Military Misadventures

The forty-something man scooted his chair into my office. He was as dapper as one could expect for someone under such circumstances: nicely trimmed beard on a formerly rugged face now turning a bit pudgy, clean Nike golf shirt, fashionable slacks with the bulge of a urine leg bag above one ankle. 

I had not seen him before but knew he’d come for a follow-up visit to adjust the medications he took for spasticity. We were reaching high dosage levels of baclofen, our most effective drug, with only marginal benefit and there was talk of installing a pump to deliver the drug directly into his spinal canal via an indwelling catheter. 

We saw many such patients in the Veterans Affairs hospital neurology clinic. 

His heel cords were tight and his knees wedged together. His lower extremity reflexes were hyperactive. All evidence of severe spasticity, a common feature of patients with paraplegia due to a spinal cord injury. 

“How were you injured?” I asked.

“During our invasion of the Dominican Republic.”

“What! When did we invade the Dominican Republic. Never knew about that.”

“It was 1965 and Johnson sent us there for some bullshit reason. I was in the 82nd  Airborne out of Fort Bragg. As I floated down toward the drop zone, they began to pepper us with ground fire. I was dangling there helpless and took a round to my spine. My legs were gone before I hit the ground.”

I thought back to Reagan sending our guys into Grenada over some other bullshit. Another American military misadventure. 

Minor conflicts. Not so minor to some.