Chapter 12

Jerry woke up groggy. He was lying on a stretcher, surrounded by other stretchers. Most of the men on the stretchers were sleeping but a few were awake and moaning, The droning noise and confined space made him think he was on an airplane. What he didn’t know was the what, and the why of his current situation. He weakly waved his hand, and a pretty nurse was quickly at his side.

“They warned me you might wake up, Sergeant, even as heavily sedated as you were. You must have the constitution of a buffalo,” she said sweetly, “but don’t worry, this will fix you right up.”

She filled a syringe from a vial in her pocket and started to inject it in his IV. He went to snatch his arm away and discovered he was secured to the stretcher with padded leather straps.

“Sh ... take it easy Sergeant, relax and sleee...” and Jerry was out again before she could finish the sentence.

Next time he woke up he was in a hospital bed in a room with barred windows and a heavy steel door with a viewing window. Once again, his arms were secured. A man Jerry judged to be a medic or an orderly was perched on a straight-backed chair in the corner of the room closest to the door. The man was wearing a white uniform and reading a book. Next to the bed was a table with a plastic pitcher on it.

Jerry cleared his throat and the man looked up. Jerry was as thirsty as he’d ever been, he motioned his head towards the pitcher.

“Water,” he croaked.

The man gave him a toothy smile and unfolded himself from the chair. He was a big guy, probably 6-6 and 250. He filled a glass from the pitcher, stuck in a straw and held it as Jerry drank thirstily. The man let him drink half the water then took the straw away.

“That’s enough for now,” the big man said, and his voice was deep but soft.

Jerry worked his jaw and cleared his throat. “Where am I?” he asked, “who are you, and why am I tied to the bed?”

“My name is Otis Wright, and you are on Ward 4A of the VA Hospital, in Chillicothe, Ohio. I don’t know why you are here, man; you’ll have to ask the nurse about that. I’ll go get her.”

Otis departed, closing the steel door behind him. Five minutes later he returned with a nurse wearing a starched white uniform, pristine white shoes, and a white Nurse’s Cap sitting jauntily on her coiled brown hair. She was pushing a stainless-steel utility cart. The nurse appeared to be in her mid to late thirties. She was stoutly built with a stern visage.

“Nice of you to join us, Sergeant Donavan. I’m Nurse Carter and that’s how you’ll always address me, it that clear to you?” the nurse said, her voice was as stern as her expression.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jerry replied.

Nurse Carter efficiently shook down a thermometer and shoved it in his mouth. While the thermometer was stewing, she took his pulse. Next, she took a blood pressure cuff off the cart, unwrapped a stethoscope from around her neck, and took his blood pressure. When she finished taking his vitals, she wrote something on a metal clipboard hanging on the end of his bed.

“Okay, Sergeant, I know you are full of questions, but you are going to have to hold them for the doctor,” she said.

She pivoted towards Otis who had been standing by the door. “Mister Wright, if you fetch Mister Riley, we will see if the good sergeant can behave himself if freed.”

Wright replied, “You got it, Nurse Carter.” And scooted out the door.

A minute later he returned with another man, and they were both big enough to play professional football.

When both big men were standing on each side of the bed Nurse Carter said, “We are going to release you now, Sergeant Donavan. Don’t try anything foolish because, even if Misters Wright and Riley can’t restrain you, this is a locked ward.”

Jerry nodded his understanding, he was hungry, and he had to pee like a racehorse. He could do neither strapped to the bed. The two big men took up a position on each side of the bed, and with on big meaty paw on Jerry’s forearm, pulled apart the Velcro restraints.

After making sure Jerry wasn’t going to be a problem, Otis escorted him to the latrine. That was the beginning of the two diametrically opposite men sharing much mutual respect. Otis was an older gregarious black guy from the city as opposed to Jerry’s young, quiet white country boy. Had Jerry been capable of friendship, they would have been more.

When Jerry and Otis returned to his room, a dapperly dressed man wearing black horn-rimmed glasses was flipping through the chart that hung on the end of Jerry’s bed. The man looked to be in his 40’s and had on a white lab coat with a stethoscope hung around his neck, the resonator in his breast pocket.

When Jerry entered the room Otis gestured for him to sit on the edge of the bed. The man in the lab coat looked at Jerry and quirked his eyebrow.

“I’m Doctor Harrell, Sergeant Donavan. How do you feel young man? According to your chart you’ve be sedated for three days with enough ketamine to fell a horse,” said Dr Harrell.

Jerry shrugged as Harrell took a pen light from his pocket and flicked it in Jerry’s left eye and then his right.

“I’m okay I guess, but what happened to me, and why am I here?” Jerry asked.

The doctor answered his question with a question as psychiatrists were wont to do. “Why do you think you are here?” Harrell asked.

Jerry replied, “I have no idea, last thing I remember was having a burger with my boss.”

Harrell nodded. “Unfortunately, Sergeant I don’t have time to get into it, now. I have rounds to finish. But you and I will get into all that tomorrow morning at 0830 sharp.”

Jerry’s hunger had to wait until the evening meal was served in the ward’s common room. The room had eight tables that held four chairs each. Jerry counted fourteen other men on the ward. Some of them were almost catatonic with dull vacant eyes and some seemed to vibrate with excess energy. He found an empty table and started eating, warily eyeing the other men. After a few minutes a small wiry guy took a seat opposite Jerry.

He stuck his hand across the table and introduce himself.

“Luca Rossi but everyone calls me Luke,” he said.

Jerry shook the proffered hand.

“Jerry Donavan,” he replied.

“So, Jerry Donavan, whatcha in for?” the man asked in a thick New York accent.

“I don’t know,” Jerry answered, “no one will tell me anything but three days ago I was a in Vietnam, and today here I am.”

“Well, my friend, you musta done something because this is the loony bin, and everyone here is crazy. Me? I fragged my Lieutenant ‘cause he said he didn’t believe in Jesus, so the Lord told me he had to go.”

Jerry asked Otis about it after supper. Otis confirmed that he was indeed on a secure ward with other military men with mental disorders and some were indeed violent.

The next morning, Doctor Harrell put any lingering doubts Jerry had about his status to rest.

“Sergeant Donavan, do you mind if I call you Jericho?” Harrell asked.

“I’d rather you call me Jerry.”

“Okay, Jerry it is. Jerry, I understand that you are confused as to why you are here. That’s a form of denial. Denial is not uncommon in men suffering from combat related mental illness. Your brain is refusing to accept what you did so it hides the memories. We will deal with that in therapy. But in a nut shell you are here because you committed a violent crime while in an irrational mental state, so you were sent here instead of prison. Understand?”

Jerry nodded, “Yes, Doctor,” he replied.

For the first time since he arrived, he understood his situation. He was being punished for killing Tran, Nguyen, and Bradley. Somehow Jones or someone figured it out and to save the embarrassment of it becoming public knowledge, they’d had him committed.

Doctor Harrell continued, “I understand you are from West Virginia, Jerry. That’s probably why you ended up in this particular hospital. You are allowed a phone call home to tell your family you are okay, but after that, the phone is a privilege you must earn. Nurse Carter decides that.”

It didn’t take Jerry long to figure out that Nurse Carter decided everything on ward 4A. Carter worked Monday through Friday from 0800 to 1730 but she scheduled every minute of every day for the ward. She even selected the television shows patients could watch. There was no night or weekend nurse because of budget cuts and declining patient loads. Mental patient loads were declining because the war in Vietnam was winding down. In addition, funding for mental issues was diverted to VA out-patient medical facilities. The VA clinics were being strained because of budget cuts and World War Two veterans reaching the age that they needed more care.

Jerry did not make his call home right away because he was too embarrassed. And he was worried about money without the stipend from the Agency.

Jerry was used to the routine by the end of the first week. It wasn’t hard to learn since every day was nearly the same. Then at the end of his second week Nurse Carter sent for him.

“Sergeant Donavan, the Military Liaison wants to see you. Mister Wright will escort you down. Be on your best behavior, Sergeant,” she warned. Jerry thought she was as scary as his old First Sergeant in the 173^rd.

The Military Liaison was an overweight Master Sergeant with thinning hair and a beer belly. His name was Pappas. He had Jerry sit down in a chair beside his desk. Pappas shuffled some papers around until he found what he was looking for.

“Nice to meet you, Sergeant Donavan, sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

“Me too,” Jerry agreed.

Pappas plucked a sheet of paper from the papers he was shuffling and handed it to Jerry. Despite his appearance Papas knew his stuff.

“These are orders placing you on the Temporary Disabled Retired List effect the last day of this month. Starting the first of next month you will be medically retired with a disability rating of one hundred percent.”