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REHABILITATION
Memoirs of Major
Donald Babb
Written
June, 2008
(5 October 1968 to
19 March 1969 - 28 April 1969 to 31 January
1970)
Fitzsimons General Hospital was a busy place,
too busy at times. Almost daily there were new
arrivals coming in from Vietnam via Japan and
then Travis and on to Denver. For the time being
I stayed in the room where I was taken on
arrival. A private room with a bed, bedside
table, a chair and there was a wall locker near
the door to the hallway. This was the Orthopedic
Ward, 5 East, and I was in Room 10.
Actually the Orthopedic Ward took up the entire
5th floor. Those patients on Ward 5
West were the ambulatory cases as well as those
patients recovering from surgery. The hospital
itself was a huge building. Entering the front
from the parking area, one goes through a lobby
of sorts and proceeds on to the elevators.
Almost all of my time was spent on Ward 5 East
or in the Physical Therapy area on the first
floor. On several occasions I had the
opportunity to visit the office areas on the
second or third floor. Leaving the main hospital
building to the rear or north there was a narrow
road running east-west along the building.
Across the road north was a much smaller
building that housed the Orthotic Lab where the
lab staff fabricated a variety of braces for
patients. All artificial limbs, however, were
procured through commercial facilities in
Denver. To the west of the main building was the
BOQ. There were other buildings scattered around
or adjacent to the main building, the Finance
Office was one of them. A block or two away was
a gymnasium and an indoor swimming pool.
Mom, Dad and my sister drove from Independence,
Missouri to Denver, Colorado the first weekend
after I got to Fitzsimons. Mom and Dad came
right into my room, my sister sort of lingered
by the doorway. There were hugs and kisses and
handshakes and sighs and tears. It sure was
great to see them. When my sister left the room,
Mom got up and followed her. Left alone, Dad and
I chatted a bit, then Dad said to me, “I’ve seen
slaughtered hogs that look better than you.” I
wasn’t much of a host and found myself getting
tired very quickly and taking a nap. All part of
the healing process, physically and mentally.
During my waking hours I shared with them the
plan my doctor had outlined for me. Physical
therapy, physical therapy and more physical
therapy every morning every day. I told them I
was satisfied with all the treatment I had
received from the date I was wounded right up to
the present time. I thought everything was going
pretty well all things considered. My Mom and
sister, however, had other ideas. They were not
impressed with my room even though I had said I
had everything I needed, my bed was changed
daily, the food was good, etc. What they saw was
very different. In their opinion the room was
filthy. There was lint, hair, crumbs, egg
shells, and live bugs on the floor. The
furniture was dirty and dusty and one afternoon
as I took another nap, Mom watched as a mouse
played around the wastebasket just under the
head of the bed. Mom was so disturbed at these
conditions that she purchased articles to clean
the furniture and floor in my room. After
returning to Independence, both Mom and my
sister wrote letters to Senator Stuart Symington
and to Congressman William Randall, about the
uncleanliness of my room at Fitzsimons. There
were letters sent from the Senator and
Congressman to Mom and my sister as well as to
the Surgeon General of the Army and the
Commanding General at Fitzsimons. Steps were
taken to remedy the situation and housekeeping
became more focused and sanitation did improve.
It was not until I was in Independence on
Medical Leave from mid-December 1968 to
mid-January 1969 and Mom shared the letters with
me that I became aware of what she and my sister
had done on behalf of me and the soldiers
assigned to Fitzsimons.
Shortly after arriving at Fitzsimons, I received
a couple of phone calls from classmates. Roger
Brown was attending RPI and completing a Masters
Degree and would be assigned to the Math
Department at West Point. He was checking up on
me and how I was doing and he told me that
September 17 had not been a total loss. Walt and
Nancy Bryde’s son, Walter Charles, was born that
day. Seems I would always be able to remember
his birthday. And Bill Miller called and he
brought me up to date on his plans to attend
UMKC where he would pursue a Masters Degree in
English and was tentatively slotted to return to
the English Department at West Point. Walt Bryde
was back in Vietnam serving with the 9th
Infantry Division with an artillery battalion,
part of what was called the Riverine Force on
the waters of the Delta in Region IV. And Judy
Clark returned to the mainland from Hawaii and
relocated to the Denver area. It sure was great
to see her again.
In mid-October a large envelope was delivered to
me and inside I found more than 30 letters that
had been written to me at various addresses
along the evacuation trail from Vietnam to
Fitzsimons. One of the letters was from Colonel
McDonald, Commander, 2nd/32nd
Artillery, saying that all my personal
belongings had been collected from Fire Base
Saint Barbara, inventoried, and packed for
shipment to me. When he received a copy of the
orders assigning me to Fitzsimons, my property
would be shipped to me. He said he had removed
my checkbook, checks and some papers from my
belongings and was sending those items
separately via Registered Mail.
One of the letters was from the Finance Office
in Vietnam and it contained my August pay. One
problem though; the check was not good outside
Vietnam as it could only be cashed for the funny
money or Monopoly money called Military Payment
Certificates (MPC) used there. I called the
Finance Office at Fitzsimons and they arranged
to have the MPC check picked up and replaced.
My twice a day therapy sessions continued as my
stumps healed. There was still quite a bit of
edema (swelling) but that was gradually
subsiding. The therapists took measurements each
day and noted I would soon be going to Denver to
a prosthetist for fittings of my initial
artificial legs. That sure sounded good to me. I
had begun eating in the mess hall and liked this
much better than eating in my room. I was
getting more exercise, the food tasted better, I
could feel my muscles toning up, and I knew I
was getting better. But I was still skinny as
could be having lost a lot of weight since being
wounded.
I attended my first amputee clinic where the
therapists told the doctors I was making good
progress and was now ready for the initial
fitting of artificial limbs. There were several
commercial artificial limb dealers on contract
and I was assigned to a company named Ivan Long
Prosthetic Company. There were rides to Denver
and Ivan Long’s where Ivan himself did all the
measuring and making tracings of my stumps. By
mid-November I had taken delivery of my new legs
and was using them as often as I could. The
therapy department insisted on keeping the legs
in their department until I had gained more
stamina and endurance. The sockets were made of
wood and were hand carved by Ivan Long using the
measurements and tracings he had taken on my
first visit with him. It took many days to
complete the carvings and make adjustments
during the fabrication process. [This was 1968.
Fast forward to 2008 and the fabrication and
fitting process has been reduced to one or two
days using plastics and endoskeleton
components.] Learning to walk again progressed
from using parallel bars to a walker to forearm
crutches to canes. Then I had to relearn stairs,
ramps, grass, dirt, gravel, sand, etc. And how
to get back upright onto the prostheses after
falling, now that was quite a trick and lots of
effort expended. [Note to self; don’t fall!] I
worked with my therapist on a daily basis, and
the more I worked the more my stumps began to
get used to the sockets. The swelling in my
stumps decreased and with the resulting change
in shape, there was some irritation and skin
breakdowns requiring me to stay out of them
until the abrasion healed. On again, off again,
but it was getting better and better each day.
My goal was to get secure enough and confident
enough that I would be allowed to take some
leave and go to Kansas City for Thanksgiving.
Try as I might I just could not build up my
endurance enough to use the prostheses for more
than an hour or two each morning and again in
the afternoon. The trip to Kansas City for
Thanksgiving was off. But, Mom and Dad came to
Denver for Thanksgiving and that gave me a
chance to introduce them to Judy Clark. And wow,
did Judy ever make an impression on Mom. Judy
closed up my wheelchair on one of Mom’s fingers
while getting the chair ready to load into the
car.
One of the more memorable soldiers and fellow
amputee on Ward 5 East was a Chicago native, Jim
Brunotte. Jim had served in an MP Company and
was assigned as a jeep driver the day of his
injury. A road mine had been detonated just as
he drove the jeep across the place where the
mine had been emplaced. The explosion blew up
under the wheel well on the driver’s side of the
jeep. Jim sustained major injuries; right and
left legs amputated above the knees, right arm
amputated below the elbow, and the enucleation
of his right eye. Jim had been fitted with a
prosthesis for his arm as well as an eye
prosthesis. He had been provided with a one-arm
drive wheelchair and could maneuver it wherever
he wanted to go.
Physical therapy scheduled swimming for those of
us who were interested and both Jim and I signed
up. We would wheel ourselves from the main
hospital building to the gymnasium and indoor
swimming pool. Getting to the pool before anyone
else allowed us time to go into the locker room,
change into our swim trunks, and go into the
pool area before the rest of the group arrived.
It was a nice sized pool complete with shallow
and deep ends and two diving boards, high and
low, at the deep end. Jim and I parked our
wheelchairs alongside the benches next to the
wall at the deep end. Getting into and out of
the chairs had become almost second nature to us
by now so we got down onto the pool deck and
made our way towards the ladder at the rear of
the high board. Using the handrails on the
ladder we managed to boost ourselves up one step
at a time to the diving board. We began to scoot
forward to the end of the diving board just as
the therapist and several more amputees entered
the pool area from the locker room. The
therapist announced, “Don’t climb up onto the
diving boards. All of you will go to the shallow
end to enter the water.” The announcement was
too late for Brunotte and me. We were already up
there when the therapist saw us. “Get back down
here, now.” he yelled at us. “And be careful,
don’t hurt yourselves.” Jim and I looked at one
another and we agreed we were not going back
down the ladder. That was too dangerous. So one
by one we each did a cannonball off the diving
board into the pool.
There were also skiing trips arranged for us. We
borrowed parkas, gloves, scarves, woolen caps
and maybe goggles but I really don’t remember
using them. We were loaded onto a bus with our
wheelchairs and off we went to a ski area west
of Denver. At the ski area we were paired up
with a member of the ski patrol who was to be
our instructor, mentor, and safety net all
rolled into one. The ski’s used by the double
leg amputees was quite a contraption. Two ski’s
were anchored together parallel to one another
with an “A”-frame like device that had a tractor
seat welded on top and a seat belt added for
safety. We also had a pair of cut down ski poles
to help with balance. Once we had transferred
from wheelchair to the tractor seat on our
modified ski’s and strapped on the safety belt,
the ski patrol members would push or pull us
around the lower level area to get a feel for
the ride. If we leaned too far one way or the
other it was very easy to tip over. Then we
needed assistance to get upright once again. Now
it was time to take the ski lift up to one of
the ski runs. The lift was stopped and started
as each of us got onto the lift chair with our
ski patrol member holding onto our special skis.
The same stop and start was repeated at the top
of the run. The ski patrol members got us onto
our skis once again and then each of us were
tied with a tether, a rope around our waist and
the other end around a member of the ski patrol.
Two or three trips down the slope and it was
time for the return trip to Fitzsimons. On our
next trip to the ski area time speeded up and we
got in several more trips down the slope. Then
at the top of the run it was Brunotte again.
“I’ll meet you guys in the bar” he said. And off
he went, swoosh, straight down the slope towards
the bottom. He had managed to undo his tether
and was on his own putting into practice a
perfect example that the shortest distance
between two points is a straight line. And
Brunotte’s assigned ski patrol member, what was
he doing? He began a chase but Jim was first to
the bottom of the hill. And sure enough when the
rest of us got to the bottom of the slope there
was Jim sitting in his chair inside the bar
having himself a beer.
With all of the exercise involved in swimming,
skiing and the daily practicing with my
prostheses, I soon had my prostheses with me all
the time. I would walk around the corridors, use
the elevator, and use the stairs to go from one
floor to another, all while using two canes for
extra balance. And I went to see Colonel Brown,
the Chief of Orthopedics, to let him see me up
and walking. I was not confined to bed as he had
declared during Grand rounds that first week of
October, five days after I arrived at
Fitzsimons. He told me he got the answer he
wanted with my reaction. It was a challenge from
him. He wanted to see what I did. If there was
no reaction, then I was going to be a hard case
and one the medical staff would probably labor
with for weeks and months. But my verbal and
physical reaction told him I had a fire in my
belly and I would progress in a timely manner. I
told Colonel Brown I was eager to have my
Medical Board and Physical Evaluation Board (PEB)
as soon as possible and I was planning to
request a waiver to remain on active duty.
Colonel Brown gave me his opinion that I was
fooling myself if I thought the Department of
the Army would grant me a waiver. He said I
should try not to be too optimistic.
I took some medical leave over the Christmas
holidays and was able to fly to Kansas City and
stayed with Mom and Dad. Returning to Denver in
mid-January, I learned I had been promoted to
Major on January 6, 1969. I was back on Ward 5
East for several weeks before I was discharged
from the ward and moved to the BOQ in early
February.
Towards
the end January I had a thorough physical
examination with all sorts of lab tests. The
results were the basis for the Medical Board
findings that were presented to the PEB. The
Medical Board findings identified my specific
disabilities and the determination was made that
I did not meet the current medical fitness
standards for further military service because
of the amputation of both legs. In early
February I had my hearing before the PEB. I
submitted a request to remain on active duty and
to be included with the PEB recommendations that
would go to the Department of the Army for final
action. A few days later the results of the PEB
were given to me. The PEB recommended I be
awarded 100% permanent disability and that I be
permitted to remain on active duty. All of the
documentation was forwarded to the Office of
Personnel Operations at the Department of the
Army in Washington, DC. I was told it could take
as long as 60 days for action to be completed.
It was time now to wait.
Living in the BOQ was
nice from a privacy perspective. Basically I had
a room with access to a bathroom and the bare
furnishings of a bed, table, lamp, chair, and
wastebasket. No phone in the room. If I wanted
to make or receive phone calls at the BOQ, the
only phone was a pay phone that was located up
two flights of stairs on the second floor. I
ended up making almost every call from a phone
at the main hospital. I continued with therapy
each day at the hospital and ate meals in the
mess hall. I had been assigned a post office box
at the hospital, another reason to make the
daily walks. My stamina and endurance were
improving all the time and I now found it
somewhat easier to get up and down steps, curbs,
and ramps.
I continued
my daily trips to the main hospital where I ate
meals in the mess hall, checked my post office
box for mail hoping to get word on my request to
remain on active duty, checked in with Jim
Brunotte and others on Ward 5 East, and
continued to work in physical therapy. Ivo
Lively, Dad’s friend who lived in Denver,
visited a few times and we got in several games
of cribbage. And Judy Clark visited me almost
every evening after she got off work. Lots of
mail from Mom and Dad but the elusive letter
from Department of the Army seemed it would
never arrive. I did receive a letter from my
former Tactical Officer at West Point, Major
Thurman. He was a Colonel now assigned to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in the Pentagon
following a 3-year tour of duty in Vietnam.
Although assigned to the JCS, he was attending
Harvard Business School, what he called a
“finishing school.” He said he was learning all
sorts of useful techniques. Instead of saying,
“BS’ he now says, “Incredible!” And in a letter
from my first Battalion Commander at Fort
Carson, Colonel Josiah Wallace, he was now
stationed in England after a 26-month tour of
duty in Vietnam. It was his first tour of duty
in Europe in more than 23 years of service and
he and his family were delighted. Colonel
DeArment, Commanding Officer, 23rd
Artillery Group, wrote again checking on my
progress.
Finally, around mid-March I received
notification that the Office of Personnel
Operations at the Department of the Army had
acted on my request for continuation on active
duty. The request was approved. At the same time
I received new orders for my assignment to the
Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I
departed Fitzsimons and went to Independence,
Missouri, where I purchased a new car and had
hand controls installed. I also acquired a
wheelchair for use at night after taking off my
prostheses.
I reported
to Fort Sill and found myself assigned to the
Office of the Director of Instruction (DOI). The
location of DOI was on the first floor of the
school headquarters and I found it easy to
negotiate the single step up at the door to the
building. I checked into the BOQ and got a room
in the high rise, a 5-story building. I was on
the 2nd floor and had elevator access
making my daily trips easy enough. On the first
floor of the BOQ is a snack bar with kitchen
that serves three meals daily, a laundry and dry
cleaners and a bar. Close by is a separate mess
hall where meals are available each day. In the
snack bar one evening a few weeks later, I met a
nurse who had been assigned to the 12th
Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, Vietnam, during
the time I had been a patient.
Early
on I was eating supper one evening at the mess
hall when, after taking a bite of salad, felt a
tooth break. One of my molars had sheared off
and I would go to the dental clinic at the
hospital for an exam. After my initial visit to
the dental clinic where I received a temporary
crown for my sheared off molar, I checked in
with the orthopedic clinic. As an amputee, I’m a
rarity for them. The best they can do on a
continuing basis is referring me to a brace and
appliance shop off base in Lawton for minor
adjustments and supplies. Anything more and I
will be sent to Brooke Hospital in San Antonio,
Texas, where they have the facilities to really
assist me.
In June I received a
letter from Walt Bryde telling me he has orders
assigning him to Fort Sill and he and Nancy and
the children should arrive in September. Anne-Tove
wrote that she and the boys were going to New
York to meet her brother, Anders, and they would
then go on to Norway to attend Anders wedding.
They were planning to spend nearly two weeks in
Norway before returning to Albuquerque.
In July I began having
problems with my stumps. I visited the brace
shop in Lawton and the prosthetist told me the
sockets needed to be replaced. I went to the
orthopedic clinic at the hospital to discuss my
options. The clinic would contact Brooke
Hospital and arrange for me to be transferred. I
checked into Reynolds Army Hospital (RAH) on
July 29, spent the night, and was on the
air-evacuation flight to Brooke the next day. I
had plans to have my legs checked and worked on
as necessary, then return to Fort Sill. I
thought it would take two or three weeks. At
Brooke, I received a new prosthesis for my right
leg and a new socket for my left leg. I did not
transfer back to Fort Sill until October 24,
1969.
In early August I had
my consultation with the doctors and
prosthetists at Brooke Hospital. They evaluated
my walking, took x-rays, and examined each
stump. The decision was to refit me with a new
socket on my left leg and to completely refit my
right leg. There would be no need for any
surgery. My stumps are just healing and
reshaping and this type of refitting is
considered normal and expected.
Bill
Miller stopped in for a visit in late August. He
was taking some leave and making a trip around
Texas visiting relatives before returning to
Kansas City and graduate school at UMKC. He had
talked with Walt Bryde and said Walt returned
from Vietnam early with his unit. They were part
of the 9th Division that was being
pulled out of Vietnam. Walt is to report to Fort
Sill by September 15.
The
Social Security Administration (SSA) has a
Claims Representative in the local office who
visits Brooke Hospital each week. He provides
assistance in the filing of claims for Social
Security Disability. I needed to write to
Jefferson City, Missouri, to obtain a certified
copy of my birth certificate to support my
claim. My claim was processed quickly and in
late September I received a letter and a check
from SSA. The letter stated my claim was
approved effective April 1969, and I was
eligible for a minimum of 12 monthly payments
before a reevaluation would be made whether or
not my eligibility would continue. The Claims
Representative told me my reevaluation should
determine I had a continuing eligibility.
I had left my car in
the hospital parking lot when I came to Texas. I
contacted Walt after he was settled at Fort Sill
and asked him to check on the car for me. I also
sent him the car keys and asked him to start it
up and drive it a bit if that was possible. He
wrote that he checked my car out and it is
running fine and all seems okay. He has a
contact in the Military Police (MP) unit at Fort
Sill and arranged to have my car moved to the MP
security area for storage until I return.
I
returned to Fort Sill on October 24 and was
admitted to Reynolds Army Hospital. I had a
single room all to myself. I requested another
Medical Board and Physical Evaluation Board with
the intention to retire for disability. Day to
day while waiting for the process to be
completed I spent time each morning and
afternoon in Physical Therapy getting used to my
new legs. I was free to come and go on weekends
and at other times too; all I needed to do was
sign out and in with the nurse’s station. My
retirement from the Army was effective January
31, 1970. I would now live my Army career
vicariously through Walt Bryde, Roger Brown and
Dennis Reimer.
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