This is part three in my “Going to War” series. Previous parts are noted here:
Part One:Going to War: Reflections on My Journey to Iraq and Back- Part One
Past Two: Going to War: Interlude July 4th 2007
One of the sobering things as you get ready to go to war is issues that deal with your possible dismemberment, disability or yes even your death. In the month or so before going to Iraq Judy had me take out an additional life insurance policy that doubled what the military would provide in the event of my demise. Part of our processing to go to combat was a will and power of attorney update. We had not updated our wills since well before coming to the Hampton Roads area so I took advantage of this time to get it done. The will itself was pretty easy since we have no children and have not been married to anyone else. That was the easy part. The next part was dealing with power of attorney. We did a couple of them, a General for most stuff and a couple of specific POAs for various things. I also had to do a medical power of attorney. The medical power of attorney is something that I routinely deal with at the hospital. I have dealt with them before in other places. At the same time they become somewhat disconcerting when you are getting to go into a combat zone where there is heavy fighting going on and that you know that you will be in places that the enemy likes to attack and by the way, you are as a chaplain unarmed.
When doing a Medical Power of Attorney I am always reminded of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer sees part of a movie called The Other Side of Darkness which supposedly is about a lady who ends up in a coma. Since Kramer doesn’t want to be in a coma he makes his own Power of Attorney for Jerry to be his representative. Jerry refuses and Kramer gets Elaine to go to a lawyer played by Ben Stein to get his “living will” done. Without going into too much detail the interview with the Ben Stein is funny as hell as in his monotone voice he asks Kramer what he would want to do if….and Kramer turns to Elaine and asks “what should I do?” Of course after Kramer makes this out he sees the rest of the movie only to find out that the lady in the coma comes out of it.
I digress, but anyway sometimes when you fill one of these out you pray that you get it right so no one offs you before your time, but also so you don’t end up like Karen Anne Quinlan or Terri Shaivo. All I could think of when doing this was me being so badly wounded that people were telling Judy that there was only a fifty- fifty chance of me living but only a ten percent chance of that and did she want to pull the plug. While this is going on I could just see me unable to respond trying to say “give me one more at bat skip, just one more chance…please.” This may not seem like the most spiritual thing for a Priest to be saying but I don’t want to be with Jesus or in Purgatory before my time.
Legal matters finished we had matters of health and preventive medicine to accomplish. As always when you deploy the military ensures that you are vaccinated against about everything imaginable including typhoid, anthrax, smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, certain regional diseases and probably some that I have forgotten. Many I had received at different times, including my first Anthrax vaccine which I injection was done into my muscle. This time the corpsmen given the shot did it sub-cutaneous which means just below the skin. Well something happened and the little reaction area became a big one that night. My bicep felt like someone had shoved a baseball in it and the sucker hurt like hell. By the next morning I knew that my reaction was not “normal” being that the first one I had did not do this. I thought back to the Anthrax scare right after September 11th 2001 and I didn’t want to take any chances regarding something that the media said could be dangerous. Who knows, what if they had messed up and given me a bad batch or even a weaponized form of the vaccine. Hell, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that they are not out to get me. If I was going to die for my country I didn’t want it to be from a reaction to a vaccine and not something heroic that would actually matter to someone and maybe even get a ship named after me. So I went back to the immunization section, excusing my way past the queue of sailors waiting to get PPD’s read I went to the desk. I figured that I wasn’t going to wait in line behind people with routine stuff when things looked like they were getting sporty for me. It’s called triage. The Corpsman at the desk was polite and asked what he could do. I told him that “I think I’m having a reaction to the Anthrax vaccine.” He gave me a funny look and asked whoch one in the series this shot was. It was the second and I said. “This didn’t happen the first time.” He told e to show him my arm and then with a look of surprise on his face said: “Obviously sir the first time you had no antibodies to Anthrax so it had nothing to react to….” I was thinking “no shit Sherlock” when the young man went to get his Chief. The Chief came in, looked at my arm and said: “Gee sir it looks like you are having a reaction to the shot.” Wow, he could have floored me with that bit of news. So he took me back to his office and started having me checked to make sure that I didn’t have a fever or a number of other things, like if I was dizzy or was having trouble breathing. No I was neither dizzy nor experiencing breathing difficulties but was simply in pain, a bit scared and a lot pissed. After his battery of questions and the phone calls asked me “do you think that you are safe to drive?” At that point I would have said anything to get the hell out of there and get on with what I needed to do to make sure that I wasn’t going to die. So I said “of course I am.” He asked if I was sure and I reaffirmed this to him in a convincing enough manner for him to send me over to Portsmouth. Now Portsmouth Naval Medical has a small office manned by a couple of nurses whose job it is to report bad vaccine reactions up to the FDA and God only knows who else. These ladies were very pleasant and when they got a look at my arm they were impressed. Once again I heard Yes sir you are having a reaction.” Once and I got another battery of questions and they took a couple of pictures of the baseball sized knot on my left bicep. Another couple of phone calls later I was told that I would be okay. I was told by the ladies that he next shot of the series would have to go into the muscle as this batch had encapsulated itself in my arm instead of going to the rest of my body. I was then told to take some Motrin for the pain and swelling and do a lot of push-ups, pull-ups and massage to help the area dissipate faster. My fears eased and I left the hospital and reported back to the processing site where all of my fellow sailors had already left for the day.
Another tense and sleepless night was spent with Judy and I with the emotional distance still there. We talked about various things but nothing serious as I don’t think that either of us was able to vocalize well what we were feeling. Even Molly seemed differed, I’m sure that she sensed that something was going on as I had continued to pack and re-pack my gear from EOD. Molly does not like it when either of us pack as it usually means that one or both of us is leaving her employee for a time, we being the well treated and loved hired help. So the next morning I repeated my “Groundhog Day” trek back to Norfolk Naval Station fighting the idiots driving to work on the I-264, I-64 and I-564 battle zone where matching wits with the witless I safely picked my way through traffic while drinking my black coffee.
Arriving for our next to last day of processing we checked and re-checked paperwork, received our signed wills, living wills and powers of attorney. That morning I met with Father Pat Finn a mobilized reservist and Episcopal Priest from South Carolina and we had a nice chat where we were joined by Fr Steve Powers retired Navy Chaplain and Rector of St. Brides Episcopal Church in Chesapeake. Following that I was asked to assist with a sailor who was having some personal difficulties getting ready for the deployment. These tasks completed I went back to muster with the others and sat down next to Nelson my ever faithful assistant and body guard extraordinaire. We were then told that we would collect the gear that we were being issued. We gathered outside where we lined up and were given a sea bag in which to put our issue. There were boxes of stuff everywhere and a couple of civilians and sailors stood by to ensure that we got what we were going to get. Uniforms with all of our name tapes rank insignia and qualification pins sewn on as well as more socks, t-shirts and other assorted gear. Our stash was a bit lighter than the others as we already had much of what was being issued and did not need the issue boots having already been issued non-issue boots courtesy of EOD. When this was done and we were released I told Nelson to go home as his family was coming into town from New York. Taking the newly issued gear home I again went to packing and repacking and took Judy out to dinner after which we spent our time alone together pondering the future.
Peace, Steve+
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