Sullen mood among U.S. wounded in Vietnam

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 20

Sullen mood among U.S. wounded in Vietnam

(By

ARNOLD ABRAMS)

Lowered weekly casualty lists cited often by military spokesmen and United States Government officials as proof of their declining combat role in Vietnam are cold comfort to American troops at the twenty-fourth Evacuation Hospital here.

The soldiers at this! hospital are the statistics! on those lists, and their ! plight illustrates a' basic but easily forgotten! fact: it hurts just as I much to get hit today; as it did in 1968.

American casualties continue to trickle into this hospital—three or four every day. They lie, mostly silent, in the quonset hut wards of; South Vietnam’s biggest and busiest medical facility, with] a 400-bed capacity and an average daily load of 175! patients. They get good care andj much sympathy but there is: a sullen air about them that; goes beyond the usual melan-j cholia of war-hospital set-1 tings. These men share ai keen sense of being among! the last American victims in a war winding down with-l out victory. “If what I was doing! helped save the life of some! soldier on the ground, it wasj worth it,” says Ron Powell,; a helicopter pilot who was! seriously wounded in Octo-|, her while supporting a Uni-|, ted States ground unit under, Communist fire. “Not worth it” L

But he adds: “By now, that soldier shouldn’t have been out there and I shouldn’t have had to be helping him. It’s not worth it for anyone —any American, at least —to still be risking his life in this country.”

Powell, who is 23, had his right thigh shattered by a ,50-calibre bullet that blew apart the instrument panel of his helicopter after passing through his leg. Shrapnel broke his left wrist; doctors say he will require two years to recover fully.

The young warrant officer was hit over a combat zone in Tay Ninh Province, about 75 miles north-west of Saigon and close to the Cambodian border. Intensified fighting in that area accounted for a substantial part of United States casualties last month.

Nineteen-year-old Raymond

i Lenard also was hit over Tay Ninh. He had been | scouting for enemy activity jWhen an AK-47 round ; pierced the thin armour of Shis observation helicopter land passed through his left I leg. It broke his shinbone and left a hole about 2in wide. Lenard chuckles at the • mention of declining United ■ States casualty rates. “No- ' body’s told us about it,” he J says. His unit, a helicopter I squadron based 25 miles I north-east of Saigon, has i; seen one man killed, three seriously wounded and three ' craft destroyed in the last few weeks. |j He describes his unit’s ’morale as “zero minus,” addling: “When you get hit, you can only wonder what it was [all for. What makes it even . worse is the feeling that ; I people back home don’t know we’re still doing this. [They probably think we’re all just sitting around waiting to get out. We wish we | were.” Borne the brunt ' Firebase Pace, which provides artillery support for I South Vietnamese troops loperating in Cambodia, has I borne the brunt of Communist fire in the last weeks. | American troops were withdrawn from the firebase after a minor uprising occurred there last month among some of the men. The base also was where Robert Legassie, aged 21, suffered a concussion before the United States troops withdrew. “It was from a mortar round and I never heard it coming, it landed so close,” says Legassie. Wounded with only three weeks of Vietnam duty remaining—and a few days before United States troops left Firebase Pace—he offers this observation: "Just what I would expect from this screwed-up war.” The sullen mood among American casualties today is particularly evident to Captain John Castner, adjutant of the 24th Evacuation Hospital. “When large-scale fighting was taking place, I saw a different spirit among patients here,” says Captain Castner, who is 26. “They were concerned about what was happening to their units and friends . . . they often tried to return to them.” Changed attitude But that has changed, he observes, noting that “now they’re generally getting wounded in isolated incidents, and they’re bitter about it happening to them

at this point in the war. Theyr don’t ask about their units, j They just want out.” They also seek solace from hospital nurses, who fre- 1 quently find themselves 1 hardpressed to provide ; answers to questions about the meaning of their patient’s misfortunes. “It’s hard to answer when a fellow says how stupid it is to get shot up at this stage of the war,” says 22-year-old Marcia Kleibusch. “I agree ... it is stupid. But

you can’t say that to a man lying wounded in front of you.” Another nurse. Lieutenant Donna Miner, declares: “I tell the patients that we’re all here for a purpose. Maybe we don’t know exactly what that purpose is, but until they tell us differently we’ve got to do the job.” Does that sort of answer help her patients? “It’s the only answer I have,” says Miss Miner.—lntrasia News Service.