Yesterday, I had a physical at the local VA clinic. I was a bit surprised when I saw the long length of labels coming out of the printer. They couldn’t all be for me! It turned out they were. They wanted eight of those little vials – hang on – is this for testing, or am I donating blood? I was assured it was for testing. It was then on to the fun part of the physical. Answering questions, a blood pressure check, breathe in and breathe out to check my lungs, checking your oxygen level and pulse rate, and so on. I continued my discussion with the doctor. I was commenting on how things had changed since I was in the military. One thing that we discussed was concussions due to explosions. I mentioned Vietnam and things like mortars and other explosions we created to dispose of bad ordinance. I was still hooked up to monitoring equipment when we started the discussion. My heart rate went up to over 120 from the 60 beats while I was sitting quietly. My blood pressure changed too. I wasn’t conscious of any changes. The doctor said it was a normal reaction when talking about where you served. I guess we never are totally free of war military experiences. I bet if I took my pulse just after writing this, it would be elevated again. I thought I wouldn’t react, but it’s clear you’re never free of your military experiences. As we used to say in Vietnam, “It’s a good day today because nobody tried to kill me.”
