365 Days by Ronald J. Glasser

Author:Ronald J. Glasser [Glasser, Ronald J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9039-2
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-11-28T00:02:00+00:00

“Sure the Negroes don’t get promoted as

fast as the whites. You don’t see IBM

promoting them either, do you?”

Trooper, 1st Air Cav

Medical Ward

U.S. Army Hospital, Camp Drake, Japan

10

Gentlemen, It Works

GENTLEMEN, YOU MAY SMOKE. My name is Colonel Griger, Psychiatric Medical Adviser to the United States Army—Vietnam. This hour of your active-duty orientation has been set aside for a discussion of military psychiatry. I know what is on your minds; it is on everyone’s mind who is going to war. Let me first try to allay some of your fears. Since you are physicians, it won’t he as bad as you think. I’ve just recently returned from Vietnam and I can assure you that your chances of getting hurt or killed—unless you do something foolish or are somewhere you shouldn’t be—are much smaller than right out here on the streets of San Antonio, Texas. I am not saying that Vietnam will not be a difficult place. It is difficult for everyone, whether he admits it or not. The point is to make sure, whether it’s yourself or your patients, that when the tour is over those difficulties are left behind where they belong—in Southeast Asia...That is why I am talking to you this hour. To try to make sure that a year’s problem does not become a lifelong disability.

“The legs that are lost in Nam are unfortunately lost forever; the eyes that are gone are gone for good. I can assure you, though, that not everyone loses a leg or goes blind. But everyone is afraid and everyone does have his limit of endurance. To fight is to be afraid, and the enormity of that fear can shatter even the strongest man. It will be your job, whether you are a surgeon, internist, or general medical officer, whether you are assigned to a battalion aid station or evacuation hospital, to make sure that the fear is not compounded.

“Gentlemen, there are achievements that come out of any war; most are truly unimportant and hardly worth a campaign, much less a battle. Others are real advancements, a few major human achievements: Believe it or not—and I know it may be hard to believe—one of these major achievements has come out of the chaos of Nam. It is still controversial, but I believe over the years it will prove itself, not only in the military but in civilian psychiatry as well. Those of us in the military have seen it work already....”

“Major Kohler.” The corpsman stuck his head into the doorway. “The chopper’s in. They got some guy who won’t move. Say he’s paralyzed.”

“Okay. Be right there.”

The building began shaking again. A moment later another chopper, a Red Cross painted on its nose, inched past the sandbagged window of the office. Kohler watched it from his desk until the whirling blades disappeared from view, then walked quickly out of the room.

Halfway down the hall he heard another chopper passing over the building. They had been coming in like this for almost three days. To keep

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