My comments about the spinal cord stimulator brought questions about how I hurt my back. After I graduated from microwave repair school and tropospheric scatter school, the Army assigned me to a Pershing Missile company that was just forming at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Pershing Missile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile, and as such, we no longer have them because of treaties. When I got to Fort Sill, less than 50 men were in the unit. We didn’t have any equipment that a regular Pershing Missile unit would have. If I remember correctly, the unit should have had about 200 men. There was nothing for us to do, so we did odd jobs. Policing the roads on the base. That means walking the streets and picking up cigarette butts and soda cans etc. We were also assigned to drive VIPs around. My least favorite task was serving as KPs for ROTC cadets. KP in the Army means kitchen police. It means you do everything from washing the dishes to scrubbing the mess hall floor. There was no air-conditioning in the mess hall, so you can imagine what it was like in July and August in Oklahoma.
Our commander of the forming unit was a Captain. It quickly became clear he had no idea what to do to keep us busy. One day he discovered the obstacle course on the base. I remember overhearing him say to the First Sergeant that we should run the course until we were totally exhausted. I had completed two times through the course when I remember coming on something we call the backbreaker. The next thing I knew was waking up in the base hospital. I’ll get back to the hospital in a moment. The backbreaker was constructed of logs, and as I remember it, 15 or 20 feet tall. You had to cross logs at the top to complete it. The supporting structure underneath made it a backbreaker because if you fell, you would hit the supporting logs on the way down. I was told by friends that’s what I did.
Back to the hospital, when I woke up, I found doctors sticking needles into my feet, asking me if I could feel them. I couldn’t. Two make a long story short, the feeling did return to my legs and feet. The doctors told me that it was a nasty spinal bruise and assigned physical therapy.
I had had enough of this so-called Pershing Missile company. We couldn’t request a transfer out of the unit because it was forming. I wrote my Senator, who was then running for president Hubert Humphrey telling him I wanted to be sent to Vietnam. It was the summer of 1964, and before most people had heard of Vietnam. It wasn’t long before I got orders to report to another base for training before being sent to Vietnam. I arrived in Vietnam just after Christmas 1964.
The injury I suffered on that obstacle course is the reason for my disability. Apparently, if you hit your spine hard enough as I did, it will respond by starting to grow extra bone. The growth is slow, but eventually, it presses against nerves. It is called stenosis. That causes two things to happen. There will be pain, and the opposite will happen. You will lose feeling in the lower half of your body. You could run a truck over my left foot, and I wouldn’t notice it.
I had a broken ankle. I asked the doctor looking after me why my back was hurting. He said that he didn’t do backs, but he took an x-ray. He asked me when I hurt my back. It actually took me some time to remember Fort Sill and the accident. He said I should go to the VA. I did. The VA has been absolutely fantastic. The only question ever asked me was why I hadn’t completed my physical therapy at Fort Sill. I told them because I was assigned to Vietnam. The first surgery on my back was done at a VA hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. That didn’t come close to solving the problems with my back. The VA then gave me my choice of going to the Mayo Clinic or the University of Minnesota. I took the Mayo Clinic.
I now know, and you should be aware, too, that sometimes spinal surgery can only make matters worse. It took me a total of 46 hours on the operating table. I should’ve quit before the last operation because that one left me in worse shape than before it. Anyway, that is the story of my disability. People ask me about Vietnam. I tell them the truth. I suffered no permanent physical injuries in Vietnam.
