As a person who has experienced my share of traumas, I have always been fascinated at how life often presents opportunities for healing, even in the direst of circumstances. This memoir piece is an example of that wondrous occurrence, and I dedicate my story to those who made it possible.
June, 1969. I was lying in a hospital bed in Long Binh, South Vietnam: jaws wired, tracheotomy, tubes strung like guidelines into my nose, throat, chest and both arms. Earlier in the month, the army Brass had dropped us near a battalion-sized NVA bunker complex. Swarming our hundred or so iron-clad bodies into the jungle next to it, we were met with an avalanche of blazing fire. Several of the Grunts got hit and if Nam taught me any one thing it’s this: when Grunts get hit, there’s one word that rips from their lips right along with “AGGHHH,” “please God,” and “motherfucker,” and that word is, “MEDIC!”
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