Medicine in Vietnam - Wesley Rostomily

This interview is from a soldier that fought in Vietnam and received aid from injuries. He was a marine soldier that knew the struggles of war.

Questions:
What age were you when you were in the military?
How were wounded soldiers cared for and evacuated?
Do you think that the medical situation was well handled in the field?
Do you have any stories regarding corpsmen and their jobs?
Did you receive medical aid from any injuries while in Vietnam?
How were jungle foot and tiger grass infections dealt with?
How effective was the use of Huey helicopters?
Did malaria and other local diseases give you any problems?
And lastly, how was the general health of an active soldier in Vietnam?

Responses:
After two years in college I answered Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your country." I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 and served in Vietnam 1967-1968. If you have studied your history, you know there were more US casualties in a month during this period than the Iraqi and Afghani Wars and their 8+ years combined. I was a squad leader in 3rd Batallion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division and spent all my 15 months in the DMZ area. Find on a map: Camp Carroll, Con Thien, Gio Linh, Dong Ha, Khe Sank, Rockpile, Cam Lo...this was my area of operation. 1968, especially, was the bloodiest year of the war. Read about this for some background info and so you have an idea of what it was like. I was 19 when I enlisted and 22 when I received my discharge. During those years, 95% of enlistments were for 2 years. I was wounded twice: once in Con Thien in Sept. 67 by multiple mortar fragment (shrapnel, about 13 pieces through my lower extremities for the most part), and again at Gio Linh in Jan 68. Both times I was treated at the Batallion Aid level (Navy medical personnel support Marines). Only once was I evacuated to the rear for treatment. The Marines have a thing about treat and release to duty. The Marine Corps continues to this day to operate without a lot of the luxuries the Army takes for granted. We did not have any where near the number of helicopters available for medevac, so our wait times were often longer. Also, when the monsoons were severe, helicopters often couldn't fly, so trucks sometimes served to evacuate. Our Navy corpsmen were excellent; they took good care of us. The chain of command in the medical world during war runs: corpsman, company corpsman, battallion corpman, doctors etc.. A lot that we know about trauma today , the medical field owes to this system. Usually helicopter medevac could be arranged; I do know personally, however, Marines who died waiting for that helicopter. The statistics will tell you, however, that 35-40% more wounded survived (with the same injuries) than would have survived during World War 11 and Korean War because of helicopter medical evacuation.
The field care of a Marine by Navy Corpsman (same as Army's medics) was pretty darned good. Again, the problem worsened because of the availability of helicopters for medevacing Marines...we simply didn't have enough helicopters and most of ours were the CH-46 dual rotor model (research this helicopter). The Huey was an amazing helicopter...definitely the first of its kind and the first "dedicated" medevac chopper (the Marine helicopters were transport choppers as well as troop carriers etc,. so this also impacted their availibility and didn't always have corpsmen to treat the wounded). One of the best "Docs" (that's what we called corpsman), was a guy by the name of Doc Nunn. He received a Bronze Star and a battlefield promotion for caring for two men from my squad who had walked into an ambush. All the time he was treating my men he was under fire by the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). (Research the difference between Viet Cong and the NVA). Doc was hit once, but stayed with and treated my men until we could destroy the NVA and get to the three of them. Most Corpsman and Medics are amazingly dedicated to their men!! A good friend of mine was in the Army and had both arms blown off at the shoulders by a rocket propelled grenade. His ground medic started Ivs in both legs, a helicopter (with flight medics) was there within 20 minutes: they added 4 more IVs and were squeeezing them into him to match the amount of blood flowing out, a hospital ship was a quick 10 minute flight. Needless to say they saved him; if he had been a Marine he would not have been as lucky. During WW2 and Korea he definitely would not have survived. The problem is: now we have 75% more paraplegics coming home from the war who have to face PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress) (research this) and years of rehabilitation. Quite a few suicides occurred in this demographic.

Immersion foot (jungle foot) was a severe problem in the monsoon season; we couldn't wear socks and squad leaders really got after the men to get their boots off once inside the wire (perimeter). All of us had our parents sending foot powder to us in the mail all of the time. The problem was that Marines went out on 20-45 day operations; whereas, the Army choppered in and choppered out a couple of days later. So, keeping care of our feet was a lot harder. Jungle rot (tiger grass infections...never heard it called that but...) was a constant problem. I probably have 30-40 jungle rot scars still visible on my body. Black had problems with jungle rot developing when they shaved,besides the kind we all got in the boonies (jungle). Complicating this was the fact that oftern times we went weeks without washing. My personal record was 43 days without soap. We usually had malaria pills, but often times we didn't have enough, so squad leaders, platoon sergeants etc would give their doses to the men and go with out. We had a few malaria medevacs. The other thing that got to a lot of us was amoebic dysentery (research this). This was caused by parasites in the water. Again we had some water treatment pills, but never enough. Amoebic dysentery gives you the worst case of diarreah you will ever have and it doesn't stop. We only had a tiny packet of toilet paper that came with our C-Rations (what we ate, research this) and it was never enough. Because of this we couldn't wear underwear because of resultant sores etc., besides underwear just rotted off our bodies. It took me over a year back in the states being treated by a specialist to finally get over the dysentery. When I went to Viet Nam I weighed 195 and was in Marine Corps shape. When I returned I weighed 158 pounds and I am 6'-2". We never caught colds or had the flu (we were innoculated against all of that). We wore our jungle utilities and our boots until they rotted off. We slept on the ground everynight,sometimes in fighting holes, sometimes not, we usually received mail every two weeks or so ( but never received everything friends and family said they sent), there were no computers, no phone call to loved ones...we were absolutely isolated from the world. As we got close to the end of our tour in Vietnam we talked about returning to "the world".
One thing I forgot to add, our corpsmen ofter had medcaps where we would surround a village and our corpmen would go in and treat the villagers
In 1980 some friends and I started a "rap group of Vietnam vets to help deal with PTSD. I also returned to the military at this time and flew as a flight medic with a National Guard unit. We were sent to Saudi Arabia for 9 months for the 1st Gulf War and flew over 100 combat medevacs, 30 of which were flown into Iraq. I spent 9months sleeping eith in my helicopter or sleeping in tents in the desert. My oldest son Eric (Tom's cousin)was also in the 1st Gulf War and was a crewman on an M1-A1 tank that went into Kuwait to liberate that country from the Iraqis.. After we moved out here, I joined and AirForce Reserve Unit and flew as a flight paramedic on C-141s and was an instructor. After 6 years of that I joined an Army Reserve unit and became an instructor who trained and qualified the units to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. I also spent 6 months training friendly (supposedly) Iraqi policemen. I retired 4 years ago with 24 years, 10 months and 5 days in the military, and retired two years after teaching high school for 37 years. I now work with a veterans resource center working with Iraqi and Afghan vets (as well as some Vietnam Vets, still) who have PTSD (make sure you research this).
I retired as a Master Sergeant and stayed an enlisted man because I loved the field and that was where the action was.


This interview is from a neurosurgeon stationed in Vietnam. He received head trauma patients and also spinal cord injuries mainly from shrapnel. He shares what hospitals were like in the Vietnam War.

What age were you going into the war and how long did you serve?

I entered the US Army in January 1968 at the age of 33. I served for two years (minus one month because I was a good soldier and received an Honorable Discharge in December 1969. the first year was in Viet Nam and the second year was at Fitsimmons Hospital in Denver, CO.

Where were you stationed in Vietnam?

I arrived in Viet Nam in Da Nang after 26 days on a troop ship that sailed from Long Beach, CA. After a week in Da Nang, I was transferred to the 67th Evacuation Hospital in Qui Nhon.

What was being a neurosurgeon like in Vietnam?

I was assigned to a 300 bed hospital that was well equipped and staffed for what we did, which was trauma neurosurgery involving the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. Sometimes there was another neurosurgeon there with me, sometimes I was the only one in our hospital. Patients usually arrived by helicopter and sometimes arrived in groups of 7-8, which was all that a Huey could carry. A Chinook, however, could bring over 20 wounded at one time. We learned to tell what kind of craft was arriving by the rotor noise. Some days there was no business, other times one operated steadily for two days with only a catnap between cases.

What types of injuries did you treat and what were the most common surgeries?

I treated all types of trauma to the nervous system. Craniotomies for metal fragments in the brain were the most common, spine surgeries were next. There were very few bullet wounds, for the high velocity of M-16 and AK-47 projectiles meant that the body was destroyed by the bullet--no one survived an AK-47 wound to the head or spine. (KE =1/2 MV2 {cannot get superscript 2= squared]) There were a few handgun injuries (usually assault by one of our soldiers on another)

Was infection a major problem in treating wounded soldiers?

No, infection was never a problem. Everyone was young and healthy, all got antibiotics, and they were shipped out to Japan or the Philippines within a few days, so if there was a delayed infection, we never knew it.

I read that the Vietcong attacked hospitals in during the war- were you ever in a situation like this and did you ever feel threatened or come under fire?

During the year that I was in Qui Nhonb, our hospital, which was on a corner of the airfield was never attacked. Two months after I left, the VC overran the palce for a few hours and there were casualties. One always felt threatened, carried a gun whenever off the base and was grateful when one's 365 days in country were up and one got on the airplane home still in one piece.

How was it different performing surgery in Vietnam compared to in the US?

In Viet Nam, I was the only surgeon in the OR. The other people were the anesthesiolgoist, a scrub tech and a circulating nurse who covered several rooms at once. Never in my training or subsequently have I ever been the only surgeon on a case; always had residents and attendings when I was a resdient and always had residents when I was an attending. As we did only trauma in Viet Nam, the equipment was simpler, no power tools and nothing fancy. This was long before CT and MRI were known.

Did you just treat American soldiers?

We treated anyone who got into our receiving area. Mainly it was US military, but we also took care of enemy wounded and divilian wounded, when they got to us.

Was it difficult to get the supplies needed for surgery and how did the surgical equipment and OR personnel compare with what you had in the US?

Our shoptial was well-supplied for what we did. Only rarely was there a shortage of something. The personnel were well trained and did what I told them to do, for I was the ranking officer. Our equipemnt was adequate for what we did in the combat zone.

What was the general process for a solider that faced a head injury and how did this compare with the treatment they would have received stateside?

Soldiers were rapidly evacuated from the area of their injury by helicopter to our facility. The average time from wounding to our receiving department was 40 minutes. It took us only 10 minutes to get into the OR, unless someone was already being operated upon and then the soldier would have to wait his turn. This is much faster to definitive care tahn exists in our country, even today. After a few days of stabilization all of our wounded were evacuated by air to large hospitals in the Philippines or Japan for recuperation before they were shipped home.

How were head injuries triaged in the field and transported to your hospital?Did many soldiers with head injuries survive or return to action?

See above answer. No one survived an AK-47 or M-16 wound to the head. They died before we ever saw them. Other types of wounds were often not fatal. Brain and spine injuries never returned to combat, they were all shipped out once stable.

Where there things that could have been done to improve on the care of the soldiers?

Yes. If our government had not lied to us about the reason for going to war, they could have all stayed home and avoided a combat zone entirely. If the Green Berets had not been so vain and stupid to have worn soft felt hats instead of helmets there would have been fewer brain injures from grenades and claymore mines that the VC turned around on our soldiers. Once the wounded got to our hospital, they received excellent and timely care, every bit as good as that available to civilians in our cities, and much better than that found in rural America at the time.