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A nurse flicked on the light at 5:30 A.M.
My first day on Ward 57 had begun. "What's your pain on a scale of
zero to ten, with ten the worst pain you've ever had?" she asked.
Pain was apparently so endemic here it was charted on a meter.
"Five," I replied, testing the waters. Morning rounds immediately
followed, a raucous rush hour of doctors consulting with night
nurses and checking on their patients. A pair of interns entered in
bright yellow smocks, face masks, and rubber gloves -- protection
against a drug-resistant bacterial infection common to Iraq,
Acinetobacter baumannii, which is contracted through open wounds.
The young doctors rebandaged my arm. They used tiny tweezers to
pull out and replace pieces of cotton string in eight deep holes of
my right thigh and buttocks. I screamed ten on the pain scale and
received a shot of Demerol.
At 7 A.M., a caravan of gurneys arrived to
transport soldiers to surgery. I was spared, left to the legions of
specialists who proved the old adage about hospitals being the last
place to get rest. I welcomed the anesthesiologists and their pain
relievers. But the nonstop traffic was annoying. The social worker
bumped into the dietitian, who passed the shrink. As the veterans'
rep left, a candy striper arrived. So many clergymen popped in,
from a Catholic priest to Episcopalian ministers to a rabbi, I
could have chaired an ecumenical conference. The brass brought
commemorative coins, the Red Cross socks, occupational therapists a
mechanical reacher.
The onslaught of hospital pros had one
saving grace: no one seemed fazed by my injury but me. Just the
word amputation made me shudder. It conjured up a disjointed series
of images: a childhood friend who had lost his leg in an auto
accident; World War II veterans wheeled into ballparks for holiday
games, their empty trousers or shirt sleeves pinned up. I had
avoided mirrors all week. Now I feared seeing the startling reality
in the faces of my family and friends who would be visiting later
that day.
My fears turned out to be groundless. The
one emotion everyone showed was happiness to see me alive, maimed
or not. But two exchanges stood out. My sister surprised me with a
gift: a 1900 silver dollar our gambler father had won in Las Vegas
and given to her in 1956 when she was eight years old. Leslie
figured if I ever needed a father, it was now.
I held my father's winnings and thought
of the larger bet he lost. He deferred a family life to business
success, and died before he had either. I had almost repeated the
mistake. The realization put my father's death in a new light. I
understood for the first time why he exited before getting to know
me: he had gambled on a future that never materialized. It was a
mistake I could begin to forgive.
I had gambled on a job assignment and had
my own damage-control problems. Skyler had reacted angrily when he
first heard of my injury from my old friend David Maraniss, who had
broken the news to my children and estranged wife, Judith Katz. "He
lied to me, he lied to me," Skyler shouted, referring to my parting
words when I left for Iraq. "He promised me he wouldn't get hurt."
According to Judith, Skyler had moped and cried every day until I
came home.
He was the first one through the door when
visiting hours began. He and Olivia bounded onto my bed, showering
me with hugs and get-well posters. Dressed in camouflage pants,
Skyler pointed out the intricate drawings of battle scenes in his
artwork. Before long, he had grabbed a roll of gauze and wound it
around his right hand. He was identifying with my loss, a gesture I
saw as a sign of forgiveness. I had shaken his sense of safety, the
security blanket only a father can provide. Skyler's act of
generosity capped a day of pardons across three generations of
Weisskopf males.
President George W. Bush visited the ward
on December 18, my second day at Walter Reed. He moved from room to
room, thanking soldiers for their sacrifice and consoling families.
When he reached 5735, no one was home. I'd been taken to surgery
hours earlier. In Washington, even hospitals have political
agendas. Major LaFrançois was the president's advance man,
and I had gotten in her way.
Actually, my job had. Up until that point,
I was convinced that nothing mattered to me except the next shot of
morphine. But LaFrançois had thrown me an ethical curveball.
Midway through my first day, she asked to have a word alone. She
told me that the White House was planning a visit and wanted to
know if Bush would be welcome in my room. It didn't take long to
decide. I knew the president would be on a well-publicized PR tour
to strengthen support for his war. I had favored the invasion of
Iraq, believing U.S. intelligence reports of unconventional
weapons. But reporters had no business helping officeholders make
their case even if they agreed with it.
I declined as diplomatically as I could.
The president was coming to thank soldiers and shouldn't waste his
time on a civilian who didn't fight. LaFrançois thought I
was questioning not the appropriateness of a visit but my
worthiness. "We feel you are as worthy as anyone else," she said.
"You did so much for our troops to put your life on the line. You
actually saved soldiers."
My story had gotten around. From NBC
Nightly News to the New York Times, the media reported it widely,
and soldiers added their own editorial flourishes as they passed it
along. It occurred to me that people were exaggerating the valor of
my actions to help me salve the loss. I had trouble processing the
praise, especially from military men whose objectives contrasted so
sharply with my own. I was ready to acknowledge that my actions had
saved lives, though I was still a long way from understanding what
motivated those actions. I did know one thing for certain: I
didn't grab that grenade as a soldier fighting the president's
war. His political aims were at issue now. I found myself having to
straddle the chasm between military and journalistic cultures.
LaFrançois didn't understand why any American would refuse
a visit from the president. Nor did her bosses, who had also been
contacted by Bush's advisers and took the time to weigh in. The
hospital's commander, Major General Kevin Kiley, stopped by. "We
all consider you a hero for what you did," said Kiley, a
six-foot-six onetime collegiate wrestler. "The fact you grabbed
that grenade and tried to get it out, you saved some lives doing
that." We chatted for a while, and Kiley brought up the
presidential visit. He said he heard that I wouldn't see Bush.
"Are you sure?" the general asked. "He would really like to see
you." I politely demurred again, moving up the chain of
command.
I didn't realize how much trouble I was
causing. The hospital had an open-door policy for presidential
visits. It wouldn't have looked good on TV for a reporter to shut
out the commander in chief. Kiley asked LaFrançois to
persuade me to reconsider, questioning whether I had been
clearheaded enough to make an informed decision. She took another
crack at it, returning late that night. After I declined again,
LaFrançois, like any good soldier, improvised. I was
supposed to have my wounds surgically cleaned the next day. She
made sure I ended up in the operating room while Bush made his
rounds. The next morning, I was taken out before the dawn security
sweep. I was operated on from 9:00 to 10:40 A.M. and parked in the
recovery room until the president left just after noon.
from the book Blood Brothers by Michael
Weisskopf Published by Henry Holt; October 2006;$25.00US/$34.00CAN;
0-8050-7860-6 Copyright © 2006 Michael Weisskopf
About the Author
A senior correspondent for Time magazine,
Michael Weisskopf is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a winner of the
George Polk Award, the Goldsmith Award for Investigative Reporting,
the National Headliners Award, and the Daniel Pearl Award for
Courage and Integrity in Journalism. Weisskopf lives in Washington,
D.C. Vsit http://www.henryholt.com/holt/bloodbrothers.htm for more
info.
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