Left for Dead

A Second Life after Vietnam

Jon Hovde and Maureen Anderson

What follows is an excerpt from Chapter Four, "Lucky Guy."

After the first couple of letters the very first time I woke up, those from my mom and Darlene, I had my will to live back. Ostroot seemed determined I wouldn't lose it. The letters helped. Though honestly all I really looked forward to during those couple of weeks was my next dose of morphine.
oooooI always looked forward to Nurse Kay as well. She was twenty-seven then and really nice looking, though that was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to get comfortable and she helped. She always helped. It was just this way she had, always very kind and caring.
oooooMy parents called me in the hospital not long after I woke up and I talked to them on a one-way line. That's all we had back in those days. It was kind of like our radio in the field. When you finished talking you'd say, "Over," and then the person on the other end of the line knew they could talk. My dad tried to talk to me but he kept forgetting to say "Over." "Say, 'Over,' Ole, say, 'Over!'" I could hear my mom hollering in the background. After about three exchanges like that Dad just gave up. He handed the phone to my mom and said, "You talk to him."
oooooI had been making progress for about a week when Kay was at my bed again, but this time the look on her face was not good. "Your fever is up to 108 degrees," she said. "Your doctor has ordered you an ice blanket." I didn't even know I had a fever. My face felt hot all the time anyway from being burned. "It's serious, Jon," she said. "108 degrees is deadly."
oooooBruce Ashworth did the honors. The ice blanket was just an air mattress with a hose they pumped ice water through. He put my naked body on top of that, but I still had sheets on top of me along with three or four army blankets.
oooooWhen they put me on that blanket the pain almost killed me on the spot. Everything I'd been through with my leg, and suddenly the leg didn't even hurt compared to the spasms that went through me when they moved me onto the blanket-and again when they turned the ice water on.
oooooRight away I was sure I would die, though death seemed a much kinder fate than one more minute like that. "Will you do me a favor?" I asked Kay. "Would you please wrap me in an army blanket before they put me in the body bag?" I wasn't kidding. I saw guys getting zipped into body bags all the time, because I was in the intensive care ward with the worst of the worst. It didn't scare me to die, but it scared the hell out of me to think there would be no relief from the cold. "Please just make sure I'm wrapped in a blanket," I begged.
oooooI couldn't imagine surviving ten whole minutes that way. "How long do you think I'll be on this?" I asked, bracing myself for Kay to say, well, maybe an hour. But she wouldn't bite. "I don't know," she said. "Everyone's different. It just depends."
ooooo"Well," I pressed her, "you must have some experience with this. How long does it normally take?"
ooooo"I'm sorry, Jon," she said. "I just can't tell you."
oooooLooking back, I can see why they wouldn't want to guess. If they said twenty-four hours and it was longer, you might die just from the disappointment.
oooooAn hour went by.
oooooThen two.
oooooI could not imagine anything a POW was going through that could have been worse than the agony I was in. I've had kids in audiences say that. They tell me it sounds like something they'd do to prisoners to torture them, and I agree. It was torture. You might think you'd eventually get numb and then it wouldn't be so bad, but that's not what happened. There was never any relief. I thought of all the stories I'd heard about people with hypothermia dying a peaceful death, and I just couldn't imagine that.
oooooThere was nothing to do but shiver, and pray that you would make it through another minute. Both chaplains kept vigil, reading me letters and verses from the Bible.
oooooThree hours.
oooooThen four.
oooooAfter it had been four hours, Kay was at my bed with more bad news. "The fever hasn't broken yet, Jon, so the doctors have ordered another blanket."
oooooYou're kidding.
ooooo"What could be more deluxe than this?" I asked, incredulous.
ooooo"It's not more deluxe, Jon," she said, patiently. "It's just another one."
ooooo"Where on earth are you going to put that?" I gasped.
oooooShe took a breath and told me as gently as she could. It was going on top of me. Instead of a sheet and regular blankets, I'd have an ice blanket on top of me, too.
oooooAnd so I became one of the sandwich boys. That's what they called us, the wounded men in ice blankets trying to get their fevers down. Thirty-one years later, Bruce could still remember one was green and one was blue. Can you imagine? He said it was so traumatic, putting me on them, that even their colors stood out.
oooooMy right leg was cast all the way to the hip, and my right arm was cast to the shoulder. Other than that, there was nothing between me and the ice--I was literally packed in it. Not only that, but they packed three bread bags full of it and put one on each side of my head and one across the top. When they started pumping ice water through the second blanket it was as if everything inside me just collapsed in despair. "How am I ever going to survive this?" I wanted to cry.
oooooThat's all I could think. "How am I going to get through this?" It was like being in my car, naked, in the middle of a thirty-below Minnesota winter day. But at least then someone would have stopped to help. All I got was attitude from Kay when I wouldn't tell her the ice in the bags around my head had melted. "That's the only time I get a break," I protested. The ice melted and the water started to warm me up a little bit. That's how cold I was, that something so minimal could make such a difference. I was not about to give it up.
oooooPeople passed by my bed constantly and they just let me freeze! To death! I grew more sure of that by the second. I was freezing to death and thinking, God, what a horrible way to die.
oooooKay kept changing the ice in the bags next to my head, and somehow day turned into night and back to day again. I was getting as much morphine as ever, but I wasn't sleeping. I couldn't. Even if I could have fallen asleep somehow, and God only knows how that would have been possible, I didn't want to. I was afraid that if I went to sleep I wouldn't wake up. "That's the way most guys die," Kay admitted, which scared me even more. "They give up. They go to sleep and they just never wake up."
oooooThat's probably what kept me going more than anything. All I had been through, only to die like this? No thanks.
oooooAt dawn on day two of the ice blankets, Kay greeted me by saying Tom Bailey in the next bed wanted to tell me to hang in there. "Easy for him to say," I snapped. "He's not lying here on ice blankets." "Well, Jon," she said, "he has been." She pulled one bag away from my head to put more ice in it, and I turned to look at Tom. He probably wasn't even fifteen feet from me and was missing three limbs. On his one leg part of his foot was gone, too-though I didn't find that out until later. But to this day I can still see that smile. Damned if he didn't have the biggest, brightest smile I'd ever seen on anyone, let alone anyone in Nam, let alone anyone in the ward.
oooooIf he can lose three limbs and be that freaking happy, I thought, maybe I'd better just bear down and get through this.
oooooMy doctor came in that afternoon with more bad news. "The fever's not breaking, Jon, and we don't know why. I'm afraid I missed something when you came in. I'm going to do some exploratory surgery and try to find out what's keeping the fever so high."
oooooThen he said, "I haven't lied to a kid in Vietnam yet, and I'm not going to start with you." Pause. "You're so weak, I don't think you're going to survive the surgery."
oooooBelieve it or not, this was news I could handle. For one thing, I didn't really believe I was going to die. For another, they'd have to put me out if they were going to operate, and there would be a relief from the ice. I was euphoric. Between the promise of a little break and the new attitude I'd copped from Tom, I was my old self for a moment.
ooooo"Doc!" I hollered. "You can't kill a Norwegian and you know it."
oooooHe kind of smiled the weak smile you'd give someone on their deathbed who's joking about it, and continued on his way.
oooooI wasn't joking. As much as I'd been through I didn't think a little exploratory surgery was going to kill me.
oooooBut it did.
oooooBruce was in the room, and things did not go well. He watched as they pronounced me dead and he helped prepare the death certificate.
oooooThat was going to be the end of my story, right there.
oooooAnd then, the beep.
oooooI was back.

Chaplain Vessels wrote to my parents and said my condition fluctuated too much from one day to the next to predict much of anything. "We almost lost him last night," he said, "and I have to be honest with you. By the time you get this letter you may have already heard that he's gone. That's how touch-and-go everything is at the moment."
oooooI had slept through the night, and don't remember anything until the next morning. I woke up to see my doctor approaching the bed, all smiles. "You're right, Jon," he said right away. "Apparently you can't kill a Norwegian." He told me he couldn't find any reason why the fever shouldn't lift, adding that he thought if I could hang in with the ice blankets, I'd probably make it after all.
oooooMy heart sank. "But how much longer?" I asked. "How much longer do you think I'll need to be on them?"
oooooHe didn't know. He just couldn't tell me.
oooooI'm a fighter, but I really didn't know how much longer I could stand it. I was getting weaker by the minute. The surgery had been a break from the unrelenting ice cold hell--sorry, that's the best way to describe it-but I was wiped out from it just the same. You can only fight so long before you just start wearing out, and I was wearing out.
oooooThere was nothing left to do but pray. It was time to make some deals with God. Okay, I thought, here goes. Three vows. If you get me out of this, I promise three things. One, I will have the fastest car in Polk County, Minnesota. I wasn't sure how impressed God would be with that, but I was twenty and there was no sense lying to the big guy. Two, I will not be dependent on the government. I didn't know how I was going to become a productive member of society given my amputations, but I knew I could figure that one out.
oooooThird, I will make a difference with my life.
oooooThe first two vows popped into my head right away. The third took a little longer, and honestly I can't say I came up with it all by myself. Remember I had two chaplains next to my bed all the time, reading me letters, but also reading from the Bible. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them had planted something like that. In fact if you read a letter one chaplain wrote to my parents, he says something about being sure my life will make a difference to thousands of people in the years to come. Wherever it came from, I was pretty sure God was going to expect more from me than a fast car and a job to make payments on it with-and this sounded as good as anything.
oooooNed Seachrist, a guy from my outfit who tracked me down long after the war, found this interesting. He says if you go to a King James version of the Bible and look in Jude, verse 22, you'll find a reference to having compassion and making a difference.
oooooOnce I made the vows, I was overcome with a strange sense of peace. I knew somehow I'd be okay. I really did. I quit worrying about whether I'd make it. I just had this feeling I would.
oooooSure enough, within a few hours Kay was at my bed to tell me the fever had broken. They didn't waste any time getting me off the ice blankets and oh, I have never been so happy in my life. Thank you God. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me, but I also knew that nothing could be as bad as what I'd just survived.
oooooI don't know if I have ever been as excited as the moment I knew that ordeal was over. Thirty-six years later when I relived the experience for this book, it was so traumatic it almost sent me back into shock. I woke up during the night, my bedclothes soaked in sweat. Once was enough. I was glad this part of the story was over, again.
oooooI tell you what, if you're going to lose an arm and a leg in war you should have to spend a few days on ice blankets-if you can survive them, that is. Because you will feel like you're the luckiest person alive, even without two limbs. I swear to God. I never for one moment thought, oh, poor me. Instead I thought, I'm going to live!
oooooThat's it. That's all I could think.
oooooI'm going to live.
oooooI was in awe.

Left for Dead: A Second Life after Vietnam is published by the University of Minnesota Press.

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