CHAPTER 11

I don’t remember how many days it took to finally accomplish my transfer, but it was too damn long before our caravan was gathered together and pointed at the Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. It wasn’t what you could really call a caravan or even a safari; it was in reality two ambulances trailing one behind the other. Their cargo was a mob of amputees, and one paraplegic; me. Fortunately, not all were glad to get rid of me, and Captain Jewel our charge nurse made it a point to kiss me good-bye.
Loading onto a train via a railroad litter is a miserable affair, but that was the way I was forced to go. The Army had provided us with Pullman car reservations, but since ours was a civilian train nothing could be done about the doorways, so through the windows we were carried. The biggest mistake this country ever made was when it set its train tracks up on such a small gauge, for every part of the train that had to be built after the tracks were laid was naturally in proportion; including the little windows.
Once inside we were placed upon the floor to give the half dozen or so men who had aided us in making our entry a chance to rest. When the last cigarette was out the bunks were made up, and we were placed into them having only to wait for the train’s forward motion to tell us that we were on our way.
Though the Pullman so to speak, had been converted into a hospital car; it still was an integral part of the train giving the conductor no choice but to leave its end doors open. We soon found our hospital loaded with visitors who just happened to be going to and fro from the club car to their own. One of the boys who had the bunk across from mine decided to make it a two-way proposition.
He was a below-the-knee amputee having about eight inches of stump left on his right leg. He rolled back his pant leg leaving about six inches of his calf exposed. With his eyes on those who were returning from the club car he lay back to hatch his scheme. As the first victim was a woman who couldn’t have belted down more than one or two approached between our bunks with her arms loaded with you guess what, he stuck out his bared leg to her, wiggled the stump and said, “Shake”. Seeing the poor disabled hero lying there in his Government pajamas she gladly obliged until her hand touched the bared skin. Letting out a heart-rending scream, she dropped her bundles, sobered up, and ran like hell. When the conductor came into the car to inquire as to what the trouble was we suggested that the woman was having an alcoholic fit, and it would be best if he were to retrieve the bundles and quietly return them to her. He couldn’t see any reason to disagree with us, and after slowly picking up the bundles, he started to seek out our victim. He then muttered something under his breath that sounded like the Eighteenth Amendment. We had a half dozen more victims in the following hour, none of whom lived up to the standards of the first, so my buddy gave up the gag as a waste of good sleeping time.
Sleep we did, for it was evening, and not much of the scenery could be viewed as we rode along. It was late at night or early in the morning when we arrived depending on the way one has been brought up. Washington was well lit up, but the darkness prevented us from having a good look at it during the ambulance ride from the station to the hospital.
Checking into our country’s foremost military hospital was no different from entering any of the others only that the hole in my back fascinated the WAC secretary. Having both chest and throat complications kept the personnel debating as to the type of ward they should assign me to. I finally wound up in the chest ward when I suddenly discovered that I was hungry. There began an argument that has always troubled me. If a patient regardless of the time of day is hungry and needs the nutrition, should he not be fed? Was not nutrition an integral part of my treatment? Doctor Hughes had always acted accordingly, but here I found myself up against a Sergeant who insisted that the mess hall was closed. I didn’t know whether to believe him, or presume that he was too lazy to go and find out. Being a stranger in the city I settled for two containers of milk. Once breakfast time arrived the sight of something palatable though hard to ingest made me feel more to home.
I know it was not in my honor, but that afternoon they ran off a movie that was a Grade A stinker. Finally on the following morning I met some doctors to whom I poured out my complaints. I couldn’t tell if they had listened or not for they carried on their discussion of my case out of ear range.
The next morning I learned the text of their conversation, for bright and early a nurse approached me with a loaded hypo syringe. She had that damn needle pointed at my arm when I covered it with my opposite hand and said, “What the hell are you doing?” She replied in a very professional manner, “You’re going to the O.R.” I answered, “Who said so?” She replied that orders were written up yesterday to which I said I wasn’t going anywhere unless I knew why. By the time they could find a doctor to explain to me that they wanted to examine my throat and chest, and that I was to be put under a general anesthesia the day was shot. I had lost my last chance, for the next morning the ward became a bedlam. It seemed that the President of these United States had chosen our ward for his suite, and we were all to be moved. I have no complaints against Mr. Truman as the new ward was more to my liking. Besides, the entertainment picked up starting off on the first day with a gentleman doing excellent card tricks.
Paraplegia in those days at Walter Reed was an unwanted thing, for as the Army’s showplace of medicine it had to display patients on whom progress was being made. They were able to show to the dignitaries of the world wonderful things with amputees, and the legless and the armless abounded all over the place. Paraplegia, being the hopeless thing that it is, left them no choice but to bury us in a side room, out of sight and out of mind. I’ll never say we were neglected, for it was just the opposite. As an example of the extra fine care that we received an aide was stationed in our room at all times with orders not to leave the room itself unless there were a nurse or aide there to replace him.
Walter Reed was the type of hospital where if an aide were told to do something he actually did it. He may have become bored doing nothing but sitting and staring at eight beds filled with half-dead bastards, but he remained there with his eyes open. It wasn’t long before we took advantage of his boredom. The hot summer days in Washington made us all more miserable than we usually had been. To beat the heat we had our ward boy give us each a complete bed bath about very two hours.
I too would have been bored being so many miles from home and knowing no one had not a dignified looking couple stopped in one day to visit me. The gentleman whom from his appearance I at first took to be a senator introduced himself as a friend of my brother’s. I couldn’t believe it, but my brother had actually worked up enough interest to send strangers to visit me. We spent a pleasant afternoon together during which I dwelt too long on the fact that my throat was closing up, and my swallowing was slowing down.
The next morning the nurse walked in and asked, “Are you ready to have your throat dilated?” to which I said, “Certainly.” That was what she wanted to hear, for back she came me with a syringe loaded to the gills with an opiate in one hand and two seconals in the other. Five or six minutes later I was floating all over the joint. During my short stay I had developed a terrible dislike for the charge nurse, whom I considered as too GI and a bitch. As she came in with the aides who were to put me onto the litter, I began to sing a string of parodies that I had learned as a youngster. When all was ready, and the boys started to roll me from the room I turned to her and said, “Come on, baby, let’s get married. You’ll never get anything but a paraplegic anyhow.” Everyone within earshot broke into laughter, and strangely enough so, did she.
Once on the O.R. table I was given a light local anesthetic and lay back awaiting further developments. Suddenly a masked man and a nurse came at me from nowhere. He said, “Open your mouth.” Being alone and unable to fight back, I did just as he had ordered. That overgrown bastard then jammed a bouge dilator down my throat as a nurse held down my shoulders. It all happened so quickly that I didn’t even learn the doctor’s name until it was all over, as he didn’t even bother to introduce himself. Once he had the dilator withdrawn he stomped out of the room as if I had insulted him.
Suddenly it dawned on me as I started to recover that this quack had done something no one else in his right mind would dare to do. He had passed a dilator blindly into my esophagus without a string, wire, or scope to guide him. That man was insane if not dangerous, for the least slip would have punctured my esophagus resulting without any doubt in my death. Trying to omit the vulgarities from my speech I quickly told the nurse my opinions of that crackpot. She immediately rose to his defense; stating that Doctor Cook was a good doctor. She gave me what I wanted to know for future protection — his name.
That afternoon, after I had slept off the effects of my trip to the clouds, my close brush with death, and my even more dangerous brush with romance, I saw coming into our little room what appeared to be a mirage. First came a Colonel, than some Lieutenant Colonels, then many, many Majors, and still more Captains. They were all followed by a small squad of First Lieutenants with the rear being brought up by a small battalion of Second Lieutenants. The Colonel when satisfied that I was completely surrounded was the first and only one to speak. “Who is Private First Class Silver?” he said. “I am, Sir,” I responded. He then added, “Is your throat being taken care of?” “Yes, Sir,” I replied, “This morning.” He continued, “Do you have any complaints?” Quickly, I responded, “No, Sir.” “Well,” he yelled, “the next damn time you do have any, you come and see me personally.” “Sir,” I added with frightened effort, “I don’t understand.” Raging still louder, he fumed, “You know damn well what in the hell I’m talking about.” With a sharp military click, he did an about-face and stomped quickly from the room. His entourage with each in his proper place followed according to rank. By that time I had become certain that every doctor in the hospital needed his nuts and bolts tightened. Supper went down well, and I survived another night.
My new found friend came to see me again that evening, and it soon began to dawn on me that anyone who could so closely resemble a politician would certainly be able to explain the unorthodox behavior of the Colonel. I managed to interrupt his rapid-fire conversation long enough to question him about it. To my query he responded with a loud belly laugh, but then managed to cough out this answer; “You said that you wanted your throat treated, so I went up and to1d the General to put a move on.” I didn’t, because of my youth, quite grasp the greatness of that man who stood before me, but in the years to come I was to grow very fond of him, and out of respect address that Irish-American as “My Great White Father”.
Despite the fact that Walter Reed was run by the Army, its food was excellent, and I entered the chow race that the boys were running. When our ward was served its meals, the food truck stopped at our little room first. This gave us time enough to completely consume our first servings, and to be ready for the hot cart as it started past our room to make its return trip to the kitchen. The Army was strict about its rations, but I always managed to glut everything from my plate and be ready for seconds as if I had had a healthy esophagus like any of the other boys.
It was during one such gala occasion when in walked my old shadow Willy; my grocery boy from Memphis. We talked about his reasons for coming to Walter Reed, and then a while about the old gang. I soon wandered onto the subject of my throat and its treatment. When I mentioned the name of the doctor who has just completed my dilation, Willy jumped out of his chair and said, “Man you is crazy to let him touch you; around here they’se call him ‘Mad Man Cook’.” Willy was only a private, so telling the truth didn’t frighten him. He had already worked his way right to the bottom.
It wasn’t long before I found a method for becoming well liked with the other patients. The PX cart on its daily rounds to the wards, permitted each patient, unless medically prohibited, to purchase two bottles of GI beer. Never having acquired a taste for the beverage I always refused my ration. The news of this idiosyncrasy went around the ward quickly, and I soon found myself with all sorts of friends and company. To settle the argument with the Wisdom of Solomon I bought one bottle for Willy, and one for the medic who happened to be a patient in the bed on my right.
I think that my bed buddy saved up the beers that I was buying for him until he had enough for a spree, for suddenly on one bright sunny morning he started to float around the room with the most euphoric look in his eyes. He was not a paraplegic, and could do a good job of floating with a little bounce thrown in. Every bounce brought a hiccup, and every hiccup another word. By carefully putting his words together I surmised that he had been in or near the PT boat when General MacArthur landed in the Philippines to complete his famous “I have returned” speech. The longer he spoke the louder, and more vehement his words grew. It wasn’t long before he was telling — and I quote his drunken opinion – of what a jerk the General was. It seems that his unit had received orders to leave dead bodies lying around in order that when the photographers came ashore they could take pictures of the General in which the bodies would be seen as MacArthur waded in from his landing craft. He was also irked because a tent had been set up for the General in which he changed his wet clothes once the picture taking had been completed. Fortunately for him no officers were around when he told this tale, and nothing was said about his choice of words or observations. It developed that his was not a serious injury, so he was soon back to active duty. His bed was then taken by a youngster who has cracked his head in an automobile accident.
He wasn’t in his bed but a few hours when he started exhibiting one of the horrible type of eccentricities that can accompany a serious brain injury. Standing up in bed completely nude, he began to void into his urinal. He was in a world of his own when in walked the sweet little WAC who had been assigned to our room. Before she could stop to blush he yelled at the top of his voice, “Look at that damn whore, she’s watching me. That was the next to the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and the little girl ran from the room crying as if someone had lashed her with a bull whip. War is supposed to make strange bedfellows, but peace and the age of automation were also setting a strong pace.
Stranger things did happen, for when the nurse who had been newly assigned to the room entered, she came to a sudden halt and stared at me. She was assigned to my bed buddy, but couldn’t take her eyes off me. When she was certain that he was placated and out of harm’s way, she turned to me and said, “Aren’t you Joe Silver?” I replied, “Of course; who else?” She then said, “But you’re dead. I know you are. I sent you home to die.” It was then that I recalled her name and asked when I was supposed to die. Still befuddled, she continued, “That’s why you were sent
home; we calculated that you were more than critically ill, and it would be a nice gesture if you had a chance to see your Mom and Dad once more before you checked out permanently.” I waved my hands and arms at her to convince her that she was still sane, and had her sit down to listen to my tale of what had happened since the year before when I had seen her last. At long last I had found a friend in the enemy’s camp.
My Great White Father didn’t give me too long to try and forget the good deed that he had performed in my behalf when he found a new project for himself. It seems that the amputee and paraplegic veterans were trying to put a bill through Congress that would have the Government make a partial payment toward the purchase of prosthetic automobiles for we who were so seriously disabled. I soon found myself being introduced to a long list of Congressional secretaries. My dynamic friend’s plan was quite simple. Arouse the interest of the legislature’s secretaries, and they in turn would arouse the legislature. Our little effort must have helped, for the bill passed.
My public relations began to improve until on one day in August I found myself in a situation befitting a king. In an attempt to provide us with a maximum amount of recreation, movies were shown in the larger ward at odd times of the day. On that particular morning I was in the bigger ward watching a sixteen-millimeter movie when I discovered it was time for my physical therapy. Disregarding the darkened room or the crowd around her, my therapist swiftly began to perform her daily assignments to my legs. The movie was extra long and ran into lunchtime. Regardless of the show the trays had to be served as the men from the kitchen had a strict schedule to maintain. I found myself eating my lunch, watching the movie, and being exercised at the same time. It was a fortunate thing that the therapist was not a beauty, for I might have wound up cross-eyed. It was heartbreaking when it was all over, and they rolled my bed back to my little room.
Once back, I discovered that my bed buddy had disappeared. Suddenly it dawned on all that they didn’t know what had happened to him. All that anyone could remember was his asking the doctor at rounds if he could have his saxophone to play on. The doctor in his best bedside manner strung along with him and assented to his request, but no effort was actually made to deliver the horn. As the sun was about to set an aide ran in with what he thought was an amazing revelation. He had discovered our missing patient walking repeatedly round the flagpole moat. Some laughed and some didn’t when we all realized that that boy had actually been going around in circles for almost four hours. It all seemed funny, but truthfully it was a cruel joke, for he who laughed was the cruelest bastard in the world.
Walter Reed had the best of everything including dignified-looking genital urethral men. It was during a break in “rounds” that I managed to ask the urologist who happened to be standing close to my bed if he could tell me what the reason was for my having a super pubic catheter inserted when I was in England. He stomped his foot and said, “Because I told them to!” “You, sir?” I asked with that stupid look returning to my face. “I have never seen you before in my life.” He grinned a little and continued his story. “My name is Colonel Kimbrough. I was the commander of the urology service in the European Theater of Operations during the war. I ordered the operation performed for all paraplegics to prevent any bladder injury that might be caused by regular catheters being yanked out while they were being transported to and from hospitals on their way home. Now that you know,” he added, “what are you going to do about it?” “Nothing,” I replied. “You’re the first one to ever give me an intelligent answer to a question that has been bothering me for a long time.”
Walter Reed had more brass than the “Revere Company”. It was impossible to go to any treatment without running into at least a Colonel in his pajamas. They sent me to X-ray on my Stryker frame as a follow-up to my dilations. I was parked in the corridor waiting my turn at the table when a man about fifty was wheeled up on a 1itter, and parked across the corridor from me. I surmised from the way that the aides addressed him that he an officer. When his help left he became restless, and sat up on the litter. Spotting me on the Stryker frame, and becoming curious as to what the damn thing was; he started to question me about it. Playing it safely; I used the word “sir” in all my replies. I was three quarters through my conversation when a handsome WAC Lieutenant walked by. The Colonel interrupted and said, “There are too damn many women in this place.” I laughed and retorted, “Who said so?” “The old Colonel said so.” Not thinking, I replied, “Who’s an old Colonel?” “I am,” he said, and with that he started a loquacious biography of himself. Having finished his discourse and assuring as that no General, including MacArthur, frightened him, he then started to complain about the way that he was being cared for.
This was his first day at Walter Reed, and he had to dress down his WAC attendant for serving his whiskey in a shot glass instead of a water glass as befitting an officer of his rank. After all he concluded; was he not paying for it? Later in the same day he added he again had to dress her down, for as he was in bed lying on his stomach she came up to him with a bottle of alcohol, and offered to rub his back. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “What kind of sissies does this place cater to anyhow? I replied that I couldn’t tell him, as I was new there myself. He interrupted himself to point out a good-looking Captain who was walking by and said, “There; see that Captain? He’s a
no-good bum. He does nothing around here but chase women and get laid. A horrible waste of Government money.” Before I had a chance to question the point that I wouldn’t have anyway because of his rank an aide came up, and rescued me by pushing me into the X-ray room.
Though they did nothing new to me in the X-ray room I saw something I had never seen before — a female X-ray technician who was also comely. Being alloyed with the brass proved to be educational as well as a booster for my morale. Hardly a day would go by without someone stopping at my bedside to tell a tale out of school about some famous personality. Walter Reed may have been a big place and some of its suites may have been exclusive, but the stories came down from the highest places to even include a cute story about General Pershing himself.
Colonel Kimbrough introduced me to a kidney X-ray examination that I should have had many months previously. It was an IVP, which in plain English means intravenous Pylogram. During this exam a dye is injected into a vein, and X-ray pictures are taken periodically of the patient’s genital urethra tract as the dye passes out of the body.
Lying on a litter in the corridor outside the laboratory I overheard the aide tell Colonel Kimbrough that he had Pfc Silver and a General waiting for him. The Colonel replied, “Bring in the Pfc; the General has plenty of time.” In I went with the General none the wiser. Once on the table the aide lost no time in preparing my arm for the injection. He then starved to foul up my veins by persistently missing with the needle at his every attempt to insert it. I politely tried to give him hell by telling him in rueful tones to be careful, for I had bad veins and was lucky to have any at all left.
The Colonel overheard what I was saying, and promptly walked over to the X-ray table while taking the syringe from the aide’s hand as he completed his steps. “Son,” he said, “you remind me of the time a patient of mine was trying to tell me how to circumcise his son. Now turn your head to the left and relax.” Without any warning I felt a slight sensation of nausea, which lasted ten or fifteen seconds. I then finally realized that the Colonel had completed the injection. Relaxing once again and regrouping my thoughts, I turned to the Colonel and said, “Sir, that was pretty good. Didn’t even hardly feel it.” With the Kimbrough smile and a pat on my shoulder he replied, “You’re damn right it was good. You never thought an old bastard like me could do such a smooth job; did you?” I was afraid to do anything but smile, for though I hadn’t thought it, if I had said yes; he might have assumed that I agreed with him that he were an old bastard.
The Army can always use men of the Colonel’s skill and modesty. To show its appreciation a few years later Congress passed a special law permitting Colonel Klmbrough to retire at full pay.
The IVP report came back stating that which I had already known. It was no secret that I had two stones in my right kidney. The dirty little bitches were so large that they could be seen by the results of an ordinary KUB that is nothing but a flat plate X-ray of the kidneys and bladder. I suppose having stones should have depressed me, but they gave me no pain and thus no food for thought. I asked the Colonel about the stones, and what could he do about getting rid of them for me. He replied that they didn’t want to take them out because I was not being permitted to sit up in a wheelchair, for they would only come back again. Besides, they had already mapped that part of my anatomy, and additional surgery would just complicate things. I tried to argue the point even stating that the scars didn’t mean too much in my life any more, but the doctor’s decision was final.
Things were beginning to become dull when on a typical
Washington hot Sumner afternoon in walked a Lieutenant with the exciting news that I was being discharged, and sent to the Kingsbridge Veterans’ Hospital in the Bronx. This was almost enough to make me pass my stones in bed without surgery. I yelled in my best insubordinate manner, “Who said so?” He stiffened to a near at attention position, and rattled off a prepared speech about my having received maximum care. He then added since there was nothing further they could possibly do for me the only course left was for me to be transferred to the Veterans’ Administration Hospital nearest my home. I wanted to yell like hell, but this time if they decided to court-martia1 me they probably could have made the charges stick. Making a quick mental picture of the trouble a bad word could put me into I settled for, “I don’t want to,” Grinning with confidence he left, but every few days he returned to remind me of the coming change in my status.
Being ten minutes from home should have sounded like a wonderful situation, but personally, I’ll stick to my original opinion of the whole idea and that was that they no longer wanted paraplegics in Walter Reed, for whether we were wanted or not the nation’s military showplace had to maintain a semblance of discipline making it no place for a type of case which found itself when possible looking for a truly miraculous type of improvement as well as a new amusement.
The old-timers whom I had occasion to meet advised me to only take a discharge to a new Veterans’ Administration Hospital, or to one that the Army had recently passed on to the Veterans’ Administration, but not to go to any of the older ones such as “Base eighty-one,” which was the name by which they called Kingsbridge Hospital. They wanted me to wait until General Bradley had completed his reorganization of the Veterans’ Administration medical program, and had established the new Department of Surgery and Medicine. The oldsters usually know what they’re saying, so though I would have been at my own back door I persisted and fought my discharge.
The doctors and I were arguing about my case when one of the boys in a bed a few down from mine suddenly died, and his mother let out a mournful wail, “Oh, Johnny!” This immediately broke up our debate, and it wasn’t until a few days later that my doctors were able to report back to me. Though I was only a Pfc they sometimes acted as though I were a General. The higher echelon had talked it over and concluded that all those who did not want discharges must accept transfers to Percy Jones General Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. They were one up on me that time, and all I could do was bid my newly found friends good-bye.
It turned out that I was not the only one with the same future facing him, for though I was the last to leave Walter Reed, all the other boys in the room were shipped to the same place. Expenses didn’t bother the Army, and I was given a drawing room on the Baltimore and Ohio train to Battle Creek for my personal use during the entire trip. The crew in the club car couldn’t be bothered with Government red tape, for though the Army had allotted me but one dollar per meal; as the altruistic crew was concerned it could have been five. When I tried to think out a really expensive and nourishing menu that would only cost one dollar and sti1l be palatable the conductor took the meal ticket from my hand and said, “Don’t look at the prices; just tell us what you want.” I was confused and dubiously said, “Give me some of your best southern fried chicken with all the trimmings.” With that he quickly left leaving me certain that I was never to see him again for the remainder of the trip. It wasn’t too long before a waiter brought in the most delicious looking chicken dinner that you ever want to see in your life. Still doubting, but unable to resist the temptation of its aroma, I bit into it. I found to my satisfaction that it tasted even better than it appeared.
The remainder of the trip was quiet and uneventful except that I was having a splendid opportunity to do what that old slogan says, “See America First”. I would have enjoyed my sightseeing tour except that any second I expected someone to pop into this room with a bill for the bill of fare that I had devoured so gluttonously. I did see the conductor once again, but it was too late for him to send me any further type of bill as I was at the station at Battle Creek and unloaded. He was standing in the train waving to me as it slid out of the station.
A short ambulance ride and there it was, Percy Jones Hospital. “The last frontier for the Army’s Second World War holdouts against discharges.” Percy Jones Hospital prior to the war had originally been the Kellogg Sanitarium, but as had happened with many institutions, the Army took it over for its own use during the war. This was the first hospital that I had ever gone into that had a genuine taste of civilian living and luxury to it. As I was rolled down the corridors to the elevator I gaped at the decorations and knickknacks that took away the cold pallor which hangs over our modern hospitals. Though it could no longer be called a sanitarium that comfortable feeling was still there.
I was quite at ease until I arrived on the ward, and I met “Effie.” As soon as I opened my mouth and commented on the smallness of the size of the room we were being put into, she glared at me and said, “Where do you think you are?” I replied, “The Waldorf, almost; this place is practically as beautiful save for the measurements of the room and the foul hospital odors. Just exchange some of the furniture, and it could certainly pass as it.” She was certain that I was trying to be a politician, and said that I should can the hogwash. Before she left she made the statement that she was giving all the orders there. When she was finally gone the patients all started to roar with laughter. Sensing that I was a bit confused by this woman’s unnecessary bossiness, one of the old-timers rolled over, and said that I should not let it worry me, for she was an all right gal.
The first night wasn’t as difficult to endure as the first nights of previous transfers had been, for most of the room was filled with paraplegics from Walter Reed. Loneliness never did set in, and I slept soundly through the night only to awaken in the morning to see Effie standing by my bedside. Not chancing a sound from my lips, she blurted out, “Shut up. We’re transferring all of you aristocrats to larger quarters today.” Larger quarters were the gross understatement of the year. We found ourselves being taken into a room that has a three-way exposure and two adjoining bathrooms. Two bathrooms for eight paraplegics is practically the same as living under family conditions. It took a while to accustom my eyes to the extra sunlight, but never let it be said that the infantry is anti-luxury.
It was a fortunate thing that we had those extra comforts, for it helped to decrease the effects that we felt from being ministered to by a less experienced staff than those at hospitals accustomed to handling paraplegics. The first day had to start on the wrong foot as it always does. The ward master decided to give us a lecture on the fact that we did not appreciate how lucky we were by being paraplegics, and not having yellow jaundice as he had had.
Accepting his lecture in the good spirit in which it was intended, we reciprocated by calling him everything that Webster doesn’t dare include in his dictionary. To put emphasis on our diction, those of us who could use our arms threw everything movable at him that we could possibly reach including the urine jugs.
The nurses, fortunately, didn’t need the formal indoctrination to our condition that our idiotic ward master had required, and undertook their miserable tasks in true Florence Nightingale fashion. A paraplegic may go where he pleases, if his enema can goes with him. Without fanfare, Effie and her buddy, who was younger than she and much prettier, threw me onto a litter and rolled me into the nearest bathroom. Giving an enema to a paraplegic was an innovation to those young ladies, and things didn’t roll out as smoothly as they had expected, or I had hoped. Finally, by lowering the enema can below the litter level so that suction would be created, the evacuation was completed. They had every right to complain that they were tired, but I still insist that it took more out of me than it did out of them.
They had a cure for my discomfort. For the first time since before I had left for overseas I found myself in a genuine bathtub. The girls had decided that soapy water wouldn’t kill anyone even an ex-dogface. It felt so damn good that I lay in that tub for over an hour before I discovered to my dismay that I had forgotten to remove my watch. Once back in the bed I noticed that the squareness of our room permitted us even as we hadn’t been able to at Walter Reed to look directly at each others’ faces. This new situation produced a greater desire to make conversation, and after a few days we knew each others’ case histories, ancestors, and the things about each other that you don’t tell your mother.
Sometimes when we became tired of looking out the windows at the skyscrapers owned by the Post and Kellogg families the stories would start repeating. The one that was repeated more than any other was recited by the lad in the bed across from mine who told how he was picnicking on a rock in the Philippine Islands, and had his arm around a girl with a coke in his other hand when suddenly and from out of nowhere, a forty-five slug hit him in the back. He was entirely dumbfounded as to why anyone would want to take a shot at him though we were all certain that no matter how many times he repeated his tale he would never be able to convince us that her boyfriend didn’t have something to do with the gun’s trigger being pulled. He claimed that she didn’t have male friends to which we replied, “Tell it to the mice,” and we had plenty of those.
Battle Creek is a mill town and like all cities that handle, grains it is subject to the rodent problem. There was a class of mice in that city that couldn’t be bothered chasing for their lives at the granaries and decided to spend the rest of their lives resting with us at the Kellogg Sanitarium; alias Percy Jones General Hospital. They must have been clairvoyant about spending the rest of their lives at the Sanitarium, for that is exactly what they did. We raised some money, had traps brought in, and kept the night aides busy as hell resetting them after each kill.
The executions were being held at an extra steady pace for a day or two when suddenly the traps started to disappear. We couldn’t get out of bed to track them down, but it took little common sense to tell us that even though the mice in Battle Creek, Michigan were some of the healthiest in the world, they certainly were not strong enough to disappear with all of the traps. We decided to lie awake one night and watch the aides. We discovered that instead of emptying the traps as we had asked, they simply dumped the mice and traps together into the nearest garbage can. Vituperatives followed all over the place, but we waged a losing war, and were forced to cede to the little rats and the United States Army.