Memorial Day

Veterans

Memorial Day was created for remembrance and honor of military personnel who died while on duty serving their country. Of course the day is also one where we honor and remember all those who have gone before. Two I grew up with in Muscatine, Iowa have their names on the Vietnam Memorial wall. Lanny York and I were on the EUB church junior squad basketball team and the church youth orchestra. Gary Brookhart in 1969 became the second person to die in the Vietnam war from Muscatine. We played basketball in the alley way and waged toy army men battles. 

Gary

Lanny

Pehaps one day will do a blog on them but this one is about my permanent duty station boss.

Sergeant James Riddle ran the Orthopedic clinic at Fort Polk. Louisiana. In the spring of 1972 while finishing up infantry training at north camp top sarge called out my name to report to the office. Upon doing so he explained that the base hospital at south camp wanted to interview me for a vacancy and that a driver was waiting to get me there. He also noted to grab my duffel as may not be coming back.

During the hospital interview Lieutenant Copeland said you scored like genius level on the aptitude test and we want you to join us as a 91 horse which is Orthopedic technician. Although I realized he was blowing smoke up my okole I accepted as for sure did not want to spend the  rest of my conscription days marching up John Wayne Hill with some heavy ass machine gun nor continue to take chances would not drop future grenades. Let alone the still but slim possibility of being sent off to a real war going on in SE Asia as a grunt. And that was that. 

No longer in the infantry I reported to Ortho and Sergeant Riddle. He was an E 6 and had done at least one and maybe two tours in Vietnam. Right off the bat Riddle started teaching how to apply, remove, and add attacments to plaster of paris casts. The material is a white fibrous roll about the same size as ace ankle wraps. First step is to wet it, and next is to start application. You have to work relatively fast or the material will set before finish a roll. I started off by practicing on Riddle and Benny, the other medic in the clinic. Took like an half hour and the result was pretty awful.

With practice though got better and within a couple of days had the time down for an full ankle job to 12 minutes and started  applying on real patients. Our main business was ankles due to recruits going through basic or advanced infantry training at north fort. It was sop for the ortho docs to order such for all those who reported in with sprained, swollen ankles. Getting a cast meant a break from training but it also meant no matter what week the recruit was in they would have to start back at week one once the casts were removed. So of course this meant for some pretty unhappy dudes.

The other big business for us were casts from just above the ankle to half way up the thigh for those who had undergone knee treatments including surgery. These were easier to do than ankles. The most difficult were when a rubber step was ordered for the bottom of the foot. It had to be inserted while applying the paris of plaster and had to be in the exact spot that one could use to walk without falling down. Those took awhile to master but eventually I got to where could apply the cast which included cotton wrap and for some also ace wrap underneath the paris within 7 minutes, and the rubber stump ones within 9.

The job also included assisting the Ortho Docs with minor medical procedures such as knee aspirations, spinal injections, stitch removal. Nothing too exciting except for the occasion when was assisting Dr.Gomez as he prepared to remove a foreign object from a four year old's wrist. Upon making an incision the boy's artery got cut which resulted in blood spurting all over the place. His Mom immediately started screaming while Doc commanded tourniquet stat.  I immediately applied the near by rubber tubing which stopped the bleeding and screaming.

That knew how to do that and all the other stuff that went with being an orthopedic technician medic was due to Sergeant Riddle. He was a great instructor, very patient as well as kind.  He made sure proper techniques were learned well without scolding or condescension. I responded well to his manner of teaching, and worked hard to gain his trust. Riddle in turn put me in for promotions including my highest rank of E-4 as soon as time in grades warranted, and always granted time off when requested. He was also skilled at getting people to get along. Once Benny and I got in some sort of dust up which resulted in a shoving match that was set up for a fight. Riddle intervened, nothing serious happened and I ended up being Benny's best man a couple of months later. 

Sarge and I were not friends in the sense of hanging out but we did have a bond. He was a first class E-6, and I at the start just an E-2 which is about as low as you can go. So there was that gap plus James had done at least one if not two tours in Vietnam. He was a Native American originally form California, but since high school the Army was home. Riddle took the effort to get to know me as a person. He treated me as someone who could make a difference for the clinic and not as just another draftee anti war punk. We did go to a Leesville club a couple of times and I joined him and one of his fellow lifer buddies boating among alligators.

A bit of a ladies man, he also had the respect of the Ortho Docs. There were 5 of them, all men in their late twenties, early thirties whom were drafted upon finishing residency, or had signed on after medical school completion, to do specialty training via the Army.  They were either captains or majors but they all knew Sarge ran the show.

James married a Cajun woman. I got to go the ceremony./party. It was in the bayou and lasted a whole weekend. What recall is congo dancing, gumbo and booze. James liked to drink. There were at least 3 times he showed up at my barracks late at night asking for more money so he could get back to the NCO club. One late evening two military policeman were with him. They instructed me to drive James and his car off base. I did so. Upon passing the gate Riddle told me thanks and let me out of the car and he continued his night off in town. James never drank on the job and cannot recall him ever being sick due to hangovers. But yes he like the rest of us had issues.

September 15, 1973 I mustered out. They tried to get me to stay. Was proud that lead Orthopedist Dr. Majestro was shocked at a farewell the day before that was leaving as never slacked off or went around yelling how many days left. Thanks to Riddle for the goodbye party and busy days. The best part about being a cast man meant could avoid spit and polish and go around with plaster on my whites, and grow the hair a little longer. 

I don't know if would have made it through the obligatory 2 years if had been assigned to a different outfit or supervisor. And if had not there would have been no honorable discharge, no GI bill for the Master's degree, no VA loan for that first house, and who knows maybe no family.

November 1, 1973, 8 days before his 27 birthday, James was shot and killed just outside Fort Polk in a residential section of DeRidder, Louisiana. I found a newspaper account a few years back which confirmed he was shot gunned.  Not been able to relocate that article but regardless he was murdered.

Although not killed in combat, I wonder sometimes the role the combat he experienced led to his death. Today, 50 years later he would be in his like me mid-seventies. It is a shame he lost out on those years. I have searched for a photo of him on line and cannot find. I wish had taken such back then but do remember well what he looked like, and more so how he led and what he did.  

James grave site- Louisiana

1. There are hundreds of active military personnel that die annually in non work related occurrences,  There was even another medic at our hospital that got shot and killed in 1973.