How Can You Mend This Purple Heart Read Online Free
Author: T. L. Gould
ease his burning ass from bed sores. His weight threw him off-balance and he swung sideways toward the pulling of his arm. He was holding on as tightly as he could, but his hand slipped from the trapeze and he dropped to the bed like a small child from a monkey bar. He reached up and grabbed the swinging bar, did a couple of chin-ups, and let go.
The trapeze was the only means of movement for most of the guys here. On a couple of the beds, the trapeze had been removed. The young occupants had no hands, or no arms, or a combination. Even with the countless turning and the four-a-day lotion rubs by the staff, their bed sores never healed.
A four-foot-wide corridor dissected the two rows of beds, dispatching traffic north to south. It was the main thoroughfare for an endless march of doctors, nurses, corpsmen, food and supply wagons, volunteers, wheelchairs, and occasionally, a visitor.
The hospital received a daily influx of Marines and Navy corpsmen from the fields and jungles of South Vietnam, and the military made every effort to place the most severely wounded as close to their hometowns as possible.
It was the bottom-feeder, low-life, primitive devices of the war that caused the very worst imaginable wounds, and so many unimaginable emotional and mental scars. The explosion of a land mine was the last time these kids were able to fully walk or touch or see or hear. Those who had lost only one leg, only one arm, or only one eye considered themselves the lucky ones. Those who had escaped the fiery burns to the face and body, or had taken only a partial blow from the explosion, they considered themselves the lucky ones, too.
Anywhere from three to seven weeks would pass from the time the telegram arrived until the parents could walk in and see their wounded sons on Ward 2B in South Philly. Mothers and fathers, wives and fiancées, and brothers and sisters would come from nearly every state east of the Mississippi River.
The first visit was always the most difficult for parents and patient. The slow walk down the ward, seeking the familiar face that left home just a few months ago, and hoping the wounds werenât as bad as the telegram had told them. Their eyes would unwillingly spread the fear, the sadness, and the confusion as they passed between the countless beds of other mothersâ and fathersâ young boys, each step taking them closer to their own son.
The sadness and the hurt deepened in the motherâs eyes as she tried desperately not to cry, but the trembling lips and sagging shoulders were unmistakable signs of the surge of emotions soon to follow.
The father would try somehow to be strong, to be a man, but the shock of seeing his young boy, his soldier, his Marine, wounded and dismembered was always more than any one of them could take.
The silence of these reunions blanketed everyone and everything. Nothing moved. No one breathed. No sounds from anywhere. Itâs as though time stood still until everyone had absorbed his share of the fear and pain and confusion. Anything to make this easier; make it go away.
The terror would well up inside a kid as his mother and dad stepped slowly toward him, about to see him for the first time, the bottom half of his legs gone or nothing left of his arms. Legs that would never carry him through their doorway back home or hands and arms never again able to touch a loving face or hug a mother goodbye. And, dear God, when the silence would finally succumb to reality, the explosion of sadness and disbelief would engulf the entire being of Ward 2B.
Nightmares would swell up and down the ward following a first visit. Irrepressible bursts of terror cracked the darkness as land mine explosions repeated themselves and phantom pain soared through ghostly limbs, and the war came back to life again and again. One nightmare ignited another, and another. The nurses and corpsmen would rush from one end of the ward to the other, crisscrossing up and down, frantically
The trapeze was the only means of movement for most of the guys here. On a couple of the beds, the trapeze had been removed. The young occupants had no hands, or no arms, or a combination. Even with the countless turning and the four-a-day lotion rubs by the staff, their bed sores never healed.
A four-foot-wide corridor dissected the two rows of beds, dispatching traffic north to south. It was the main thoroughfare for an endless march of doctors, nurses, corpsmen, food and supply wagons, volunteers, wheelchairs, and occasionally, a visitor.
The hospital received a daily influx of Marines and Navy corpsmen from the fields and jungles of South Vietnam, and the military made every effort to place the most severely wounded as close to their hometowns as possible.
It was the bottom-feeder, low-life, primitive devices of the war that caused the very worst imaginable wounds, and so many unimaginable emotional and mental scars. The explosion of a land mine was the last time these kids were able to fully walk or touch or see or hear. Those who had lost only one leg, only one arm, or only one eye considered themselves the lucky ones. Those who had escaped the fiery burns to the face and body, or had taken only a partial blow from the explosion, they considered themselves the lucky ones, too.
Anywhere from three to seven weeks would pass from the time the telegram arrived until the parents could walk in and see their wounded sons on Ward 2B in South Philly. Mothers and fathers, wives and fiancées, and brothers and sisters would come from nearly every state east of the Mississippi River.
The first visit was always the most difficult for parents and patient. The slow walk down the ward, seeking the familiar face that left home just a few months ago, and hoping the wounds werenât as bad as the telegram had told them. Their eyes would unwillingly spread the fear, the sadness, and the confusion as they passed between the countless beds of other mothersâ and fathersâ young boys, each step taking them closer to their own son.
The sadness and the hurt deepened in the motherâs eyes as she tried desperately not to cry, but the trembling lips and sagging shoulders were unmistakable signs of the surge of emotions soon to follow.
The father would try somehow to be strong, to be a man, but the shock of seeing his young boy, his soldier, his Marine, wounded and dismembered was always more than any one of them could take.
The silence of these reunions blanketed everyone and everything. Nothing moved. No one breathed. No sounds from anywhere. Itâs as though time stood still until everyone had absorbed his share of the fear and pain and confusion. Anything to make this easier; make it go away.
The terror would well up inside a kid as his mother and dad stepped slowly toward him, about to see him for the first time, the bottom half of his legs gone or nothing left of his arms. Legs that would never carry him through their doorway back home or hands and arms never again able to touch a loving face or hug a mother goodbye. And, dear God, when the silence would finally succumb to reality, the explosion of sadness and disbelief would engulf the entire being of Ward 2B.
Nightmares would swell up and down the ward following a first visit. Irrepressible bursts of terror cracked the darkness as land mine explosions repeated themselves and phantom pain soared through ghostly limbs, and the war came back to life again and again. One nightmare ignited another, and another. The nurses and corpsmen would rush from one end of the ward to the other, crisscrossing up and down, frantically
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