365 Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

the sergeant put the call right through.
    “Hi, Dave,” Peterson said. “Hear your wards are filling up.”
    “Hear!” Peterson had to move the phone a bit away from his ear. “They sure are. Someone in Nam decided they’re not to have more than 3000 in-patients in country at any one time; might look bad or something like that, so for the next two or three weeks we’ll be getting thirty to forty medical evacuations a day. The problem is, where the hell we’re going to put them.”
    “Want some surgery beds?”
    “I’d be happy with a few mattresses,” Cooper said. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”
    Peterson leaned back in his chair. “Robert Kurt is going back to Nam in a day or two,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We were talking, and I found out that he only has five days until his ten months, five days are up. It seems a bit unreasonable to send him back so short.”
    “He’s already been discharged,” Cooper said flatly, “and profiled fit for duty.”
    “I know,” Peterson said, “but five days isn’t very long. You could extend him just that long for observation.”
    “That would be a lot of trouble.”
    “So is three and a half months of getting shot at.”
    “If you’ve talked to him,” Cooper said curtly, “then you know he’s a demolition expert and carries a critical MOS.”
    “So what?” Peterson hesitated a moment. “What the hell have they been doing over there without him? Stopping the war till he got back?”
    “Look,” Cooper said into the phone. “That’s not the point.”
    “That is the point,” Peterson interrupted.
    “Major,” Cooper said coldly, “just in case you don’t remember, and you obviously don’t, the mission of the Army Medical Corps is to support the fighting strength, not to deplete it. Right now, there are units running around Nam at three-quarters strength. That makes every man over there that much less protected and that much more vulnerable. We’re in war, whether you or me or anyone likes it or not.”
    “Then you won’t extend him?”
    “No!”
    Peterson angrily slammed down the phone. Going out into the clinic he told the corpsman to get Kurt.
    “When are you supposed to leave?” he asked when Kurt came in.
    “I’m manifested for tomorrow morning.”
    “Listen. I think the best thing to do would be to admit you to my surgical service.”
    Kurt looked surprised.
    “Why? I mean, I thought Colonel Cooper would...”
    Peterson shook his head. “You’ve already been discharged from the medical services, and Cooper feels it would look a bit foolish readmitting you or changing your profile even to a temporary one after you’ve already been cleared, so I’ll admit you to my service for an ulcer or something like that.”
    Kurt looked ill at ease. “You sure there isn’t anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.
    “No, nothing. We do things like this all the time. Medicine helps us out, and we help medicine out.”
    “When do you want to see me?”
    “I’m admitting you this evening.”
    Peterson had the ward master tell the hospital registrar to notify the Far East personnel center that Kurt had been admitted and would not be able to make his flight.
    The next morning, Cooper called Peterson and told him to come into his office. He stood waiting behind his desk.
    “We’ll make this short,” he said sharply. “Why is Kurt back in the hospital?”
    “He may have an ulcer.”
    “I want that man out of this hospital today.”
    “He’s having gastric distress, relieved by food, and there is a history of possible bloody stools.”
    “I want him out, I said.”
    Peterson looked at him calmly, unruffled. “I don’t think it would be in the best interests of the Army to send a possible bleeding ulcer back to Nam. It wouldn’t look good for this hospital, or any of us, Colonel, to have him sent back here bleeding, especially when he left here with an impression of possible bleeding ulcer on his chart...”
    “Has anyone else