Wisdom Tooth Out With A Hammer and Chisel, Hill AFB, 1973

Dental Hammer and Chisel

Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah, was my first duty station after tech school at Lowry AFB.  In the Spring of 1973, around the time I turned 20 years old, I had a lot of pain in my lower jaw. The dentist I saw on base said I had an impacted molar on the lower right. And while he was removing that, he would remove the one on the lower left. I had the uppers removed several years before.

When I came back the next day, they put me in a chair, gave me the big, old-fashioned Novacaine shots and left me alone, lying back in the chair. I looked to the right at the tray of instruments. There was a really shiny chrome hammer and a few chisels.

Several minutes later, the dentist started working. He took out the left tooth first. Then he broke the right tooth with the chisel and hammer and pulled out the pieces with pliers.

I can still see those tools. I felt pressure when the dentist broke the tooth, but it did not hurt a lot at the time.  In the two weeks after it was clear that the right was worse than the left, my jaw was swollen much more on the right than the left.

Today I was talking to the physical therapist who is helping me recover from knee replacement surgery four weeks ago. He said the pain I am experiencing is to be expected. I said, "Yes, cut my bones with a saw and hammer in titanium rods, and I know there will be pain for a while."  I then told him that the knee replacement was not the first time for me getting my bones hammered.  He smiled at the story of the dental hammer and said, "That's an interesting way to look at it. But you probably don't want to tell everybody about getting your teeth and bones hammered."

He's right. But I could definitely tell other veterans.

Sleep Deprived: The Suffering Built Into Every Military

Today is one month since I got knee-replacement surgery. Inside my stiff, swollen, sore left leg is something like the titanium and plastic parts above, replacing my worn-out bones with modern technology.

Every other day I go to physical therapy where Luke, an ex-Marine, gives me 45 minutes of exercises followed by intense stretching. Then Mike pushes my knee to get more range of motion. They were the subject of my last post.

At this point, the pain from the bone saw, hammer and other tools used to rebuild my knee has subsided.  But the sleep deprivation dogs me every moment in the day that I struggle to think clearly, and every moment at night I stare at the ceiling hoping to drift into sleep.

A few years ago I reviewed the book "Grunt" about the technology behind keeping soldiers fit for duty and keeping them alive after the horrible injuries. In the book, there is a whole chapter on sleep deprivation among submariners. As with so many things in the military, everything can turn into a competition and sailors pride themselves on how long they can go without sleep.

Careful study of submarine sleep habits showed that this built-in sleep deprivation leads to mistakes, injuries, accidents and could lead to something worse.  Changing submarine culture to build in more sleep led to better performance, especially under alert conditions.

All through my military career and parts of my civilian career, sleep deprivation led me to struggle with simple tasks and ache for a nap. Border patrol, tank gunnery, guard duty, long road marches, and a hundred other military duties took sleep from me and never gave it back.

Sleep deprivation is also a form of torture. It could be months before I get a full night's sleep again according to some people I know who have had this surgery.  When I finally do sleep four or more hours without waking to pain in my leg, I know it will be a wonderful feeling.

My Physical Therapist is a Marine

Marine Corps Basic Training

I started outpatient physical therapy yesterday. I have two therapists. One leads me in various exercises for about 30 minutes to work on flexibility and get my legs warmed up.  The second bends my leg as far as he can and a little farther to get more range of motion.  I need to restore range of motion to resume activities like bicycling.

The guy who does the warmup exercises is a former Marine who served in the Marine Reserve from 2012 until three knee surgeries ended his Marine career after two years.

The first thing I did in my therapy session was walk as straight and tall as I could with a cane, the length of the workout area and back.  Then I did side stepping and other exercises that led Luke and I to talk about marching songs.

Then we talked about Jody and I got jealous of being a Marine. Luke said that all through his 18-week Basic Training in 2012 they sang marching songs about Jody.

I told him I went to my last active duty school in 2013 at Fort Meade. I was not allowed to sing Jody songs when I marched the company or any songs that were sexist or talked about killing an enemy.

Jody is the guy back home who is sleeping with your wife/girlfriend, emptying your bank account, driving your car, and in every way taking over the life you left behind.  Back in 1972 when I was in Basic Training, Jody was a draft dodger. He had a rich dad and an infected hangnail that meant he did not have to go to 'Nam and we did. 

So Luke and I were laughing and quoting Jody verses as I exercised:

"Ain't no use in goin' home, Jody's got your girl and gone.
Ain't no use in feelin' blue, Jody's got your sister too."

"Ain't no use in lookin' back, Jody's got your Cadillac."

Then we talked about songs that were unique to our branch and sang bits of those:

"They say that in the Army the coffee's mighty fine, it tastes like muddy water and smells like turpentine,
Gee Mom I wanna go, but they won't let me go....."

After that Fort Meade school I wrote a post on the New York Times "At War" blog bitching about the marching songs in the 21st Century Army.

After a half hour of us laughing about marching songs as I exercised, Luke turned me over to Mike.  His job is get me increased range of motion by pushing my leg as far as it will go, then a little more. I was quiet for a lot of that session. It hurts.  Mike told that previous patients of his who he helped with recovery gave him a t-shirt emblazoned with "Mikey de Sade." I could see that.

I will be seeing Luke and Mike three times a week for the next month in the long process of recovery.  And once in a while singing about Jody or

"A yellow bird, with a yellow bill,
Just landed on, my window sill,
I lured him in with crumbs of bread, and then I crushed his.....

The end of the verse in the Marines and the 1970s Army is .....f@#king head.

At Fort Meade in 2013, it was .......little head.

Luke and I laughed about that too.

Screwed Out of Retirement at 19 Years

Yesterday, I got a call from a soldier I served with in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. Her father is 59 years old, a Sergeant First Class, in Texas, training for a deployment later this year. 

If he goes, it will be his fourth deployment.  He first enlisted forty years ago, then had a long break in service to raise his kids.  I knew when I re-enlisted I could not get a retirement--I was too old and had too few years of service. 

But this soldier is right on the edge. With a one-year extension he would be able to complete his deployment and retire. 

It looks like what will actually happen is that he will deploy and return early and leave the Army without a pension.

I told my friend to get in touch with her Congressman right away. Her approach should be "My Dad........"  She is a veteran combat pilot in her own right.

There is not much chance he will get the retirement. Like me he will be asked to turn in his gear and all of his connection to the military will end. Fading away, as General McArthur said 70 years ago.

"Smoking's Not Going to Kill Us, They Are:" Tobacco on the Cold War Border

I started watching "Band of Brothers" again, the HBO series about American paratroopers in World War II.

At the beginning of episode 2, the paratroopers are on a C-47 transport plane flying toward Normandy in the middle of the night of June 5-6. In moments they will be the first invading troops, crowded on slow-moving airplanes flying into intense anti-aircraft fire then jumping from the planes.

By morning a third of them will be killed, wounded or missing. The men in the plane rub Rosary beads, drum their fingers, tap their feet, and stare vacantly. Some pray. A few others light up cigarettes.

My well-trained, health-focused 21st Century mind immediately thought "that's unhealthy" and I smiled. Then I thought of a joke about second-hand smoke in a plane with its jump door removed, open to the night sky.

I smoked when I was a tank commander on the East-West border in the late 1970s. I looked across that border and thought the Soviet Army would invade and my tank would be part of a vastly outnumbered defense of the free world. And that I would have the survival potential of a rabbit at a wolf reunion.

"Smoking's not gonna kill us, they are!" I could say with some confidence looking East.

The Soviets did not invade. I quit smoking before the Soviet Union collapsed, so I am still alive to write this blog post.

By then end of World War II, less than a year later, the majority of the men in those planes on D-Day were dead or wounded. Smoking didn't kill them. The Nazis did.