Vietnam, I Love You

By Tom Lee

Doctor Jimmy Capri was anxious. Doctor Maureen Mo Lally had coerced him into presenting their paper at a military medical meeting in Hanoi. He feared that returning to Vietnam would unmask the post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD that he suffered from his first tour at First Marines First Medical Battalion in Da Nang and that he had managed to submerge for over thirty-five years. The memories that had lain dormant did surface, including being shot and the details of his love affair with Mai Nguyen, a nurse at WHO Children"s Hospital. What he didnt anticipate from his short stay in Vietnam, was a new love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467853637

Tom Lee

Tom Lee is a graduate of Michigan State University. He is a retired Marine of twenty years. After retirement he trained to fly aircraft, eventually flying Medivac, corporate, and finally for the airlines commercially. Now retired from the airlines he has settled into his third career as an author. Tom’s other books are - There’s a Turtle on the Runway and other flying stories. Retribution is Tom’s fourth book in the series involving Ryan, Scout, Gunny, Cate, Amanda and others. 

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Prologue

Thong Nhat Hotel (now named the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi Hotel), Hanoi, Vietnam, Early Spring 1954

Pierre Laterjet’s muscles tensed. He sighed aloud and did a half push up as he finished inside the pretty Vietnamese nurse. A few seconds later Lan Nguyen shuddered with her orgasm. After his breathing decreased a little, Pierre pushed up all the way and disengaged. His sweat reactivated his French cologne, giving the warm, muggy air inside the room a more pleasant aroma. The rickety old fan on the dresser blew gentle breezes across the narrow double bed. Pierre rolled onto his back.

I cold, Lan said. Pierre pulled the sheet up over both of them. The moonlight streaming in through the window highlighted the contrast between Pierre’s tanned face and the stark, white pillow. Lan looked tiny and pale snuggled up next to Pierre’s tall, lanky form that extended the full length of the bed. He knew that she wanted him to take her with him back to France to a new and better life, to freedom for her and little daughter, Mai. She rubbed his stomach and pushed her naked body into his side slipping her leg across his groin under the sheet.

I love you, Pierre. Take Lan and baby daughter, Mai, with you.

You can’t go now, Lan. I need to find a place for you. I’ll have to send for you and little Mai after I get home.

When you home you forget Lan, yes?

How could I ever forget you, Lan? We’ve been together for five years.

Not all time, Pierre. You leave me two years when Mai born.

I wasn’t sure that Mai was mine.

Lan no sleep with other man, only you. Mai your daughter.

But I wasn’t sure.

You sure. Pierre tell lie. You just want to sleep with other girls.

That’s not true, Lan. I was working very hard. They sent me to another hospital to take care of injured French soldiers for a little while.

You go to other hospital to go away from Lan, yes? You scared about Mai coming, right? You not at other hospital all time… Lan glad you come back, Pierre.

Lan, I love you and little Mai. You know I do.

Then we go with you, tomorrow, yes?

I told you, I can’t. Not now. Maybe later.

The hotel was quiet. Dr. Laterjet was spending his last night in the Thong Nhat Hotel before returning to France. It had been a long, tough five years as a missionary surgeon at the French Hospital in Hanoi, yet, not without pleasure. Lan was a significant part of the good side of his being in Vietnam. He met her in the hospital shortly after he arrived. She had been his faithful paramour the entire time. Well, almost, he thought. He wondered what France would be like and what his estranged wife would do when he returned. He wondered what would happen to little Mai who was most likely his daughter.

The Vietnamese were trying hard to rid themselves of French domination. Even the pro-French newspaper in Hanoi was pessimistic about the French remaining in Vietnam. The French General, Navarre, had fortified the valley of Dien Bien Phu in the isolated corner of northwestern Vietnam. Navarre wanted to defend both northern Vietnam and Laos hoping to draw General Giap’s elusive Vietminh into a large-scale confrontation. He believed his paratroopers, foreign legionnaires, armored vehicles and fighter bombers would destroy the communist Vietminh once and for all.

Navarre had overestimated his force’s strength and underestimated the power of the Vietminh. In March the newspaper reported that the Vietminh artillery had begun pounding the French from the hills overlooking Dien Bien Phu. The French forces found themselves surrounded. They could not escape, could not be reinforced and could

1.DienBeinPhu.jpg

Dien Bien Phu

not silence the Vietminh guns. The outlying garrisons were falling to the Vietminh in steady succession. Ho Chi Min and General Giap looked like they would succeed in driving the French out of Vietnam.

It wasn’t safe to be a Frenchman in Hanoi any longer even in Doctor Laterjet’s role as a missionary surgeon. Yes, the people loved him. It was the communist government that didn’t like the French. Most probably the communists would have overlooked Doctor Laterjet as a Frenchman concentrating on his value to them as their doctor. He wasn’t about to risk it. Besides, most of his French friends had gone home and he was a bit homesick. Exhausted, he fell off to sleep.

* * *

The sunlight replaced the moonlight coming through the window into the room. The morning was warmer, unseasonably so. The tired old fan did not cool the room. It just shuffled the hot air around.

All the furniture was French antiques, not by design, but just because it had been there for so long. The room was neat and tidy. Lan had gotten up early to make it so. Pierre stepped out of the shower and dried off. Lan had lain out his clothes for him on the dresser. His polished shoes were on the floor by the chair and his bags had been neatly packed.

You ready to go, Lan said. He dressed and quickly finished packing his toiletries and papers.

Let’s eat breakfast, first. Pierre telephoned the bell captain. My bags are ready… Mercí.

2.Chignon.JPG

Pierre and Lan took the elevator to the first floor and walked the short distance to the main dining room. The maitre d seated them at a table with a white embroidered tablecloth, fresh flowers and beautiful silverware and china. The scent of fresh French pastries permeated the air. Lan looked very pretty this morning. She wore a blue ao dai with white silk pants. Her hair was up with a chopstick through it keeping the chignon du cou in place. She didn’t need any makeup to accentuate her facial beauty especially her large dark almond eyes. He wasn’t wrong. She was beautiful and a world apart as far as how nice she was to him. He wished the French women were as nice. The problem was that she was a world apart.

The waiter poured a cup of coffee for Pierre. Lan waved her hand for him not to fill her cup. She sipped her water. Steam rose from his cup providing a little mist cloud between Lan and him. He saw big tears running down her cheeks. Suddenly, he felt a little sad. But what would they think if he brought an Asian woman home to France? It was out of the question. He wasn’t divorced yet. Maybe, he never would be. That was part of the reason he had volunteered for five years in Vietnam. He had hoped that the missionary work would straighten out or end his awful marriage. Neither one had happened. He ordered some eggs and a pastry.

What would you like, Lan?

I not hungry.

You must eat something.

Why, you worry? You be gone soon and no worry about Lan anymore. The tears came faster.

I will worry. I will worry about you and little Mai.

Mai not understand. She four. I understand.

Probably not. But I will miss her. I will miss you, too, Lan. The waiter placed his dish of eggs before him. He felt sheepish eating breakfast in front of Lan, but he had offered. He sprinkled some pepper on the eggs and bit into the croissant. He stirred his eggs and took a small mouthful. He wasn’t very hungry any more. He was pensive, unsure. What was wrong with Lan? She was smart, beautiful, pleasant, spoke French fluently and a little English as well. She was a nurse who loved her work and did it very well and she was deeply in love with him. There was nothing wrong with her. Sadly they had met in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why couldn’t life be simpler, fairer? Why couldn’t he be fairer? He just couldn’t. He ate a few more bites.

Monsieur, your taxi here, the bell boy informed him.

Oh… Mercí. Pierre wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up. It was as though he was lifting a three hundred kilogram weight on his back. His legs were weak and wouldn’t straighten out easily. He struggled and finally managed to stand erect. He put a one hundred franc note on the table by his plate and walked around the table. He kissed Lan on the top of her head.

Goodbye, Pierre whispered. She didn’t look up. She was sobbing, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose in a paper napkin. Pierre paused as if he were about to say something prophetic. He could feel tears running down his face.

I’ll miss you, Lan. Tell little Mai that I said ‘Goodbye.’ Lan sat silently, still looking down at the table and wiping her eyes with her cloth dinner napkin.

Pierre turned on his heel and marched out the door. He didn’t look back, but he glanced in the large mirror at the end of the dining room. Lan never looked up. The atmosphere seemed to shift inside the restaurant; laden with the oppressive finality.

(Thong Nhat means Reunification)

1. Welcome to Hanoi

Doctor Jimmy Capri leaned forward in his seat, looked out the window, and watched the flooded green rice-paddies streak by below the wing. He was inbound on China Airlines 683 to Hanoi Noibai International Airport. He hadn’t seen Vietnam for over thirty-five years. In fact, he hadn’t thought about it, read about it or been to a movie about Vietnam, since leaving Da Nang in 1970. Doctor’s orders. The therapy had worked. No more nightmares and no more Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of sleepless nights followed by depression for a week or more.

Jimmy was anxious to see his colleague, Doctor Maureen Lally. The events of the past five months flipped through his memory bank. Mo Lally was an attractive thirty-six year old anesthesiologist with a Master of Public Health from The Johns Hopkins University. In January, she had asked Jimmy about presenting a paper with her at the Fifteenth Annual Asian-Pacific Military Medical Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam in May.

About what? Jimmy had asked.

About the civilian-military medical partnership that you have been working on for the last couple years, Mo replied. A presentation to a military medical conference should highlight and improve your efforts at our own institution as well as showcase your work, worldwide.

Jimmy thought for a moment. You bet. I’ll do it.

It means another presentation before an international audience and an automatic publication in Military Medicine, she said excitedly. Mo had written the initial abstract on the partnership that Jimmy was working on with the Air National Guard and the Air Force and the abstract had been accepted for presentation. Even more surprising, Mo had submitted a request for funding to their hospital corporation for each of them and the institution had agreed to pay for the airline ticket, hotel and any other incidentals for both Jimmy and her. Jimmy was grateful. Mo’s enthusiasm and energy were infectious.

I’m really excited about presenting this work to a military audience in Vietnam, Jimmy had told Mo. Yet, in some ways, he also felt trapped. He had said, Yes. Until now, he had never reneged on his word on a professional commitment. So he couldn’t back out of returning to Vietnam, although he had to admit, he was really worried.

He thought it would be interesting seeing Hanoi from the ground. He had only seen Hanoi before, from altitude, in the right seat of an A-6 Intruder bomber, flying off the aircraft carrier, USS Constellation. As a Naval Flight Surgeon it was his duty to check a pilot’s medical adaptation to flight after having been off flying status. Up chit, the aviators called it. Jimmy would substitute for the regular Naval Flight Officer who usually sat in the right seat. It meant that Jimmy had to know the NFO’s routine, including setting the coordinates for the targets for the bombs. Jimmy’s intent during the early part of the Vietnam Conflict was to poke holes in the Vietnamese landscape with five hundred-pound bombs. Fortunately, he only had to set the coordinates. The pilot pulled the trigger that released the bombs. Jimmy felt he hadn’t actually killed anybody, himself, but setting coordinates troubled him.

Doctor Capri’s return to Hanoi was far different this time. The United States was helping Vietnam with many of their medical problems, such as malaria and HIV which is how Doctor Lally had become involved. In addition to anesthesiology, she was an international expert in infectious diseases, epidemiology, and the public health aspects of worldwide infection problems. Her network of friends in the military and public health that she had nurtured while working on her United States Navy post-doctoral fellowship had encouraged her to attend this meeting. Jimmy’s work provided the impetus and vehicle for her to do so. Jimmy yawned a couple times and shortly thereafter fell into a deep sleep.

He didn’t hear or feel the wheels of the aircraft hit the runway. The rain had stopped, but the grass alongside the runway was bright green and wet. The plane quickly pulled onto a taxiway and after a short time slid to a stop.

We aren’t at the gate, yet, the pilot announced. We’re holding while the gate clears, he said in accented English as well as Vietnamese.

Jimmy didn’t hear the pilot’s message and wasn’t even aware when the plane reached the gate. And he didn’t notice the luggage hitting the conveyor belt below him nor the noise as the bags were tossed onto the baggage cart. He hadn’t heard the flight attendant’s messages, either. He was already dreaming of his tour in Vietnam with First Marines, First Medical Battalion in 1969.

––- ––- ––- *********** ––- ––- ––-

2. Début in Da Nang

It was hot and muggy. Sweat was running down Jimmy’s back in torrents. He had soaked his dull olive drab (OD) T-shirt and fatigues, already. Even his socks were wet. He had been in-country in Vietnam for less than six hours. His Military Airlift Command (MAC) flight from the States was long and eventful. He had spent forty-five minutes in Hawaii, then an hour at Wake Island to refuel, and finally landed and remained over night at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

He recounted the dinner in the Air Force Officers’ Club at Clark Air Force Base less than twenty-four hours ago. He and some of the other officers he had met on the MAC flight had agreed to get together in the officers club for dinner and take the four stewardesses from their flight as guests. An uninvited burly linebacker from a pro-football team, on his way to Vietnam to entertain the troops before the season started, had joined them. Jimmy guessed that, where the stewardesses are, that’s where the professional football players are. They know the game, and it’s not just football! The linebacker left early with the youngest, prettiest stewardess in tow. His routine for gettin’ in shape, Jimmy though! He also didn’t pay his share of the bill. Jimmy was still pissed off. The richest guy at the table had skipped out on paying his fair share of the bill. A big name star, but a social dwarf, Jimmy reflected.

Is it always this hot? Jimmy asked.

No. Sometimes it’s worse in August, the duty corpsman replied. This is typical for late July.

Oh, Wow, Jimmy commented. Can you give me a brief tour, before the incoming starts?

Hey, don’t jinx us, the duty corpsman said. My name is Jim Spettle. The nights are usually quieter than the days

My name is Jimmy Capri.

Good first name, Spettle said with a laugh. So they put you on first call on your first night in-country, eh?

Baptism of fire, Jimmy replied. But they said there was plenty of help if I needed it.

That’s true. You don’t venture off this compound at night unless you have to, Spettle said. They bring entertainment to the enlisted club every night. Some of the officers usually slip in the back for a drink and to enjoy the entertainment, too. So all the surgeons are on the compound and ready to help you. Great group of guys.

That’s good to know, Jimmy said. So the schedule is first call tonight, second call tomorrow night, third call the next night, all the way to eighth call, then a day off?

You’ve got it, Spettle said. Second call usually assists you if you need it, unless they have a case at the same time, then third or fourth call can help you. Most of the time the corpsman is your first assistant, unless it’s complicated or you’re ‘two teaming’ a case. But anytime you get overwhelmed one of the other surgeons will step in. That’s what I mean; a great bunch of docs.

Who’s the boss? Jimmy asked.

The CO or the top surgeon?

The top surgeon, Jimmy said.

That’s Doc Centrino. Anthony Centrino. He’s a really good guy to work with. I think that’s why the whole group acts the way they do. He’s on second call, tonight, backing you up.

Did he do his surgical training at UCSF?

"I donno. We don’t pay much attention to where you trained. That

don’t matter. It’s how fast ya cut and how good ya are. All the Hotel Sierras right out of training come out here in July and August and after a couple of weeks, they all get much better. They call us the year long postgraduate training course in trauma surgery. Don’t worry; you’ll fit in, if I know ya."

3.Triage..jpg

Thanks, Spettle. Jimmy looked at the sign in the triage area. It read, It is the duty of a hospital corpsman to wait in… Jimmy heard distant rotors chopping through the air. They were coming toward him. His heart raced a little in anticipation. Didn’t take long, he said.

I told ya, ya jinxed us. Two other corpsmen came out of nowhere and ran out to the helipad. Jimmy watched from the open triage door. The helipad was about one hundred feet away. There are two-foot thick reinforced walls on the sides of the helipad facing the triage and operating rooms with a small opening between them to get to the patients. A little concrete ramp led up to the opening where the two corpsmen stood, ducked just behind the wall where countless stretchers racked in a covered holder in anticipation of the next combat casualties.

The Sea Bees built the concrete pad and the walls, Spettle explained. The walls are in case someone lobs a bomb or explosive device onto the pad or live ammunition goes off on one of the Marine combat helicopters while they are offloading casualties, it won’t blow our house down! Our house is triage, the operating rooms and the wards, plus the dining hall, the clinic and some other buildings… Headquarters.

Dust kicked up as the rotor wash hit the helipad and the dirt around it. The rotors kept turning as the corpsmen off-loaded the casualty on a stretcher and hurried down the ramp, across the gravel road and up the little grade toward triage.

Oh, Oh. ‘Hot offload.’ That’s not good, said Spettle.

The hurrying corpsmen plopped the stretcher on the waiting sawhorses in triage. The casualty was a Marine. He was pasty white. The left leg of his camouflaged pants had been cut away, all the way up to his belt. There was a tourniquet clamped down over a bloody dressing on his left thigh. The end of his penis had a chunk out of it, ragged, shot away. There were no IV’s. Jimmy felt the casualty’s right groin through his pants for the femoral pulse.

No pulse, Jimmy blurted out. He put his hand on the Marine’s abdomen under his shirt. He’s still warm. We need to get some fluids into him, pronto. Two corpsmen cut away the sleeves of the dead Marine’s camouflaged jacket. Jimmy slipped on some sterile gloves and reached for some prep solution. What’s this brown stuff?

That’s our new prep solution, the corpsman said. We just got it a few days ago.

What’s it called?

Betadine, I think.

Jimmy spread some Betadine over the right upper arm, just above the elbow. He grabbed a scalpel from the opened sterile cutdown pack and cut the skin and fat over the vein on the outside of the upper arm, two inches above the elbow crease. One of the corpsman nonchalantly placed the fingers of both his hands around the Marine’s well-formed arm above were Jimmy was working and squeezed down as a human tourniquet to make the vein stand out. It didn’t fill. Jimmy slipped a curved clamp under the flat vein, grasped the ends of two silk sutures and pulled them through. He pulled the suture closest to the elbow down, and tied it, choking off the distal end of the vein. He grabbed the sterile IV tubing from the pack and cut off the distal end at a slight angle. He handed the other pointed end of the line that went into the rubber cover of the bottle, to the corpsman.

Lactated Ringers, Jimmy shouted.

Will this do? said another corpsman who was standing near Jimmy with three bottles of O-negative blood in his arms.

It will, Jimmy said. You’re right, this Marine’s in class four shock. The corpsman put two of the bottles on the floor and plugged the IV tubing set into the bottle of blood he was holding and filled the drip-chamber, plastic-bulb pump and the tubing with blood all the way down to Jimmy’s end. Jimmy made a little hole in the vein, slipped in the tubing and tied it in place with the other suture near the top of the incision. He looked across at Spettle. Spettle’s cutdown was already in and blood was running. In fact about one third of the bottle was already in and Spettle had closed his incision, loosely. Jimmy opened the valve and blood began to run through his cutdown. Spettle had beaten him, badly. Welcome to Vietnam, rookie; welcome to combat casualty care, he thought. These corpsmen are really good. Now he understood, how fast ya are.

As soon as the first two bottles of blood ran in, two more bottles of blood were hung. The corpsmen continued to pump the little bulbs on the IV tubing to force the blood in faster. Jimmy threw in a stitch to close his wound and a corpsman put a Betadine dressing on the cutdown site. He hadn’t noticed, but Lieutenant. Joe Carroll was standing behind him.

Is he going to make it? Father Joe asked.

Looks like it, Spettle assured the new Catholic chaplain.

‘Wiggers prep’ shock model, Jimmy mumbled to no one in particular. Jimmy had met the priest at the Da Nang airport early that morning having flown in from Clark Air Force base on a military transport plane. They had ridden in the same cracker-box ambulance from the airport to First Marines, First Medical Battalion, just a few hours ago. They were both brand-new and inexperienced with war casualties. The Marine on the stretcher began to stir. The corpsmen had pumped seven pints of blood into him.

Can I talk to him? Father Joe asked. I noticed that he has a cross on the chain around his neck.

Sure, Father, Jimmy said. Jimmy hadn’t noticed the cross nestled in the Marine’s thick black chest hair. He backed away from the patient’s right side and Father Joe slipped in and bent over, near the Marine’s right ear. The Marine lifted his head and began to look around.

Do you have any questions, son? Father Joe asked in a soft, almost shy voice. The Marine looked down at his bloody penis.

Yeah, Father, will it fuck?

The priest reeled back into Jimmy and looked up at him. Jimmy caught him and shook his head, yes. Father Joe regained his composure and moved back alongside the Marine.

The doctor says it will. What’s your name, son? Father Joe asked.

Marciano.

Where are you from?

Brooklyn … Are you sure, Father?

Doc says he can make it as good as new.

You’re sure?

Yes. And I’ll pray for you. Father Joe got out his little metal case and administered the sacrament of the sick and blessed the Marine. When he turned around Jimmy saw that Father Joe was almost as pale as the Marine had been when he came in.

Yeah. My first day, too, Father, Jimmy said. They shot an X-ray of the left hip and thigh, moved Marciano over to a gurney and wheeled him toward the operating room. Jimmy looked up and saw Tony Centrino standing in the OR.

Do you need a hand? Tony asked.

Sure do, Jimmy replied. I haven’t taken the tourniquet off yet. He must’ve shot the femoral vessels in two, since he bled out from the injury. No exit wound, either. X-ray shows the bullet under the skin behind and on the outside. You can feel it, too.

Did you get the story? Dr. Centrino asked.

Not really.

Guess it doesn’t matter, Tony said.

The fuckin’ PF shot me, Marciano groaned.

Glad to see your doing better, Marciano, Jimmy said.

I ain’t doing for shit, doc. That bastard tried to kill me. He shot my dick off.

The dick I can fix. It’s the blood vessels in your thigh that worry me, Jimmy said.

Ya can cut my leg off, but ya gotta fix my dick.

We’ll try to fix ‘em both, Marciano.

You gave me two big lines for fluids, Doctor Greg Suiter said. Should be able to get ‘em the drugs to put him to sleep. Who’s your new side kick, Tony?

Sorry Greg. This is Jimmy Capri. He just started today. Got himself a real nice case right off the bat! Jimmy, this is Greg Suiter. Best damn anesthesiologist in the Navy, Tony said.

Tony says that about every anesthesiologist we have here, Greg said.

Glad to meet you, Jimmy said. Just didn’t expect to do it so soon.

War’s hell, but it’s worse for the Marines, Suiter said. That’s why we’re here. Those guys lay it on the line, day and night. We’re just the supportin’ cast. He’s asleep. You can operate whenever you’re ready.

What’s PF? Jimmy asked.

Popular forces, Tony said. They’re supposed to be the loyal Vietnamese that the Marines use to help guide them on their patrols. Not sure what he meant. Maybe it was an accident.

I doubt it, Suiter said. Probably a Viet Cong in disguise.

Jimmy, you go scrub and come back and hold direct pressure on the wound so I can remove the tourniquet and dressing. Have the vascular instruments ready, Tony told the scrub tech."

Gotcha covered, already, Doc, Lindsey said.

Lindsey has been here longer than I have, Tony said. The best damn scrub tech in the Navy. Make sure we prep the right leg, in case we need a graft. Two corpsmen cut off the rest of the Marine’s fatigues. They prepped both legs and the abdomen all the way up to the bellybutton with sterile paintbrushes and the new brown solution. Jimmy ducked out of the OR long enough for a quick scrub. Once he returned Lindsey helped him don his sterile gown and gloves and together, they draped the legs out. Lindsey held the left leg up so Tony could remove the tourniquet. Blood shot across the room. Jimmy quickly grabbed a gauze sponge from the back table, dipped it in the brown prep solution, placed it over the wound and pressed down as Lindsey lowered the left leg back to the operating table. That stopped the bleeding, for the most part.

Looks arterial, Doc, Lindsey said. I’ve got a small DeBakey vascular clamp, when you need it. Tony scrubbed in. Lindsey gowned and gloved him and slapped the vascular clamp, a DeBakey, in his hand. Jimmy rolled the sponge down a little to expose the top of the wound. Tony retrieved and carefully snapped the clamp on the femoral artery. They found the other end and clamped the frazzled end below with another DeBakey. Jimmy enlarged the wound up and down so they could see, better. They dissected the vessels and placed the DeBakey clamps further up and down on the artery to give themselves room to repair it. The ends of the vein had retracted back, but they were still oozing briskly. Jimmy quickly traced them back and found good vessel to clamp. The saphneous vein was bleeding into the medial side of the wound. Jimmy clamped the saphneous vein and Tony tied it off with a silk suture. That stopped the bleeding. Jimmy relaxed a little.

I think you can take a couple sections of that saphneous vein to repair the femoral vessels, Tony said. I’ll tidy up the wound and get the ends of the artery and vein ready for you. It is low enough that it looks like the superficial femoral artery and vein are blown away. The main femoral vein and the main femoral artery and the reparable part of the deep profunda artery are still intact, Tony said as he looked around, moving injured tissue and felt deep in the open thigh.

That’s lucky for him. Must have missed the hip joint, too, Jimmy said.

If it had been any higher, it would have blown his whole dick off, Lindsey said. Tough to be a ‘long–dicked’ Marine! he laughed.

I got X-rays of the hip and femur, but I didn’t have time to study them, Jimmy said. Didn’t see any fragments near the hip joint. A corpsman automatically scrambled, found the X-rays and popped them up on the view boxes in the operating room. Jimmy and Tony backed away from the operating table, took the sterile towels Lindsey offered, wrapped up their sterile gloves, walked over to the X-ray box and studied the films.

Looks like he took a little divot out of his femur. The bullet is under the skin on the back side of his thigh along with some bone fragments, Jimmy said. Probably has some of his pants fabric in there, too. Don’t let me forget to clean that out.

They both crowded back up to the operating table. Jimmy extended the incision down the inside of the upper part of thigh, right over the saphneous vein. He and Lindsey tied off the side veins coming into the saphneous vein and the lower end and carefully removed about seven inches of vein, making sure he knew which end was which. In a short time Jimmy was sewing in a segment of the saphneous vein in between the ends of the femoral vein. When they released the clamps to the vein, the vein filled.

No leaks to the ‘new’ vein, Jimmy said. He sewed a reversed segment of saphneous vein between the two prepared ends of the femoral artery. Tony released the clamps to the newly reconstituted femoral artery. The lower arterial anastomosis had a tiny leak that stopped with a little light pressure.

Great pulse, Tony said.

Jimmy cleaned off the end of the penis. Part of the glans had been shot away, but the penis was pretty much intact and not bleeding any more. He debrided the wound by roughening the bed with a gauze sponge until it bled. The necrotic parts that didn’t bleed were carefully cut away. A little gentle pressure curbed the bleeding. He took a small, thick partial thickness skin graft from the outside of Marciano’s left thigh and applied it to the defect on the end of the penis. It fit perfectly. He sewed it on.

Missed the meatal opening, Jimmy mumbled. Anything else?

Do you want to clean out the bullet track and remove the bullet? Tony replied. Jimmy went back to work. He rolled the left leg and felt the bullet under the skin. He made a three cm incision and extracted the deformed bullet. Funny how a bullet could penetrate the entire leg including the femur and not be able to make it through the skin. Like a safety net, the skin stretched and allowed the last vestige of energy to dissipate and then snap back. He stuffed his index fingers into the bullet tract and felt some bone fragments. He used a clamp through the freshly made incision and used his finger through the big wound on the inside of the leg to push the bone fragments into the clamp. He also pulled out some fabric and a little piece of plastic.

Must’ve been something he had in his pocket, Jimmy mused. Do you want me to close the wounds, loosely?

Just tack the muscles together over your grafts to protect them and Lindsey can pack the wounds with Betadine gauze. You did a nice job, Jimmy, Tony said. You have good hands.

Thanks, Tony, and thanks for the help, Jimmy replied. Somehow all the cases that Jimmy had done with Doctor Falls B. Hershey in St. Louis during his training and those hours reading Hershey’s book on vascular surgery had paid off, tonight.

Jimmy.

Yes sir.

Welcome to First Marines First Med, Tony said as he peeled off his mask, turned and left the operating room.

––- ––- ––- *********** ––- ––- ––-

3. Customs and Check-in

S ir, Sir, this is the end of this flight. You deplane, said the excited flight attendant. You last passenger on plane.

Jimmy shook himself awake. The dream of his first day in Vietnam 35 years ago was so real! He looked around. There were no other passengers on the plane, only the stewardess and a few clean-up workers. He was the last passenger on the plane.

Jimmy grabbed his small roller bag and attaché case from the overhead storage. His short stay in Vietnam meant he didn’t have to check anything. Carry-on baggage would simplify the check-in process and eliminate the need for the baggage carousel wait, especially inside a foreign airport, he thought.

He had invited his wife, Susan, to go with him. You’re nuts, Susan had said. I want to go to Vietnam, sometime, but not for just four days. Jimmy felt a little sad that Susan wasn’t with him, but his excitement about the conference, his returning to Vietnam and meeting Mo at the conference assuaged his guilt for not convincing Susan to come.

Mo had left the States a week earlier to tour Ho Chi Minh City and to meet some friends in Hanoi before the conference began. She had taken her laptop, so that she and Jimmy could draft their final version of the talk. They had communicated by e-mail. She also used the computer for tracking Jimmy’s flight schedule and to e-mail advice on how to navigate the Hanoi International Airport.

Jimmy hurried through the airport from his plane to Customs. There he waited in line for what seemed to be an inordinate length of time, given that there weren’t very many passengers in the international queue. Finally, it was his turn. He crossed the white line, approached the window, and handed the agent his passport and visa. The customs official looked at it, staring at Jimmy’s passport picture for an unusually long time, then, looked up at him.

Are you returning to Vietnam? she asked solemnly.

I haven’t been here for a long time. Jimmy was nervous. Is that what you mean? Why would she inquire, he wondered? Thumbing through his passport, she perused each entry. Where have I been that might cause me trouble with Customs? Didn’t the Visa for Vietnam cite the military medical conference? Ah, maybe that was it –- military.

Jimmy had expected his transit through Customs to be amazingly simple. That’s what Mo had mentioned in her latest e-mail. The directional signs inside the airport had English translations. That will make it easy to find your way without stopping to inquire, she had explained. Wrong. It certainly hadn’t started out that way. The Customs lady was still eyeballing him, suspiciously, Jimmy thought. Jimmy was fatigued from his long flight. He certainly wasn’t inviting any trouble. He just wanted to get to his hotel and take a long nap. He waited for her to ask, Anything to declare. She never did. Finally, the Customs lady put his passport with his picture and important data onto the screen. The machine buzzed with approval. She stamped his passport, and then handed it back to him.

Welcome back to Vietnam, Mr. Capri. She cracked a faint smile. Jimmy was relieved. Nonetheless, his trip through Customs was anything but amazingly simple.

Thanks, Mo, he said under his breath. He started to drag his bag through the airport. The attaché case seemed to weigh a ton. It had his CDs with his PowerPoint talk and the latest draft of the paper. He was carrying several reference papers on the same subject that he had planned to read on the long plane ride and didn’t, plus some of the other things he needed that didn’t fit into his drag along bag. Over-filled, just like his drag along bag and heavy, but he had arrived intact, with all he needed for the stay and for the talk. The airport was crowded, so he had to walk slowly, dodging around people, being careful not to run over toes with his drag along bag. He felt like everyone was looking at him. So what, he figured.

The unusual exotic odors from the little restaurants permeated the muggy air. He quickly sweat through his short sleeved shirt. His underarm deodorant had long since given out. The directions that Dr. Lally gave him via an e-mail did make the trip through the complex foreign airport a little simpler, Jimmy admitted. Had he been too paranoid about the airport? About Customs? About Vietnam? About everything? Jimmy stepped outside the terminal and out of the