Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

2408 Cleveland Avenue, West Lawn, Pennsylvania.

That's where I grew up.

My family moved there in the fall of 1946, right after Boston lost the World Series to St. Louis. I was nine. Housing was scarce in 1946, and my dad was lucky to find the place. It was what was called a double home, a two-family house, and it had been built in the twenties. There were no sidewalks out front, and to the rear of the house were open fields where people still hunted for small game. A baseball diamond was across the street next to the double railroad tracks of the Reading Railroad. It was there and on other athletic fields around Berks County that I learned about competition and teamwork.

It was a great place to grow up. Even though the Army sent Denise and me all over the world, that part of Pennsylvania is still home to us. In that neighborhood, my sister, Frances, my brother, Farrell, and I grew up with a spirit of togetherness — my mother and dad saw to that. And it is where I first met Denise in 1949, right after she moved into the school district and took the seat in front of me in homeroom in Wilson High School. We learned values at home from our family and had them strengthened in that community in school, in church, in sports, and with our friends and their families.

It was a modest, mostly blue-collar community. People worked hard, many in the factories of the Textile Machine Works or the Berkshire Knitting Mills in nearby Wyomissing. Homes were small, but clean, and well kept inside and out. There was pride there, and humility. Hard work was the ethic. Earn your way to the top, then when you get there, be modest, don't get a big head.

In the summer of 1969, after I got orders to Vietnam, Denise, our daughter, Margie, and I moved into the old homestead at 2408. The house had been vacant since Mom and Dad had moved to Endwell, New York, in 1968, following my dad's promotion to a senior management position with the Endicott Johnson Shoe Corporation. I had just finished three years at West Point as an instructor in the English Department and as assistant varsity baseball coach. I felt good that Margie and Denise would be home while I was gone, and that Margie would go to the same grade school in West Wyomissing that Frances, Farrell, and I had attended many years earlier. Some of the same teachers were still there. And Denise's parents, Eva and Harry, lived less than a half mile away, in the house where Denise grew up. Most of our relations were within fifty miles. Just as when we had both grown up, the three us were surrounded by family and friends.

In late July 1969, as I kissed Denise and Margie good-bye in the Philadelphia airport, I was off to war, but I was happy that my family was in good hands.

It was to that house that I would return on Christmas 1970 to decide whether to have my left leg amputated.

VALLEY FORGE GENERAL HOSPITAL

Valley Forge General Hospital, just outside Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, is forty-five minutes by medevac helicopter from the hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I had spent the night there after a long, C-141 medevac trip from Camp Zama hospital in Japan. It was the Army's policy to place long-term-care soldiers as close to home as possible, and Phoenixville was about an hour's drive for Denise each way, mostly on two-lane roads. On 18 May 1970, the helicopter landed on the asphalt Maltese Cross landing pad at Valley Forge.

Though it was great to be back in the U.S.A., I was beginning to grow concerned about my leg. Since I'd been wounded on 5 May, I had undergone surgery in a string of hospitals. Each time, the doctors had been less and less optimistic.

On the night before I came to Valley Forge, I had an emotional reunion with Denise and Margie, who had driven the three hours from our home to Fort Dix with our friend Betsy Hassler. It was a reunion not much different, I suspect, from those many of my fellow soldiers experienced when they returned home wounded from Vietnam. At first Margie was not permitted to come to my room, but a sergeant snuck her up the back stairs. Sergeants just know sometimes.

When we were all together, few words passed. We hugged each other and did not talk about the obvious. By now, some of the wounds on my hand, arm, back, and both legs were healing, although there were still bandages and stitches. But there was still some concern about my ear, which had been damaged by the grenade, and my smashed lower left leg. If Denise had any thoughts about my condition, she never let on, although she told me later the wounds were more extensive than official communications had indicated. We tried to put a positive face on it all.

Valley Forge General Hospital was a World War II-type hospital, with two stories, a wood frame, and a sprawling design. (Most of these facilities have since been torn down or used for other purposes; Valley Forge was closed in the late 1970s.) There was a central nurses' station, with long wings reaching out on each side, and a corridor connecting them all. The wards were open, with four to six beds on each side, for a total of eight to twelve per section, and three sections per wing. A few private and semi-private rooms were sandwiched in between the nurses' station and the wings. With four wings per ward, on two floors, each ward had a total patient population of 150 to 200, and the total patient census at the hospital at that time was somewhere around 1,400 or 1,500. The military installation included the hospital itself, plus other activities supporting it, such as the troop barracks, gymnasium, chapel, small PX and commissary, service club, and even an officer and NCO club. There was also a nine-hole golf course. Later, an amputee instructor gave some of us instruction there on how to play golf as an amputee. The facility was not large, but covered maybe 200 acres, including the golf course. The orthopedic ward—3A and 3B — held approximately 300 soldiers, all male. We actually had more patients (about 400) than we had beds. The hospital got around that by putting about 100 people on convalescent leave at any one time. The hospital was full.

Valley Forge was a general hospital, in which every kind of medical problem was treated. There were psychiatric patients, an entire ward devoted to amputees, and an orthopedic ward devoted to non-amputees.

I was admitted to Ward 3A/B, the non-amputee orthopedic ward. We had a lot of badly hurt soldiers there, a lot of them much worse off than I was. At first I was in a room by myself, but later shared one with a warrant officer aviator named Tom Merhline. Though Tom had severe abdominal wounds and couldn't get out of bed, he was a tough guy and fought his battle day after day. I admired his courage.

As for me, the next several months, I ran up against a wall I could not get over no matter how hard I tried.

DECEMBER 1970

After more than six months in the hospital, I knew I had to make a decision about the leg. I talked about my choices a few days before Christmas with Dr. Phil Deffer, the chief of orthopedics at Valley Forge.

"So, Doctor, what are my options?"

"You have two," he said. "First, we can continue to work on your foot and ankle to try to stop the infection and help you walk better. We'll leave you with something that looks like a foot. Chances are you'll be able to walk a few blocks without too much pain, but you might have some continued bone infection."

"What's the other one?"

"Amputate your left leg below the knee and hope we got high enough so there is no residual infection. We'll probably have to leave the end of your leg open for some time, to be sure there is no infection in the remaining bone. No guarantees."

"What about staying in the Army?"

"There's no way to do that and keep your leg. The Army does allow amputees to remain on active duty. But that depends on your motivation and the medical board recommendation."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Okay, Dr. Deffer. Tough choice, but that's what I needed to know. I'm going to talk about it over Christmas with my wife and daughter.

"The choices are clear to me."

Nothing had worked.

CHRISTMAS 1970

I do not like to think much anymore about the six months that had just passed. I was in a real losing streak and did not seem able to do anything about it. I was losing not only physically, but in other, less visible ways.

Multiple operations at many hospitals up to and including Valley Forge had failed to halt the infection or ease the constant pain. For the first eight weeks after I arrived, it had been surgery every week to debride the wound. In July, they'd stopped operating to try to get me to walk. We tried it all. I got a special shoe to keep weight off what was left of the ankle and foot. Then we tried a brace above and below the knee to take more weight off the ankle. Physical therapy was twice a day, but I was walking with a thirty-degree list. I continued to lose weight. During those six months, my weight dropped from a normal 165 down to less than 130. The only thing that worked was a skin graft to the side of my leg to replace a large area of lost skin, but even that took three attempts.

The days were long but the nights were longer. I was running temperatures almost every night, followed by night sweats. They checked for malaria and everything else likely, but they found nothing except the leg wound and the resulting infection. The cultures from my leg were not good, and I had received four or five pints of blood because of blood loss during surgery. Meanwhile, the multiple surgery had taken more of the bones away. Even with all that, my ankle remained dislocated, and I could barely move my toes. I had maybe ten to twelve degrees of motion in the ankle.

By now I could change my own bandage, which was necessary because of the constant drainage from the wound. I did that about twice a day. It was ugly. I had been on pain medication for almost eight straight months, every four to six hours. I would watch the clock, waiting for the time to pass between medications. Try as I may, I just flat could not walk straight or put much weight on that foot and ankle. I even tried to kill an ant on the sidewalk but could not put down enough pressure to do that.

I was losing the physical battle — and another one as well. I was rapidly becoming someone different. I was absorbed in myself and this wound and my inability to overcome it. I could not concentrate for long periods of time. I raged, but did not know at what or whom. Anger would erupt for no apparent reason. The events of 5 May 1970 ran like a video in my mind, often starting at times I least expected. That instant replay was a source of great mental anguish, and played itself over and over again, always the same. And I second-guessed myself without letup: Why? I would ask. Why didn't you do something different? Then, Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? Then the guilt: Why am I alive and all those other soldiers were killed in action? Why me?

I had to do something. I was in free fall. I knew I had some steel in me. I had to find it, grab hold, and start back. My battle was a lot like that of many others from that generation. Some would never make it back.

The doctors and medical staff at Valley Forge had done all they could. It was up to me. It was my choice.

I was home on convalescent leave. I had Denise, who was both my wife and my best friend. She had been my daily companion in the hospital ever since I had come to Valley Forge in the middle of May 1970. Many times she was just there after I'd come out of surgery and was not very coherent. Always there. A squeeze of the hand, a kiss, talk, and listen. Trying to help, but puzzled by this man who had gone off to war almost a year ago and was now in another battle. "I'll get by," I had inscribed in her wedding band when we were married. The rest of that song goes, "as long as I have you." How true that turned out to be.

Denise had her own battles. She had given birth to our second child in May 1966, a son who had died shortly after birth and whom we had buried in the cemetery at West Point. Denise knew about pain. For her there would be more. She knew the difference between pity and compassion. My friend.

Our daughter, Margie, was now nine years old and also part of this battle. We would write stories together. I'd write a sentence, then she would add a sentence, and so on until we had a made-up story. Our favorite was about whales. She was, and is, a strong girl, and our future.

And then there were my fellow soldiers at Valley Forge.

During physical training sessions, I saw men who were amputees move around with a lot more agility and a lot better attitude than I had. Many of them had wounds far worse than mine. I was far from being the only one in a fight. We all were; many had much bigger battles than I did. We helped one another. I was fortunate to have so much help. Not everyone there had my good fortune.

Denise said she was ready to help in any way she could, but she agreed with me. I needed to do something.

It was a tough Christmas.

We did what we could to make Christmas the usual joyful time it has always been in our family. Denise even bought me a La-Z-Boy chair, black like Blackhorse, with a raise-up footrest so I could keep my foot elevated. She did it, she said, because when a wounded combat veteran talks to visitors, he should sit up with some pride — when I'd been home on convalescent leave, my practice had been to lie down on the couch with my leg elevated. She was trying to help me save my dignity, but I did not get it at the time. I was too absorbed in myself.

I would sit looking at that foot and ankle. Was I giving in too soon? Should I fight it some more? Maybe some other kind of treatment was possible. More second-guessing. It was a tough Christmas, all right, not only for me, but for Denise and Margie as well. I was not much fun to be around.

As I look back on it now, it amazes me how much my world had shrunk and how absorbed I was in myself. It happened, and I didn't even notice, but I'm sure others did. I know Denise did, but she kept holding out a hand to pull me out or to shock me into an awareness of where I was.

One day, she arranged for us to go bowling with lifelong friends Carl and Betsy Hassler to a place called Colonial Acres on Route 222 just outside Shillington. I would stand at the foul line and, without any steps, roll the ball down the alley. We used to like to bowl together, but this was no fun at all. I was thirty-four years old and had been a decent athlete. And here I was, standing at the foul line, struggling to roll the ball from there: not exactly the image of self I'd had in mind for the rest of my life. I got the message.

It was that Christmas that I reached the bottom.

It was up to me.

VALLEY FORGE GENERAL HOSPITAL JANUARY 1971

"Doctor, I've made the choice. I want you to amputate my leg."

The surgery took place later in January, the morning after the Super Bowl. I watched the game from my bed in Ward 3B the night before. The morning of the surgery, just for the hell of it, with my cane, I struggled on the leg I was about to have amputated down the hall to the common latrine to shave. Then I came back and they wheeled me to surgery. I would not look back.

It was my choice. I had to win this battle and get on with my life. I had to be thankful for what I had rather than what I did not have, to focus on that and drive on. Life would not be the same. It never is.

Following surgery, Denise was waiting for me in my room. She said nothing, but she squeezed my hand. We both knew what was going on inside. Looking down the length of the bed and seeing only one peak at the end in the sheet was a shock. It was gone. No looking back. No second-guessing. Time to get on with my life, one day at a time.

And that is what it was. One day at a time.

Within days, I started to feel better. My appetite returned. The pain was still there, but it was a different pain, the consequence of the open end of my leg. Changing the dressing was not my favorite time of day. We had a female Army medic who called herself "Charlie"; Charlie had such gentle hands that we all asked for her for those dressing changes.

Due to the gross infection, they had to leave the end of my leg open until they were sure there was no residual bone infection. When I asked how long that might take, they told me it could take months. It turned out to take nine. They initially had me in traction to keep the skin flap pulled down over the end of my stump. Later, when I went home on convalescent leave, Denise and I hooked the contraption up to the bedroom doorknob to give the necessary tension. I had to stay in that for three or four hours a day for the first six weeks. I also had the usual phantom pains amputees get — the sensations that my foot was still there. They never completely go away.

A few weeks after surgery, they fitted me with a pylon — a temporary plaster of Paris prosthesis made to go over my stump to lessen swelling and to get me vertical and bearing weight. I was anxious to walk and start moving again. I wanted to get on with my life. I was feeling better physically and now had a goal: to get moving. I could get on top of this, maybe even stay in the Army.

As I looked back on it, the difference in my thinking before and after the operation was that of night and day. It's okay, I was able to say to myself. I've got to go on now. I'm going to get well physically. I've got a mission in life. I've got to pass from here. I've been like a fool with my family. I've got to focus, get back up off the deck swinging. I've been down long enough. It felt good to be able to fight back.

Valley Forge itself had long traditions for our country, of course, and the courage and sacrifices of the patriots of the Continental Army, who in 1778 had rebuilt themselves into a tough army, were not lost on me. Nor were the battles my fellow soldiers in the hospital were going through. I drew strength from them. It is hard to overstate the courage of the young Americans there in the amputee ward, people such as Angel Cruz, Jim Dehlin, "Big" John, Mike Stekoviak, and Dave, who went back to being a ski instructor as a below-the-knee amputee. They were all heroes, and they inspired me.

We all go through Valley Forge experiences in our lives. At that time, I thought Denise and I might have to rebuild the relationship that had so dramatically changed during the two years from July 1969 until March 1971. Denise had been doing everything, running the home and raising our daughter on her own. We had to get back to doing that together, to rebuild our life based on where we were, not where we had been. We began to make that happen.

I also talked to others. One whose influence was great was retired Colonel Red Reeder, an old friend and former assistant baseball coach at West Point. Wounded five days after D-Day on Utah Beach commanding the 12th Infantry Regiment in the 4th Infantry Division, he had had his leg amputated below the knee. At that time, he could not remain on active duty. Among the things Red told me was how Mrs. Anna Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the 1950s under George Marshall, had changed U.S. military regulations to permit amputees and others with disabilities to remain on active duty. Red actively encouraged me to stay in the Army, and he gave me a book to read, Reach for the Sky, the story of Douglas "Tin Legs" Bader of the U.K., who had lost both legs in an airplane accident in 1929, but went on to fly Spitfires in the Battle for Britain in 1940. I met Bader in London some years later.

Colonel Jimmie Leach, one of my 11th ACR commanders in Vietnam, came by one day, and so did John "Mac" MacClennon, who had been an Air Force forward air controller in Vietnam (and is now in the Connecticut National Guard). His call sign was Niles 06. One day in Vietnam, Mac had gone out and flown with me, and I damned near got him killed. Most days I was in the OH-6 talking to him on the radio while he flew in his FAC fixed-wing aircraft. One day, though, I put him in the backseat in my helicopter while I was directing an air strike; I wanted him to see firsthand what we did. Did he ever! Despite that, though, Mac and I still exchange correspondence (he came all the way down to Fort Myer for my retirement in November 1994). Jim Sutherland, my assistant S-3 in Vietnam, also came to see me. One day he was riding in my helicopter when we got hit on one of our rotor blades by ground fire. He had been asking to go along, so the day I said OK was the day I damned near got him killed, too! And Grail Brookshire came with his whole family. The brotherhood of combat.

And one day there was a letter from General Omar Bradley. Though I did not know him at all, he'd been told about my case by Red Reeder. The day the letter came, I had been away from the house. When I drove up to the curb and got out of the car, Margie ran up and said, "Daddy, you got a letter with five stars on it!"

"You've got to be mistaken," I said.

"No," she said. "See, here it is." That was Bradley's letter.

As I began to put on weight and grow stronger, my opportunities for convalescent leave increased, and I was able to spend more time at home. At first I could not walk on my leg because of the open wound. That period lasted the better part of two months. I would wear the pylon for short periods of time. The rest of the time I'd use the metal "Canadian walker" crutches with my pant leg pinned up. Soon, at a civilian prosthetic place on Thirty-third Street in Philadelphia, where the Army had contracted for that work, I was fitted with my first prosthesis. It was a strange experience standing up in that plastic leg for the first time and taking a few steps. I had to learn how to walk all over again.

We had physical therapy twice a day. Depending on where we were in rehabilitation, we would go through various range-of-motion and strength exercises. After my leg was amputated, it was for me a matter of hip-strengthening exercises, upper-leg strengthening, and upper-body exercises. But mainly it was a matter of walking, of learning how to do that all over again.

The PT ward was an open hospital bay, roughly thirty by seventy feet. In there was the usual array of PT gear for orthopedic patients. There were also excellent PT specialists, men and women soldiers trained to help their fellow soldiers. The chief was Lieutenant Colonel Mary Matthews, who happened to be the sister of our neighbor at Fort Benning, Jack Matthews, whom I had met when Jack and I had been students at the Infantry Officer Advanced Course from 1963 to 1964. Not that that got me any favors with Mary, or Colonel Matthews, as I called her then. She was another case of tough compassion, and a skilled leader.

For amputees to practice walking, two vertical mirrors, each about six feet by two feet, were placed facing each other at a distance of maybe thirty feet. Each mirror had a string running vertically down the middle. The drill for amputees was to walk in between these mirrors, lining yourself up so you split the mirror, using the string as a guide. To get your gait right, there was a piano metronome. So you would walk and walk and walk by the hour in between these two mirrors to the ticktock of the metronome. With enough practice, you would walk straight and with an even gait without even thinking about it. It was drill, pure and simple. With most amputees, if they discipline themselves to get it right when they first learn to walk, they will continue to do well later. I was determined to get it right. I knew drill and the importance of technique from playing a lot of sports. There were also stairs for us to go up and down. First we used a railing, and then we did without. We used to joke that when we could walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time, we were ready to go on convalescent leave. That was not far from the truth.

Dr. Phil Deffer, the chief of orthopedics (he went on to retire as a brigadier general), was a great blend of tough compassion and skilled doctoring. He was well aware that there was not only a physical but a mental and emotional part to the healing. He knew that there were stages, and that in one of those stages, the patient had to stop feeling sorry for himself and learn to do things for himself. So he pushed us to help one another out, and he made sure that the staff did not do everything for us. In other words: open the doors for yourself, even on crutches. You had to go to physical training every day, to dress your own wounds after nurses showed you how to do it, to walk and stay out of wheelchairs, to get out on your own two feet or prosthesis and get around. And in that hospital, with its long connected passageways, it was a long way from one place to the other. I'm sure there were elevators, but I never remember using one.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Jim Herndon, the doctor I came to know best, who performed my amputation and final stump revision. He also did my medical board, and it was he who recommended I be retained on active duty. I owe him a great deal. He was a favorite with the troops.

As time went on, I was permitted more and more convalescent leave to go home, which was good for both body and soul. When I was out of the hospital, I had to get around on my own, even though the bottom of my stump was still open and not ready for long, steady use. So on leave I managed that, sometimes on crutches, sometimes with one crutch or a cane, and sometimes solo.

Our goal at home was to restore some normalcy to our lives. We would do things together as a family, either around the house or in the local area. Margie and I continued our story writing together, and I helped her with schoolwork, a practice Denise had been taking care of alone during most of the past two years. We also got together with our close friends, the Hasslers, for family activities, and we even managed a short vacation to the Jersey shore.

But 1971 was not a great year for our family. We learned Denise was pregnant, and though this was a moment of great joy and hope for us, we had concerns, too. Since Denise had given birth to our second child prematurely in 1966 and he had died shortly after birth, we went to a local civilian doctor in West Reading for advice. He advised some procedures to ensure Denise could carry the baby to full term, and he also advised her to have a cesarean section. In August 1971, he judged she had reached full term, so he admitted her to the Reading Hospital and performed the C-section procedure. Meanwhile, Denise, Margie, and I had completely prepared my old bedroom at 2408 Cleveland Avenue for our new baby.

It was not to be.

Our baby was born on 25 August 1971. We named him Frederick Carl (after Carl Hassler). Denise saw Frederick Carl once right after he was born. He weighed a little less than six pounds. Almost immediately after his birth, we both were told he was having trouble breathing. Not long after that, they had him in an incubator. He had the same condition the Kennedys' baby had died of, they told us, hyaline membrane disease, and the next three days would be critically important. If Frederick could make it past three days, he would be OK. They never again brought our son to Denise. Because she was not permitted out of bed, she had to hear news and descriptions of our son from Margie and me.

For two long days and nights, we prayed together.

Early in the morning of 27 August at around 0500, I got a call that I should come to the hospital right away. Margie had been staying at Denise's parents' home in West Lawn. I drove the three miles to the hospital down a largely deserted Penn Avenue. All I managed to think about was Denise and our son and to keep praying, "Please, God, spare our son. Your will be done."

I went to newborn emergency care. Our son was fighting for his life in the incubator, unable to take in enough oxygen to sustain his life. Denise knew what was happening; she wanted desperately to see her son. It was not to be. Frederick Carl died that morning, three days after he was born. It had been Denise's fourth pregnancy.

The loss was devastating.

I did not know what to do for Denise, except to be with her, as she had with me. Margie took it hard, too. There were a lot of tears; she kept asking why, and kept wanting to be with Denise.

We took apart the bedroom at 2408 Cleveland Avenue. I had seen courage on the battlefield. Now, at home, I was to see it in my wife, in another way. We decided to bury Frederick with his brother in the cemetery at West Point; we held a graveside ceremony there. My dad went with me, as did Pastor Bill Fryer from our Lutheran church in West Lawn, the same church where Denise and I had been confirmed.

Now we had two sons at West Point, both in the cemetery.

Later, in 1972, Denise would undergo an operation to remove fibroid tumors at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Because the doctor suspected cancer, they performed a total hysterectomy. There was no cancer, and there would be no more children. She was thirty-six at the time.

You gain wisdom and strength through enduring pain, or else you die as a person. No one seeks out pain, but it finds most of us. That year, the one before, and the one to follow, it found us often. But we would fight back. It is not getting knocked down, but the getting back up and going on that counts. So Denise, Margie, and I resolved to fight our way out of this dark time, to reach inside and grab hold of the steel we knew was there and go on. We would be thankful for what we had and not what we did not have. We would not look back. We would live life every day. We would not mortgage the present for the future.

We would learn these things, and later would try to help others learn them. But that was later. At the time, we were just fighting back with all we had, and barely making it.

THE HOT BLUE FLAME

More happened to me than just the personal recovery. There was a change inside as well as outside, and the change inside proved to me far more important and lasting. The physical recovery, it turned out, was the easy part. I was also slowly undergoing a change in my outlook on life, and that was much harder. Much of that change came out of what my family and I were going through. But much of it also had to do with my other family — the soldiers who were the Army.

I was beginning to see my fellow soldiers at Valley Forge and Vietnam in a way I had not been able to before my leg was amputated.

Now that I was able to go on convalescent leave and get around on my own, I took a volunteer job in the hospital. I began to teach soldiers, preparing them to take their high school GEDs or helping them with other schoolwork. During this time, I began to notice some things going on at Valley Forge that affected me deeply.

The soldiers at Valley Forge did their best to encourage each other. That support had been there for me before the amputation as much as it was still there afterward. There was a lot of chatter and banter and good-natured kidding. Most of the other wounded soldiers were considerably younger than I was. They called me the "Major." "Hey, Major," they'd call out, "you old guys heal slow. You're gonna be around here a lot longer than we are." I was one of them. We were a family there.

There was amputee humor, too, which helped. Stories of guys hollering "shark" when they came out of the surf, of presents of foot powder to double amputees, of drinking beer out of prosthesis sockets, of wheelchair races and contests. And there were also the endless critiques of our walking during PT.

But there was pain as well. An amputee died in an apartment fire in Phoenixville; he was alone and could not get to his legs fast enough. Another died in a single-car accident while he was on convalescent leave. Mostly the pain was about dealing with rejection and the internal emotional pain of adjustment to the new physical reality and the new self-image.

For some, there was rejection by families who could not adjust to these new realities, or broken engagements by fiancees. There was the self-image adjustment. Up to that point in our lives, most of us at Valley Forge had gotten a lot of our identity from what we had been able to do physically. Physical identity is a big thing for soldiers. Small-unit proficiency in the combat branches of armor, infantry, and artillery is very demanding, and strength, endurance, and raw physical courage count a great deal. If it had not been for whatever happened to bring us to Valley Forge, we would have gone on in life doing physical things to earn our living and to make our way. Now most of that ability was gone. That was the tough adjustment. The hospital tried to help, with social services counselors, VA counselors, counselors from the Disabled American Veterans. The professional staff encouraged amputees to help themselves and to help each other: no elevators, open your own doors, no wheelchairs unless absolutely necessary. They arranged sports, wheelchair basketball, amputee skiing, and amputee golf instruction.

All that worked in our tight amputee family unit there at Valley Forge, but sooner or later we all had to deal with the adjustments to life and try to go on. I was fortunate. I had family, and a profession that might take me back. Some had neither.

Worst of all was the perception in the United States that what the troops had done was all for nothing. The war in Vietnam was going badly. Americans were sick of it, and were losing faith in the nation's commitments there. The tragic consequence of it all was loss of faith in the warriors.

Making the transition back into that society was going to be hard enough, but this rejection would double the difficulty.

Not long after the amputation, I was in the lobby of a shoe store in Reading, Pennsylvania. I was on crutches with my pant leg pinned up. A woman approached me and asked, "How were you hurt?" And I told the story: I was wounded in combat action in Cambodia and my leg was amputated. "What a waste," she said, with pity on her face. "You did all that for nothing. You and all those boys did all that for nothing. What a waste."

All the amputees had stories like that. They all got the same question, and they all got the kinds of responses I got. It wasn't exactly what we wanted to hear. Wounds in combat action against an enemy on the battlefield were a badge of honor, or so I guess we thought. It began to seem to me that something was horribly wrong.

Though in time most of them learned to handle those situations, still, the overall adjustment was hard and ripped at my heart when I heard the stories. Some of them made up tales, rather than say they were wounded in combat. Made up stories! "Well, I was hurt in an explosion in a paint factory." Or, "I was hurt in a car crash." Or they would just avoid the question entirely… because none of them wanted to deal with the terrible reality that they had gone away to a distant country to do what their country had asked them to do, and then they had been rejected by their fellow Americans when they came home. It was not supposed to be like this. These were sons of the World War II generation. They'd heard all about those experiences. So when they'd been drafted, they'd gone, just as their fathers had gone twenty-plus years before. Their country needed them. They went, pure and simple. That's the way Americans did it. Now this. Why? What the hell was going on here?

Americans couldn't separate the war from the warriors.

The soldiers couldn't help it that the leaders had fouled up the strategy and adopted tactics that did not accomplish their strategic objective. The soldiers had gone out and done what they were asked to do. They were point men and stepped on a mine, or got wounded in an ambush or a firefight. Why blame them?

I kept asking myself, Why? Why in the hell blame them? Where are all the leaders now, telling these soldiers thanks, telling these soldiers that their sacrifice was worth it? During all of my time at Valley Forge, only one officer above the rank of colonel, General Bruce Clarke, visited those young soldiers to let them know their country was grateful. I never saw any elected officials. Maybe others came when I was on convalescent leave, but I never heard about it. None.

The leaders abandoned the warriors. I could never forgive that betrayal of trust.

Volunteer organizations did come around, God bless them, people from the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, from the local community, people of all ages and from as far away as Pottsville. The Salvation Army came every Monday night for Monday Night Football and brought snacks and sandwiches and young people to visit with the troops. There were sports figures, tickets to the Philadelphia 76ers and Philadelphia Eagles games, and a few entertainers. They were all a big hit with the troops, and much appreciated. They cared.

But there were no leaders to tell them what they badly needed to hear from them alone: "Thank you, your country's grateful." These soldiers had trusted those leaders. Where were they now? I was a graduate of West Point and truly believed in duty, honor, and country. So did these soldiers. Were we all fools for believing in those things? No, I wanted to shout. It cannot be so.

Among the amputees, I was the senior officer. There were a few captains, but most of the other patients were junior enlisted soldiers. When I was with the soldiers, at parties or just sitting around, some of them would pour out their stories to me, because I was the "Major." I was the old man, I was part of the establishment, I was supposed to be able to help. But as time passed, I was one of them. We were brothers. And what they said choked me up. It broke my heart. I vowed then I would do something about it. It lit in me a flame of commitment to soldiers that went far beyond any I had felt before. It was an inner rage that only the restoration of trust could calm.

Though I was helpless to make up for the absence of senior leaders, as the months went by, I grew ever more determined to do something more for those soldiers than they were getting. I wanted to help, somehow, to make it clear to them that their lives — and their loss — had some meaning. I wanted a fulfillment of their sacrifice. I wanted to make sure, if our country ever went to war again, if young men and women ever had to go answer duty's call, it wouldn't end up this way.

For all of my own personal loss, I knew — after the amputation — that I was going to be just fine. Though I was aware that I had to adjust to a permanent change right down there at the core of my self, and that what I had given up would never come back, I had my own family. I was a professional soldier. The Army might not take me back — there was a question about that — but I had an identity that would survive everything I had suffered over the past months. But what about these other young men?

And so there was lit what I still call the "Hot Blue Flame." I had a burning resolve to do what I could, in whatever my circle of responsibility, to see to it that soldiers never again found themselves in a situation where trust was fractured. That Blue Flame resolve has stayed with me since then. I felt it in Desert Storm. I still feel it.

Many of us go through serious life changes. Though the popular impression has it that such changes have to be both religious and sudden — an overwhelming flash in the night sweeps you out of consciousness and you wake up a changed person — that is not always the case. I have nothing against experiences like these. People go through them. But most conversions are slower. They take more time. And not all conversions are even religious. A conversion often results from a severe setback overcome, or from wisdom gained out of pain. So it was with us.

Without so much as a real awareness, I passed through a conversion experience at Valley Forge. It was not religious, though I consider myself a religious man, and it didn't hit me suddenly. It took years. I and my family had a severe setback in our lives, and we overcame it and then pressed on toward new missions.

After Valley Forge I was not, on the surface, a very different man. I was still confident, assertive, and willing to take risks physically; I still worked hard at professional excellence; I was still sensitive to other people; and I cared deeply about other soldiers and liked to be around them. If anything, most of these qualities intensified. I think my inner intensity, my drive, actually increased.

But now I was also a much wiser man, with a changed perspective about life. I now had a never-before-experienced inner peace and a new passion for excellence, and for the trust between leader and led. It gave me the inner steel to grab onto when I needed it, to fend off external criticisms and hostility in the face of what I knew to be right. After Valley Forge, I was a man with what you could almost call a crusade, a calling, a burning desire to do something about the terrible betrayal and tragedy that had been thrust upon my fellow soldiers. I was not alone in this among my professional peers, but I determined to see it through.

The wisdom and peace that came from those experiences were not only about soldiers. They manifested themselves in other ways… in, for instance, my relationship with Denise and Margie, and in the way I would establish policies and deal with military families in the future.

In the military, it often happens that a professional soldier will deny his (or her) family, give up time with them — holidays, vacations, evenings, weekends — normally for the often-unexpected call of duty. The military is a demanding and sometimes cruel profession that exacts a toll on families, all in the name of duty and service. Too often, the present gets mortgaged for the future. You tell yourself, "Well, I'll have time for that later in life, after I retire. For the time being, I have to work hard, and maybe the family has to pay the price." Most of the time, duty leaves you little choice.

Now I came to the realization that the present is the only time you have. You have to focus on the present, on what you have, and not on the past and its gains or losses, or on the future, and what you don't have. You get there successfully only by taking care of the present. You don't ignore the future, but you enjoy the day-to-day more, and you enjoy the people you love now, rather than putting that off. You have to live life now and build on what you have every day. I began to realize I was not powerless in this tension between the demands of duty and family considerations. I could do something about it in our lives, and within my circle of responsibility I could help others cope better by establishing policies that helped.

I looked at soldiers, at leaders and commanders, and at units a bit differently. Ever since that time, when I have had occasion to build a team, I am much more aware of soldiers who in their life experiences and in their military experiences have suffered severe setbacks. Out of my own family experience, and out of Valley Forge, I've learned that those who get knocked down and get back up to fight are the really tough ones. People who sail through life without knowing any adversities are suspect. You never know how they are going to react when something hits them. This is especially true on the battlefield. You don't want people responsible for soldiers' lives who could go to pieces when the trauma of their first setback hits them. You want the ones you know will come back out swinging. The same is true for units. You train and build units so that they can come back hard, confident they can take the ups and downs and still win. You have to allow for all this without sacrificing excellence in performance. It's never easy, but I had a much better insight into how to do that now.

In the spring of 1971, I began to give serious consideration to returning to active duty. It wasn't easy — then or now — for someone with an otherwise disqualifying physical condition to stay in the military, but it was possible, if the medical and physical evaluation board reports were positive enough, if your motivation was strong enough, and if the Army wanted you badly enough. A few senior officers at that time helped — Colonel Jimmie Leach, for instance, was very instrumental in persuading the Army medical department to listen to soldiers who were wounded and wanted to stay on active duty.

I started making phone calls, talking with others. There was a possibility that I would be offered a permanent position teaching at West Point, but I turned that down. I wanted to stay in the mainstream of the Army. I wanted to play on the armor/cavalry team. I wanted no favors, only a chance to compete.

I did consider other possibilities because, like all of us there, I did not know how it would all turn out. I sent a letter to the Ford Foundation with my resume, asking if I could contribute in some way to that public service organization. I investigated the possibility of attending the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. But then I came to the realization that all I ever really wanted to do was be a soldier. I had to pursue that for all I was worth. I had this burning passion now and a developing wisdom about myself and the Army that I wanted desperately to give a chance. I wanted to serve again.

Fortunately for me and a few others there at Valley Forge, the Army would give us that chance.

I was discharged from Valley Forge in January 1972, after a stump revision operation in September 1971, two unsuccessful operations on my left ear earlier in the year, and the loss of our son in August. I reported to the Armed Forces Staff College as a student in early February 1972, ready for duty after an almost two-year absence from the line.

Dr. James Herndon had written on my medical board report, 22 July 1971, "He is highly motivated and desires to remain on active duty in the Army. At the present time he has recently been accepted to attend the Armed Forces Staff College, and when his stump has been revised, he will do so." In December 1971, Dr. Vernon Tolo made an addendum to that medical board: "Recommendations remain the same as on the original board dictation." On 12 January 1972, I sent in my formal application to continue on active duty. On a form dated 4 February 1972, I received the permission I had asked for: "The request for continuance on active duty is approved."

As it turned out, our Army as an institution also was seriously wounded in Vietnam. The trust between the Army and the country was fractured. Over the next twenty years, the U.S. Army and I went through many changes; we both got to and fought Desert Storm, and that trust was rebuilt.

I did not look back, except to remember my fellow amputees and to promise to myself to keep the faith with them.

The Army would give me that opportunity.

WASHINGTON, D.C 8 JUNE 1991

"This one was for all of you, too."

"We know. Today we felt better than we have in a long time."

After the 4.2 miles down Constitution Avenue and the enormous outpouring of emotion from our fellow Americans, there was one place I wanted to go. Denise and I had been there before. The quiet place. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The names of friends, relatives, fellow soldiers; gone, never forgotten, never far away. This one was for you, too. The silence there. The memories of heroes who did what our country asked.

Now there were more names. Not for the Vietnam Memorial, because that now belongs to another time, but new names, families. After the parade, they wanted to talk. "Did you know my son?" There are always new names and new memories after combat. Combat is for keeps and the memories are forever. But this time it would also be different.

Unit guidons had been placed on the Ellipse as rallying points for combat veterans of those units and family members. Soldiers of VII Corps were quietly talking with families, proud, confident, full of thanks for a nation and a city who would honor them so. They had done their duty and done it with valor and sacrifice just like the generation whose names were on the Wall down the street.

But this time it was different. The American people and their Army were united. It was not like before.

I remembered the words of that 3rd Armored Division soldier in the days before we attacked into Iraq: "Don't worry, General, we trust you."

Trust reunited.

I had seen both now. I had seen the painful no-thanks return from Vietnam and the silence and pain at the Wall down the street, now this. It was difficult to absorb it all. I felt somehow guilty, because I had had the chance to experience all this, while many of that generation had not. Yet I also felt a great pride in my fellow soldiers of this generation who had won a great victory. I had kept my promise to them and to my fellow Vietnam veterans. Our Army had come full circle. So had I.

How did all this happen? How did we both get from 1971 to 1991?