In Honor of Our Troops

This is a story that I encountered about 12 years ago, while I was happily engaged in moving people all over the United States.  The pertinent facts were told to me by a representative from the OMBUDSMAN (Human Resources for the military) at Camp Pendleton (a Marine Corps base in Oceanside, California), and from the mother of the person the story is about.  About the only thing I don't recall about the story is the name of the Marine Captain this story is about.  For the purpose of the tale, I'll call him Brian.

Since Brian was a pilot, I'm assuming that his permanent duty station was MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) El Toro, located a short drive up Interstate 5 in Orange County.  According to his mother, Brian had become friends and then roommates with a young woman in Oceanside and eventually the two of them became a couple and bought a house together.  Maggie (my fictitious name for this woman) apparently got Brian to co-sign for her on the house, although title was in her name.  Brian did a lot of improvements to the house including a beautiful, slate floor in the living room.  Brian also paid all the bills, or so I was told.

Several months before I was introduced to this story Brian's air wing was deployed overseas in Japan.  This apparently coincided with Maggie's decision to no longer be part of the Brian-Maggie couple.  Through letters and phone calls, Brian let his mother in Dallas know what was going on and how upset he was over the breakup.  Then Brian began having problems while piloting.  He was experiencing periods of vertigo, temporary vision loss and loss of muscle control.  He was grounded briefly and sent to a Marine Corps psychiatrist, who shortly after cleared him to resume flying.  After more problems he was grounded again, examined, counseled and returned to flight duty.  A few days later Brian died when he crashed his jet.

Upon hearing of Brian's death, Maggie went to the base and retrieved Brian's pickup, then went to the bank and cleaned out his bank accounts.  She refused to allow the return of any of his personal effects to his mother (his listed next-of-kin) until a court order was obtained.  The actual process of getting control of his effects took a number of months, and before the local authorities could step in, much of Brian's stuff was sold.

When I arrived with my truck to move Brian's belongings back to his mother, I was completely unaware of this story.  The basics were given to me by the OMBUDSMAN, who was required to make certain that every item on her list ended up on my truck.  Maggie was in attendance and tried to claim a few of the more valuable items claiming she wanted them to remember him by.  I can not recall ever meeting a less sincere person.  After finally getting everything loaded up, I began my trip to Dallas, where I received the rest of the story from Brian's mother.  For about an hour after unloading everything, I sat there while she showed me photo albums and cried over the loss of her son.

This story contains a few tragedies besides the untimely and unnecessary death of a young man.  Perhaps everyone in favor of supporting our troops can benefit from them.  The military life is difficult to say the least.  The first full day of boot camp begins after about 3 hours of sleep and for the next 48 hours you're bullied, threatened, screamed at and intimidated.  You either learn to gulp down your food quickly or you go hungry and you never get enough sleep.  Quite often you end up a long way from anyone you know and your opportunities to stay in touch with family and friends are few and far between.  This has probably changed with cell phones and e-mail.  In my time about 10 minutes a week on the phone was all you got, and mail seemed to take forever to find you.

Once basic training is over, there is probably other training and some freedom.  This means that most are going to have frequent opportunities to drink heavily.  Sitting in the bars frequented by young sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines is some pretty woman looking for a guaranteed income, free healthcare and a husband that is out of town for months at a time.  Guess where that boy you grew up with is likely to end up?  Especially when his girl back home has stopped writing to him, and all his old friends are too busy to take the time to keep in touch.  This is how decent guys like Brian end up with some soulless woman.

Another tragedy is the military itself.  The medical care provided to our troops is not necessarily the best.  This is not to say there are not some very fine people providing that medical care, but it does not compare to what is available outside of the military.  One reason for this is money.  If a civilian doctor makes a mistake, the lawsuits can run into the millions.  If a military doctor makes a mistake, he might receive slightly worse performance evaluations.  Let me tell you about a few of my own experiences.

During boot camp it was determined that my wisdom teeth had to be removed.  Not because they were causing any problems, but because there was a possibility that at some point they might cause problems.  I was sent to the dentist who was going to take out one of them, the one that was already most of the way in.  The dentist walked in, gave me 1 shot of novacaine and immediately began trying to pull the tooth.  I put up enough of a fight he gave me another shot, waited 5 minutes and tried again.  This process went on for 5 injections at which point I was numb from the first injection and the tooth was finally removed.  A few weeks after boot camp the other 3 were cut out all in one sitting, with no follow up appointment to check on the healing process.

While attending school in Orlando I came down with strep throat.  I'd never had it before and didn't know what was going on.  My throat was slightly sore and i had a fever of 106.  Delirious, I stumbled to a friends room and collapsed.  He called the ambulance, which promptly arrived and my vital signs were taken.  For the next 20 minutes The ambulance didn't move while I was repeatedly asked what drugs I had taken.  Once they tired of asking the question I was taken to the hospital and questioned for the next 45 minutes about what drugs I was on.  Finally someone looked at my throat, took a culture, gave me antibiotics and left me to walk about a mile back to my barracks room.  Two years later, once again with strep throat, I was not responding to the antibiotics so I was told to double the dosage.  Three different times I was told to double the dosage.  Finally, a friend took me in to the clinic where I passed out.  Later I was told that I had taken too much erythmyicin and had a reaction to it.

For quite some time the Navy made a practice of prescribing Tylenol 3 with codiene for everything and I do mean everything.  Eventually someone realized they were handing out narcotics like it was halloween and they switched to Motrin.  Perhaps things have improved in the past 24 years, but I doubt if the standards are where they should be.

In the case of Brian, the doctors should not have let him back into a plane until they found the problem and corrected it.  Instead the attitude of 'suck it up and quit whining' prevailed.  How many others have died because those in charge were unable or unwilling to see their problems?  How many mothers have had to go through life with the knowledge that their child gave his or her life for the country for no good reason?