Part 1: The life of Gus Kappler MD, Vietnam Era Trauma Surgeon

 “The Truth is, no one who was part of the war ever comes completely home.  War only ends for the dead.”   Ed Letourneau, Vietnam Veteran

Authors note: Part 1 is a fictional vignette, based on a true event in Dr. Kappler's life, and designed to soften the topic before we delve into his life's story.

  It was a warm, sunny day in Phu Bai, Vietnam.  The afternoon had been unusually quiet at the 85th Evac hospital, with no Huey helicopters hovering overhead, scattering dust and dirt up through the floorboards of every hooch and into the nostrils and down the lungs of just about every medical personnel in camp.  The dust didn’t need the choppers as an excuse to fly everywhere, it scattered at the slightest perturbation. There was nothing remaining to hold it down.  The foliage that once existed had been sprayed with Agent Orange several years earlier and the dead vegetation bulldozed. Nothing grew there anymore, not even a weed, and maybe never would again, but no one yet recognized the significance of that or what it meant for their future health.

Dr. Gustav Kappler found himself idle, having already made rounds on yesterday's wounded before giving the order to ship them out for rehab stateside, or to Saigon for further surgery.  He was dressed in his usual outfit; no, not battle fatigues, scrubs or a shirt with major stripes on the collar, but a tie-dyed t-shirt, shorts, flipflops, and two charms around a thickset neck.  One was a set of love beads, given only to their favorites by the nurses, usually following a doctor's “initiation” into the chaos of the operating theatre, and the other a shredded string from which hung a broken peace sign, more a personal statement then a meaningless bauble.  To say nothing about him was even remotely reminiscent of a military officer or a surgeon would be an understatement.  In fact, when he was holding a cocktail, he could pass for any cheesy American lounging in a bar on vacation. 

He was making his way to the non-bunker bunker, a bland, concrete rooftop hangout with a few teetering chairs usually occupied by slumping, exhausted surgeons and dreary-eyed, pretty nurses, for a round of Bloody Mary’s and some card playing.  Taking a short-cut through the ER, His thoughts ping-ponged from the taste of vodka and tomato juice to his wife and high school sweetheart, Robin, to the pretty nurses, and, as always, back to Robin again.  If it was five o’clock here, he thought, it would be around 7 tomorrow morning in Amsterdam, New York.  Robin would be just getting up, making herself a cup of tea, fixing her hair and heading out to rake the barn and exercise the horses.  His mind drifted like a fine mist into this ghost world, and he stood there transfixed, engaged with the scene in his head.  If it were any more authentic, he could reach out and pull her close.  He watched her lean body as she spread the hay and watered and fed the horses.  What a doll.

The Emergency Room radio crackled to life, pulling him from his imaginative stupor and bringing him back around to grim reality.  He looked around in dismay at the stainless-steel tables, the buckets, the trays full of sterile instruments, the overhead lamps and the dormant ventilators ready to breathe life into the lungs of the wounded, often no more than boys.  The set up was so orderly, but if the radio was humming it’s deadly tune, he knew it meant the chaos would begin again, tables full of tanned, writhing bodies, floors would soaked in puddles of red, buckets overflowing with pulverized tissue and amputated arms and legs, and the silence, the blessed silence would be replaced with sharp commands, moans, and agonal screams.

A voice brought his attention back to the radio.

“We need immediate assistance.  (Garbled transmission) …. firefight.  (unintelligible)… overrun... (garbled transmission) ... booby trapped!  Beaucoup NVA.  Repeat, beaucoup NVA.   Platoon taking…(static)… heavy casualties.”  There was nothing casual about the voice.  The speech was loud, pressured, and panicked.  ...(static).... Gus could hear the staccato of AK47’s in the background, the NVA killing machine of choice, going up against the American M60’s and M16’s.  The AK 47’s and the M60’s were similar in caliber, 7.62 mm, and did comparable damage, but the M16, that was a bird of another color.  Even though it was smaller at 5.56 mm, Gus knew all too well it was designed to yaw and thus inflict maximum tissue damage on the enemy’s fleshy body.  

A few seconds later, the radio squawked again.  Same voice, trying to be heard above the din of battle.  

“This is First Platoon, Charlie Company.  Firebase, come in. We need immediate, I mean immediate canon or air support to the following coordinates.  Foxtrot, alpha, tango…”. 

Gus walked over to the corner and rolled up a stool, engrossed by the drama, the raw fear which oozed from the voice of the radioman.  The AK47’s were louder now, closer, and the crack, crack, crack of their bursts was heard abundantly more often than the thug, thug, thug, of the American M16. A mortar exploded, then another, and he could hear the grunt of the radioman in his dive for cover.  Pieces of dirt and rock, turned projectiles, rained down onto the radioman’s metallic kit. Gus could see the action unfolding in his mind.  It was as if he were standing in the middle of the battle. The hairs on his forearm sprang to life and tingled.  He saw the effects of the battle, the gruesome wounds, the horrific pain, but never the battle itself. 

“This is Firebase 1, Charlie Company.  What’s the enemy’s strength?  Commander also wants to know what your kill count is?” The voice came over again, distant, sotto voce, as if the enemy was getting close. “We walked into a Hornet’s Nest.  Platoon of ten, against at least 50 enemy.  We’re gettin’ butchered, sir. They’re coming out of the jungle thick as ants and they’re gettin’ close, real close.  I can almost smell ‘em.  We need canon fire A-S-A-fucking-P, to those coordinates.  Now, sir.”

Gus could hear shrapnel cutting through the vegetation, penetrating bamboo and ricocheting off rock.  A soldier screamed and began to moan.  He could hear another in the distance, “I’m hit.  Get us the fuck out of here!  We need a chopper!  We can’t hold em’.  Here they come again….”  Gus could almost smell the decaying foliage on the jungle floor as it churned up and tossed in the air by the intense fire.  The smell of the rot is unforgettable.

“I read you loud and clear first platoon.  Second platoon is a few clicks away and also taking heavy fire.  We got all our fire power trained on their position, first platoon.  I will redirect them if you can hold.”  Crack, Crack, Crack.  Thug, Thug.  Crack, Crack.  Crack, Crack.  

Gus could hear the firefight intensifying, the screams, sense the scene imploding all around.  A part of him wanted to walk away but another part wanted to keep listening.  He felt guilty. Eavesdropping on death. Yes, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he wanted to listen.  

“Smitty’s hit!”

(Gurgling sound)

“Washington, check on Smitty.”  

“That’s arterial spray.  Ain’t nothin nobody can do for him but pray.  Besides, I can’t move, motherfucker.  My leg is all shot up.”  

“Bones.  Fall back.  Here they come.  Here they come!  Bones, get out of there!

They’re flanking us.”

Crack, crack, crack.  Crack, crack, crack.  Thug, thug. Thug, thug, thug.  

“I’m out.”

(Garbled transmission.) 

The pleas of the condemned men echoed over the airways, infiltrating the ears of anonymous listeners safe and sound at the 85th Evac and the 101st Firebase

Tomahawk.  There was anyone could do except sit and listen in silence.  There were no more thug, thug, thugs of the M16.  Just the crack, crack, crack of AK47’s now.  

“First platoon, are you still there?”  (Static)

“(Garbled speech) ...out of ammo.  They got knives out!  (Static) 30 of ‘em.  Oh, God!  NOOOO!  Not Bones!” screamed the radioman.  Gus could see the glint of the hand-forged metal blade. the black handle buried deep inside the chest cavity; red liquid running through the blood gutter and down the attacker’s arm.  The wounds were all too familiar.  The NVA loved the knife.   

“Stay back,” cried the radioman.  “Back!  Back!  Help me!  Momma!”  (Guttural moan).  Silence, followed by Vietnamese voices in the background.  (Static).  Then a large thud, the radio broken by the butt of a rifle.

Gus turned away, felt a lone tear roll down his cheek, which caught him by surprise.  Others stood silently behind him.  He didn’t turn around, didn’t move, for how long he didn’t know or care.  He had forgotten all about the bacon and eggs he was heading for.  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like eternity before he heard the whir of the chopper blades. For once, he wasn’t energized to operate.  He rose and limped out into the humid air, his leg asleep, to speak with the pilot and triage the wounded, except there were no wounded.  He caught up with the crew as they were stacking the dead in the KIA, or Killed in Action, shack, one on top of the other, like pieces of cord wood.  He wondered over.  Caught the unmistakable smell of death.  Even when the shack was empty it smelled of death. Occasionally he would pick a live one out of the pile, but not too often.  He swiped the sweat from his brow and bent over to examine the dead.  

“Unstack ‘em.  I want to examine each of ‘em,” he said.

“But sir, they’re dead,” the corpsman protested. 

"I said, unstack ‘em.  The corpsman complied grudgingly..

The bodies were still warm, tanned, limp. Young kids, of course.  Somehow, they looked…. peaceful.  He felt for the carotid.  No pulse.  Pulled the second one over into the light, unbuttoned the blood-soaked shirt.  Multiple stab wounds, chest and abdomen, including one through the hand.  Defensive wound.  Trying to ward off the sweep of the knife.  Maybe twenty or more stab wounds, in all.  Senseless.  Through the dried blood he was able to read some of the tattoos.  His jaw slackened; mouth went dry.  “Bones,” he said, reading the gothic style tattoo on the soldier’s neck.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the corpsman.  

“Bones,” he said again, backing away and stumbling out of the shack into the bright sunshine.  The medic shook his head and watched him go, then started to re-stack the bodies, one on top the other. 

 The surgeons of the 85th Evac were used to the mangled bodies, the dead, those on the tables about to be dead.  But Gus wasn’t used to witnessing the slaughter.  This time, he felt he had.  This time, they weren’t strangers.  And this time, he knew he would be unable to forget.