving a Ford Falcon?

This picture shows Col. John J. Kavanagh, commander of the Regional Hospital at Sheppard AFB, awarding The Silver Star to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Perry Glover in 1970.  I didn't know Perry well, only enough to say hello when he came to our physical therapy clinic for treatments administered by other members of our staff.  I remember him as very much a Texas gentleman and quite humble.

The Silver Star was given to SSgt. Glover because of heroic actions performed during his Vietnam tour in 1969.  When he and members of his unit were caught in an ambush, he killed and held off the enemy, then gave medical treatment to his wounded fellows while protecting them -- even though seriously wounded himself during the gunfight.

The reason I mention Perry Glover here is because, while recently searching for some other subject on the Internet, I happened upon his name and that of his nephew, who continues a long-time search for information about his uncle's military years.  As mentioned above, Perry received The Silver Star in 1970 for meritorious action in Vietnam in 1969.  Sadly, however, I learned from his nephew (who was very young back then) that Perry ultimately died much too soon in a 1973 auto accident.

If anybody knew SSgt. Perry A. Glover during his military years or at any other time, his nephew would very much appreciate hearing from that person.  A Google search of Glover's name should easily lead the reader to a contact address and his nephew's name, or I would certainly be honored to pass information along to the family on behalf of anybody writing me at my own contact e-mail address.

A couple of airmen working in the Moody AFB hospital pharmacy shared an outrageous sense of humor, and one in particular enjoyed initiating impractical practical jokes.  More often than I prefer to admit, I seemed to receive the brunt of them.

I shouldn't have been shocked, then, the day I picked up a prescription for a minor facial acne condition.  How could I ever discard a pharmacy label exhibiting such obvious human kindness?  I never did administer proper revenge for this one, to my regret, but given the opportunity it might have been some uninspired juvenile prank involving laxatives from their very own shelves. . . and freshly baked brownies.

When I asked a base newspaper representative if they could write an article about a shortage of crutches in the hospital, it was suggested that I submit something myself.  They didn't allow me a byline, but I wrote the piece -- and I'm still bothered 35 years later that it wasn't written better.  However,  the call for crutch returns did work well, as the guilty began shuffling in one by one, each with his or her own special excuse to justify being late.

Newspaper clippings from the past. . .A newly promoted first lieutenant, a registered physical therapist whose family actually lived in my hometown while I served with her in Texas, marries. . .A student pilot at the Moody AFB flight surgeon's clinic receives an exam by one of our best hospital physicians. . .And a hospital commander reminisces about successfully removing an explosive device like the one in his hand from the head of a Viet Cong soldier during his Vietnam tour, knowing it could blow up and kill him and everybody assisting with one wrong move during surgery (the patient survived, though the preoperative x-ray portrayed a nearly impossible situation).

A few weeks before departing Texas for my final clinic assignment in Georgia, a fellow physical therapy specialist left the Air Force a little earlier than anticipated due to the sudden death of his father, and he was needed at home.  I remember him remarking how quickly his four-year enlistment seemed to pass.  By completion of my four, I knew what he meant.  I think it was the chaos, the never-ending parade of patients, or what I've always preferred to call the assembly line of pain.  

Maybe there's a dichotomy in there somewhere, because actually working with each patient could be time-consuming and agonizing to the clock's tick itself.  Yet, as the month of discharge approached, I felt it, too.  A blink, a blur.  Where had the time gone?  

A photographer for the base newspaper in Georgia stopped by the clinic one day and wanted to shoot a picture, and the April 6, 1972 result appears here, by then just weeks before my June discharge. The Moody AFB physical therapy clinic badly required some new equipment, so before leaving I ordered, and the hospital chain of command approved, thousands of dollars worth.  Whenever it ultimately arrived, I'm sure a wall or two had to be knocked out because I ordered Some Really Big Stuff.

During those final weeks,the Air Force sent a new PT specialist to replace me.  Mike, a pleasant young airman intent upon eventually becoming a registered physical therapist, actually had worked in a civilian clinic and appeared quite knowledgeable.  But then some Air Force personnel office screwed up and sent yet another airman to this clinic intended for one.  He didn't want to leave, but I wasn't about to burden Mike with assistance he wouldn't need at this small hospital, so it really did come down to goodbye, new guy number two, and he was dispatched elsewhere.

Previously in this blog, I mentioned that the physical therapy specialist program was a critical Air Force field, so the USAF really encouraged re-enlistment.  In fact, I was offered the then-tidy sum of $6,500 to re-up, but declined.  I was almost seeing patients in my dreams, and enough was enough.

Throughout these entries, I've not really concentrated on all the patients we treated.  For some 15 months at Moody alone, I treated over 3,000 patients and offered over 7,500 modes of treatment for them -- as exemplified by a letter (shown here) requested from the hospital commander.  I remember, after telling him what documentation I needed in the letter, that his response was that the letter wasn't strong enough.  Your certification will be just fine and much appreciated, I replied, I'm not looking for a letter of recommendation, just a statement of achievement with numbers.  Whenever possible, I tried to document things because even at a young age I knew there were some things nobody would ever believe if I couldn't prove them.  I do know that, if I treated that many patients (and probably far more) at this little Air Force base, then I must have been involved in treating several thousand more at Sheppard, a huge hospital where I spent far more time.  Sheppard, the true assembly line of pain.

Those four years were not a walk in the park by any means, and you might get that impression because, again, I've not focused upon the patient population.

So, what did this former college TV/radio student-turned-medic see between 1968 and 1972, while dealing with active duty personnel and their dependents?  What I remember most are the burn patients, because they required major and extended care with burns of war, burns from gasoline explosions, burns from a hundred sources resulting in second and third degree trauma.  And there was the debridement (cutting away) of necrotic (that is, dead) burn tissue, a procedure the surgeons demonstrated for us to accomplish ourselves.  I recall the suture removal sets, the  No.15 scalpel blades, the Sulfamylon cream to apply over healing burn wounds after soaking the patient's full body or various body parts in sterile whirlpools  -- and the stench, the odor of burned skin, you remember it forever.  And each burned inpatient comes to the clinic once or twice a day, where you experience the same things all over again.  Their excruciating pain from exposed nerve endings reminds them, and our personal hurt must be endured because we can only add to their discomfort.  

What else?  Fractures of almost every bone imaginable, amputees, paraplegics, wound infections, injured backs, muscles and ligaments, exotic diseases, strokes, auto and motorcycle accidents.  From head to toe, people of all ages missing pieces of themselves.  There's so much more, but you get the point.  The Sheppard hospital also housed an impressive psychiatric section and it would "creep me out" to visit that particular ward to exercise patients with weights because on occasion a disturbed airman might attempt to smack a therapist with said weight.  Then there was the occasional retiree or older dependent with a lobotomy, a procedure once rather fashionable.

Suicides and unsuccessful attempts at taking one's life weren't unusual, particularly amongst those with time in Vietnam, or those who didn't want to go there.  At Sheppard we once accepted for therapy a suicidal Air Force officer, a lieutenant colonel as I recall.  I suspect he played an important role in Air Force intelligence, but at any rate he had been hospitalized after a suicide attempt involving alcohol and pills.  Nobody saw him for two days or so and, when discovered finally, his body was positioned such that, at some point during unconsciousness, he had vomited onto an upper extremity and the stomach acids actually ate through surface tissue and into his muscles.  Physically and neurologically he was a mess, his brachial plexus (the place in your arm that "goes to sleep" when your arm hangs over the top of a car seat for too long) damaged severely, and his obviously profound depression could pierce your emotions at five feet.  The officer was pleasant with us and soft-spoken, but I often wondered if he -- like some of our horribly burned or injured patients -- took his life eventually.

The Vietnam conflict would continue for about two more years following my discharge, not to end until more than 58,000 young Americans perished.   Battlefield injuries are quoted in excess of 200,000.  I'll leave it up to the historians to sort out the politics of Vietnam, for I was just, like thousands of others, there to make some of the hurt go away in a festering national wound that still hasn't healed. 

And yes, it's true that those of us who didn't go to Southeast Asia sometimes feel strangely tainted with guilt because of all the others who did go, even though we know perfectly well that our support mission away from battle was important.  We, too, are changed forever.