27 Nov 2023
I was Army ROTC at The College but opted out when the DOD did the cutbacks. Then I was a conscientious objector and went to Vietnam voluntarily in 1972 as a senior medical student (!) to work with the Quaker Rehabilitation Center in Quang Ngai — no medical license needed to practice there, even though I was not yet an MD. Crazy story, I know, but those were crazy times.
Quang Ngai was a few “clicks” away from My Lai, about 75 km south of Da Nang.
Did some basic surgery and primary care, but we had no lab, no X-ray, pretty much no anything. Had about 80 patients on 40 beds, mostly amputees needing prosthetics or stump revisions, but as anywhere there were lots of plain old medical problems. We used instruments and equipment discarded by the military.
There were mortars, gunfire, some bombing by B-52’s, but we were not overrun or attacked. I rode around on a Lambretta scooter to see patients outside of town. Pretty crazy. The bombing did rattle the “O.R.”, a converted garage. I had just enough French (one class at Dartmouth) to get around. My right hand man, Mssr. Bich, was fluent in French and very patient with me. We kept a French language edition of Campbell’s Operative Orthopedics lying open on the operating table. We lived off the economy but I did go down to the nearby Army compound to watch movies and play poker with enlisted men and guys from the CIA. There were some risks and lucky breaks: The guy who replaced me was killed. So it was a crazy Kurt Vonnegut-esque experience, absolutely nothing heroic about it, just something young guys are prone to do, having read Farewell to Arms with Professor Noel Perrin. I have experienced “survivor guilt,” as we call it.
I had a med school deferment and a high draft number, and as a C.O. I also felt guilt that others had to go. I was a Goldwater guy when I hit Hanover and a Eugene McCarthy Children’s Crusader by Junior year. It was a crazy time.
My addictions got started in Vietnam, pills and booze, so the next ten years were blurred and rocky. In 1982, trying to find myself, I almost joined the Army Medical Corps, but joined the Army Reserve instead. Missed the first Gulf War by about 18 months, did absolutely nothing as a reservist.
With the help of friends, an indescribable wife, and the grace of God, I sobered up in 1983 and have been clean and sober for forty years. Nothing heroic about that, either. As immortal golfer Bobby Jones said, having called a penalty stroke on himself that cost him the US Open: “You don’t congratulate someone for not robbing a bank.” It’s one day at a time, and that’s all.
Looking back on Vietnam, my memories are painful. Probably a lot of us feel like there’s much more we could have done, the old “woulda coulda shoulda.” As Robert Frost might have put it, “Something there is that doesn’t love a war.”
Joni Mitchell also nailed it when she wrote, “So many things I would have done…but clouds got in my way.”
The casual conversation last Sunday was therapeutic for me at many levels. For once I felt like we were all boats in the same harbor. Tide comes in, tide goes out, and all boats float at the same level, battleship and rowboat alike.
I can’t put into words the gratitude I feel for the guys who shared their experience, strength, and stories about their journeys. Thanks, y’all, for an unforgettable afternoon.
Cheers - Tex 👍🏼
John M. Talmadge, M.D.