Bringing It All Back Home

by Philip F. Napoli

  The concussion blew all the sandbags and the shrapnel into the aperture of the bunker. That’s why, with my back facing the aperture, I got hit in the back. My comrades were hit in the chest. Once that happened, it was like you were helpless. At that point I could do nothing more—you had to wait and see what the outcome would be.

  Wallace never lost consciousness.

  I thought I was going to die, and I remember it as if it was yesterday. I said, “God, if this is dying, I’m ready,” because I felt no pain. It was like, I’m cruising, and I was ready to step over from earth to heaven, and my life passed before me. From a youngster to an adult to that spot to my own funeral to the extent that I saw myself in a flag-draped casket in the church in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I could see right across family members seated there, and it was as if I’m looking down on all of this.

  As Wallace waited, he expected the bunker to explode again, from either enemy fire or secondary explosions from the ammo stored there. It didn’t happen. Dizzy and light-headed, he began to feel as if he were floating. As lights from the rounds flashed, he could only make out some lacerations on one of his hands. What he couldn’t see was that his entire back, from his shoulder blades to his ankles, had been torn to hamburger. Later he would learn that blood was filling his lungs. He was asphyxiating. He had no idea whether his fellow soldiers had survived.

  All of a sudden I heard movement above me, and there were two, perhaps three soldiers pulling sandbags off. They pulled enough off and spotted my arm. Then they uncovered me, and I remember these guys dragging me across the firebase.

  He recalls feeling angry that his rescuers broke up his sense of peace.

  It was because they broke up that feeling of just going my way. If I was dying, I was going peacefully. Once they touched me, it was broken up. They dragged me, and they threw me in a helicopter. Someone else was in there. This other soldier, he and I are hugging each other and just saying, “Hey, man, what’s going on?” Suddenly the helicopter began to rise, to lift, and when it lifted, it banked to the right, and I looked out to the two pilots I see … on-screen in front of it there are tracer rounds being shot up at the helicopter. I’m saying to myself, “I survived whatever happened, but now we’re going to get blown out of the sky.” I said, “I don’t want to end this way, in a ball of fire.”

  By the time the helicopter landed at the Twenty-Fourth Evacuation Hospital, he was in shock. He does remember the Quonset hut being cold and bright. Medical personnel cut off his fatigues and the chain around his neck. They asked for his name, rank, and serial number.

  The last thing I remember was someone saying, “We’re going to take care of you, soldier.”

  When Wallace woke up after surgery, he found himself looking like a mummy, his entire body wrapped in gauze.

  The next thought I had was that, “Well, Wolfe, Pepe, and Di Santis must be okay, because I’m okay.”

  A nurse came up, and Wallace told her he wanted to walk. She looked at me and said, “Soldier, you can’t walk.”

  I said it again. “I have to walk. I want to walk.” She didn’t listen. She went off and got the doctor.

  When the doctor arrived, he gave the okay. They helped Wallace up, arranging the IV and blood tubes.

  I didn’t know what a hangover was, but when I sat up, my head was spinning. It was like I had been knocked out and just couldn’t gain my balance. For a few seconds after I sat up, it cleared. Then they helped me to stand, and I gained my balance and I shuffled from my bed. I didn’t walk anymore for at least another fifteen to twenty days.

  Wallace would spend the next week in a Stryker frame—a human sandwich board that would allow the nursing staff to flip him over, because he couldn’t do that for himself. He remembers the relief in getting turned onto his back.

  It was a blessing to be able to get turned over. Then you could relax your chest and abdomen.

  The next day the company commander visited. Immediately, Wallace asked about his bunker mates, but the answer was too slow in coming, in his opinion.

  Nobody said anything. They didn’t say anything. Then they went on to tell me that they didn’t make it. They took a hit basically in the chest.

  The commander informed him that they had found seventy-two North Vietnamese dead out in front of his position. This did little to alleviate the pain he felt over the loss of his men.

  Wallace’s wounds needed to be cleaned and dressed three times a day, an extremely painful procedure. Whenever he was asked if he needed painkillers, he said no. He wanted to feel what was going on. As they used Betadine to loosen the gauze, he remembers feeling cool, but as the crusted, blood-covered dressings were removed, he needed someone to hold his hand because it was so painful. One day he finally asked about his wounds. The nurse tried to make light of the situation, but her humor was lost on him. He spent the next few hours concerned that his wounds were treatable enough that he would soon be sent back out. He asked: “How does it look?” They said, “Oh, you have a few scratches.” Why did they want to tell me that? All they are going to do is patch me up, and I’m going back out there.

  The day the presenting officer came to award him his Purple Heart, it began to dawn on him that the military was not the organization he thought it was. The honor was bestowed with little ceremony.

  On behalf of the president of the United States, boom, you know. They read off this speech, in a grateful nation, you are awarded the Purple Heart. They pin it on your pillow. Once they did that, they move on to the next guy. It was like an assembly line.

  Wallace assumed that the military had informed his family of his wounds, but he was mistaken. The Red Cross helped him write the letter that would inform them of his status and condition. Later, during a stay at Camp Drake in Japan, as he was preparing for his trip home, the Red Cross arranged for him to speak with his family for the first time since he had been wounded. In Japan, Wallace decided it was time to see the damage for himself. As a corpsman was changing his dressing one day, he asked for a mirror.

  When I looked at it, that’s when I realized, “No wonder they’re sending me home,” because I could not believe the damage. Some of the wounds were still open.

  In addition to the physical wounds, Wallace recalls the psychological impact of his injuries. He frequently reached for his imagined M16 when he heard a loud sound. He knew that the man returning to the United States would be very different from the one who had left New York such a short time ago. His experience was a profound watershed, and he wondered about the Army’s ability to help him cope with his return. The Army, he says, didn’t train him for this. It had taught him how to be a soldier, not a veteran.

  There were several stops along the way as he contemplated his return. He was flown from Japan to Seattle, Washington, where he remembers sipping hot chocolate given to him by a Donut Dolly—a Red Cross volunteer providing services to U.S. military personnel—that upset his stomach. After a few days at an airport base hospital, he was flown to Maryland and then to St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens. The excitement he felt at landing at Floyd Bennett Field in his hometown of Brooklyn can be heard in his voice even today. The first familiar face he saw was a church friend, Mary Foster, who worked at the hospital. He learned that rumors had been circulating about his condition.

  They had [heard] all kinds of rumors of what had happened. Worse than it really was. They came running through the doors. Here I’m lying there with an OD blanket covering me up, and I’m lying there, and my brother gets down on his hands and knees and begins, I think with my right foot, going all the way up, goes all the way up to my head and goes down the left side, feeling my body. He gets down once and determines that everything is there, comes back up, and he lifts me up and he hugs me. And I have to tell him, “Ease up, ease up!”

  He had not lost any limbs. He was reunited with his family. He was home. It was a good day.

  Since he was a semi-ambulatory patient, the Army gave him duties—he worked for an orthopedic surg
eon. When he received the okay for overnight passes, he attended Brooklyn College, studying to get his bachelor’s degree. He was required to wear his dress uniform to get off base. Attending class at the openly antiwar campus was the first challenge he would face in his new, somewhat uncomfortable identity as a veteran. No one would know that underneath his uniform, some of his wounds were still open. Brooklyn College, like many college campuses around the country in the spring of 1970, was the scene of much antiwar activity, and sometimes Vietnam veterans received a hostile reception from college students and faculty.

  One of the younger students made a comment about me being a Vietnam vet. You have your ribbons, and they tell a story [about you and] your unit. But the professor said to that student, “I never want to hear you say something to this man or any other young man like him. He has done more for you than you will ever realize.” And that shut this guy up. Here I am sitting in class in an Army uniform just coming back from Vietnam and dressings literally still on my back. I’ll never forget that professor straightening that young man out.

  What Wallace gave up in Vietnam he counts as the cost of the gift he received—an opportunity to live another forty years and counting. He compares his fate with that of Wolfe, Pepe, and Di Santis and considers himself blessed. Nevertheless, the wounds went deep. While his physical wounds would slowly be covered by scar tissue, the emotional wounds would take much longer.

  Today, while he insists that the surgeons and medical staff did excellent work, each night Wallace has to lubricate the skin on his back where the skin grafts did not completely take. Without daily applications of ointment, the grafts would tear. On a trip with Wallace to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in 2009, I witnessed a small sliver of shrapnel work its way to the surface of his skin, drawing blood. It’s as if his body were still working to purge his experiences.

  You can’t just forget it just like that. I know, for me every day, there’s a reminder, if not in mind and heart, there is a reminder in body because I have the souvenirs. My souvenirs are some scars. My souvenir is that shrapnel in my body.

  Last week I went to the doctor. I had to get X-rays, and the technician said to me, “What’s the stuff in your body?” She said, “It looks like snow.” The shrapnel shows up in the X-ray as white pieces against the darker muscle and tissue. I look at it in amazement and then say to myself, “None of this cut my spine.” [It is] in my lungs and farther down, but none of it cut my spine. None of it pierced my heart, and it’s all around. So I can’t take that lightly, but then I feel that some of the worst wounds and scars are that ache … it’s not a pain, but it’s an ache. You live with that. I’m not complaining, because I’m here.

  So I say, “God, I thank you for this extra time.” Then, when I say thank you, of course I have to think about Willard and I think about Wolfe and I have to think about Pepe and I have to think about Di Santis. I have to think about them because if I didn’t think about them, I would be selfish and I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want to be selfish when I think about these young men, because they had just as much right to live as I do. That’s why folks don’t forget it so quickly.

  6

  THE BELIEVER: JOAN FUREY

  The majority of American women who served in Vietnam did so either as members of the Army Nurse Corps or as civilians attached to the American Red Cross or Army Special Services. Joan Furey and Sue O’Neill were two of about eight thousand American women who served in Vietnam as members of the Army Nurse Corps.1

  Joan Furey, now retired after a thirty-year career with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn. She had a stay-at-home mom, while her father worked at a locally owned A&P grocery store on Church Avenue. In those days, it was possible to raise a family on a workingman’s wages. Furey has a number of relatives with military service backgrounds, including her father. With combat zone experience of her own under her belt, she now believes her father, a World War II veteran, probably suffered from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Her mother told her once that when he returned home from World War II, he experienced sleeplessness, a racing heartbeat, and other symptoms often associated with PTSD. At the time, he was diagnosed by the family doctor with “soldier’s heart.” She doesn’t know if he ever received any kind of treatment for his condition.

  Back then, Furey lived in a primarily Irish Catholic section of Flatbush. She attended Holy Cross Catholic School on Church Avenue between Bedford and Rogers Avenues, right around the corner from her home. Members of her extended family lived nearby, including two aunts, who lived across the street. Within twenty blocks, there were members from both sides of the family. Consequently, Furey grew up in a tightly knit group, with church playing a big part in her life. In 1957, the Furey family moved out of Brooklyn to Port Jefferson Station, Long Island. With several family members already living on Long Island and a desire to send their children to good schools, the Furey family felt it was a good move. Her father continued to work at the Church Avenue store, commuting from Port Jefferson Station to Brooklyn. Eventually, he transferred to an A&P out on Long Island.

  Furey attended public school in Port Jefferson Station. It was the first time she had ever had friends who were not Catholic. This caused her concern, because as far as she knew, her new friends were condemned to hell.

  There were five children in the Furey family. Furey recalls that she was a relatively average student, getting B grades. She liked sports and played on both the hockey and the softball teams at her school. When she was fourteen, Furey became a member of the Future Nurses of America and worked as a candy striper at a local hospital. She ran the information booth, giving visitors room numbers and helping serve patients meals. Occasionally, she helped the nurses by running errands or transporting patients. For Furey this stands out as an important time in her life. She enjoyed the work and the environment; she felt comfortable there.

  Furey also read a lot as a young woman, including a series of books about Sue Barton, a student nurse. The character, created by Helen Dore Boylston, moved around from job to job quite a bit, serving as an operating room nurse, an emergency room nurse, and in other nursing jobs. The books gave Furey her first impression of the nursing profession, as well as a sense of the opportunities it might provide to a young woman. She read every book in the series.

  At sixteen, Furey got a paying job at the hospital, working in the kitchen as a tray girl, helping put food trays together and delivering them to patients. She held this job until she finished high school. It probably surprised no one when, upon graduating, she applied to the nursing programs at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island and was accepted at both. She elected to attend Pilgrim State, partly because it was close to home.

  Back then, most everybody went to three-year-diploma hospital schools of nursing. I’m not sure there are any more. They were very inexpensive, so if you came from a lower-middle-class family like I did, where there was not a lot of money, it was a very economical way to get a good education.

  In retrospect her choice was strangely appropriate. During World War II, the War Department had taken over Pilgrim State and expanded the facilities. At one point it was so large that its land area actually touched on four municipalities: Huntington, Babylon, Smithtown, and Islip. Part of the facility was renamed Mason General Hospital and was used to treat combat-traumatized soldiers returning from World War II. John Huston took a film crew to the hospital and documented its activities in a movie titled Let There Be Light, which is about how the War Department treated, with as much compassion as psychiatry had to offer at the time, the psychiatric casualties of World War II.

  At that time “combat fatigue” was a recognized psychological problem associated with exposure to military combat. During the Korean War, the American Psychiatric Association published the first edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-I), which contained an entry for “gross stress reaction.” This was
something that could occur to soldiers in combat—a “temporary condition produced by extreme environmental stress,” according to the sociologist Wilbur Scott.2 But in 1968, when DSM-II was published, “gross stress reaction” was omitted. It took an alliance of psychiatrists and Vietnam veterans until 1980 to get a replacement diagnosis inserted into the manual. In the end, that diagnosis would become known as post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that Furey would, to some degree, suffer from.

  For Furey, a mystique surrounded the role of nurse and it made her feel important.

  I remember after your freshman year you got to put on this white apron. We wore striped dresses, and then these really starched aprons. You had to learn how to sit down with them. I can just remember feeling really special when all that happened. It instilled in you a level of pride.

  Furey did well in nursing school, taking a leadership role there. At the time, the military began actively recruiting Army nurses. Furey finished her nursing education while resisting recruiters’ offers to pay tuition and a stipend. Instead, to earn money, she worked at several part-time jobs, including one in the hospital kitchen. After graduation in 1967, as the “big” war in Vietnam was under way, Furey continued to work at Pilgrim State but began to itch for a change. She considered a possible move to Manhattan, among other ideas.

  There are so many factors that are going on in your head when you make the decision [to join]. One of the things I wanted to do was to get away from Long Island and see the world and have some adventures. I had never been away from home in my life.

  There were other motivations. The Army had begun placing advertisements in The American Journal of Nursing, and they were a powerful draw. They suggested that Army nursing could fulfill her desire for a satisfying professional career, permit her to get out of Long Island and see other parts of the world, and at the same time act on her patriotic impulses. She still remembers one advertising slogan: “How to bandage a war: one soldier at a time.”3 She began to think about it. Perhaps it was something she should do; she could give back to her country in the same fashion that her father had during World War II. She thought that because there were no sons eligible to go fight—her brother was still too young—she had a responsibility to take the family spot, so to speak, playing a role that no one else could fill.