The Graybeards - KWVA - Korean War Veterans Association

Part II: Continued from the November-
December, 2000 issue of The Graybeards.
We now had the post-op cases
lying in more or less orderly
rows on the hillsides all around
the hospital. Some were on stretchers, most
on the ground. Ward corpsmen walked
along the rows checking dressings, marking
the wounded for evacuation by truck,
jeep, helicopter, or for holding for a doctor
to recheck before evacuation. It was hot,
lying there in the sun, and we had to be
sure the wounded weren’t getting dehydrated.
I asked WOHC George de Preaux
to send a couple of our security Marines
around with jerry cans of water.
Commander Ayres sent up a crew of
Marines from Able Med to put up five 16 x
32 squad tents to use as post-op recovery
wards. I could hear them laughing and talking
and had the urge to run out there and
ask them what was so damn funny and didn’t
they know there was a war on and
would they kindly knock off the noise.
Fortunately I recognized that I was getting
irrational in my fatigue and that those
gyrenes had every right to be happy. Most
if not all of them had been up on the lines
themselves, I was sure, and had earned
their right to a rear-echelon job.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment,
clenched my jaws, and kept on cutting. A
couple of hours later I was mighty glad that
I’d controlled my temper because one of
those Marines came to the flap of the Minor
tent and said, “Sir, we got the tents up and
we rolled up the sides and laid out the
stretcher racks and is there anythin’ else we
kin do for ya while we’re up here?”
We emptied out our old wards to take
the newly operated cases. And Ayres, God
bless him, sent two six-by trucks up from
Able and took twenty-five walking wounded
back to have their debridements done
there. I wished I could’ve seen the looks of
horror on the faces of the internists, pediatricians
and other nonsurgical types when
they were called out of their snug bunks to
do surgery!
We were all beginning to show heavy
dark circles under our bloodshot eyes.
Small drops of tears trickled from the inner
comers. The supply of surgical caps ran out
so we tied masks onto our foreheads to
keep loose hairs and sweat from dripping
The
Battle
for
Bunker
Hill
As seen from Easy Med
into the open wounds. Some of the corpsmen
wore their green fatigue hats backwards
like a baseball catcher’s.
It was steamy hot in those tents and
most of us had taken off our fatigue jackets.
One of the corpsmen who was just moving
patients around had taken off his pants, too.
I stopped him dead with, “Three demerits
for being out of uniform, mac!” Startled, he
almost came to attention and then saw the
laughter on my face.
A visitor would have thought it a ludicrous
sight to see doctors and corpsmen
running around the tents in combat boots,
white skivvy shirts, green fatigue pants, and
two masks tied to the front of their heads.
Nobody was laughing.
Those laughing the least were the doctors
and corpsmen in the main operating
tent. Their’s was the toughest job of all. It
By Birney Dibble M.D.
was here that life or death operations were
performed. It was here that legs were saved
or sawed off. Bellies were opened to stem
the flow of blood and liquid feces.
Shattered kidneys and spleens were
removed. Livers were sutured. Chest
drainage tubes were inserted. And through
it all, the principles of good surgery had to
be observed.
Even when sweat pours down your face
and stings your eyes. Even when your
hands tremble with fatigue. Even when
your brain is numb from sleeplessness.
About 1000 on Sunday the 17th, thirtysix
hours since the first copters arrived and
fifty-two hours since anyone had slept, I
took my turn as first assistant in the Major
tent. I worked with Bill Ogle. We made a
good team.
Bill was a good surgeon and I’d done
enough surgery to be a good assistant.
Doctors who don’t ever do surgery make
very poor assistants: they don’t know what
the surgeon is going to do next. A good
assistant anticipates the surgeon’s next
move, keeps him out of trouble when his
intense concentration causes him to overlook
the proximity of another organ, anticipates
the use of special sutures or instruments.
The assistant must be all things to
all surgeons and, most importantly, must
keep his hands out of the way yet always
have them in the right place!
Dr. Sam Dougherty sat in the center of
the OR tent between the head ends of two
operating tables. With his left hand he was
giving a general anesthetic to a patient on
one table where Dr. Frank Spencer was
working. With his right hand he arranged
the medicines and instruments for the
induction of the next patient on the other
table. Sam was preoccupied, concentrating
intensely, his mind working on two entirely
separate problems at the same time.
Two corpsmen brought in our next
patient and lifted him gently off the stretcher
onto the table. His battle fatigues had
been replaced by dark blue pajama-like
pants. His torso was pale white, contrasting
with the deep tan of his face and hands —
a farmer’s tan, my Dad would’ve called it.
He was about nineteen, strong of face and
body.
He had two small defects: a tiny hole in
his abdomen just below the ribs on the right
where a bullet had gone in, a slightly larger
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The Graybeards