I have been asked, considering my total disability, whether my military service was valuable. Before answering, I should fill new readers in on my military history. The draft was still going, and it looked like my number was coming up, so I volunteered for the Army. That let me choose what job my job would be in the Army. I chose electronics. I was assigned to a Pershing Missile outfit at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Pershing Missile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile with an atomic warhead. When I joined the unit, I found out it was forming. We had absolutely no material related to the Pershing Missile. Our Captain was doing all sorts of things that didn’t make sense to keep us busy. One day we went to the obstacle course on base. I heard our Captain say to keep us on the course until we couldn’t run anymore. I was on my third time through the course when I fell off a high obstacle. I woke up in the base hospital. It is that injury that caught up with me always years later. If you damage your spine, it will usually react by growing more bone, which tends to pinch the nerves. I spent my year in Vietnam like all Army personnel, but I suffered no permanent injuries from my time there.
I regret the incompetent Captain who was in charge at Fort Sill. You and I pay taxes. I sustained an injury while in service. Think of the medical costs he has caused. I’ve had many surgeries at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I have spent 46 hours on the operating table trying to repair my back and relieve the pain. I don’t know what the cost of all the surgeries was. One operation alone was 16 hours long. I think the operations and hospitalization length would total at least $1 million. The VA also covers all my other medical expenses, which are normal for someone my age. They also provide all of the drugs I have been prescribed. The latest thing to control pain was the implantation of a spinal cord stimulator. It scrambles the nerve impulses, so I don’t feel the pain. It is made by Boston Scientific. I looked up the price of the stimulator. It costs $66,000. I know the VA bargains for all medical supplies, and I’m sure they didn’t pay that price.
The thing I regret is the cost of my injury. I couldn’t say no when the Captain decided to use the obstacle course to wear us out. It really accomplished nothing. I guess I shouldn’t say that. It has cost the government a great deal of money, and we pay our taxes to cover those costs.
