Exit
old. You never forget that smell. Or
the smell of burning flesh.”
18th Surgical Hospital, Quang
Tri, Republic of South Vietnam,
1969. A few miles north, a killing
zone where Americans and North
Vietnamese are locked in desperate battle. Marsha, age 22, had
graduated the year before from St.
Vincent’s School of Nursing in Indianapolis. Never worked in an emergency room. Never seen a body mutilated. A straight-A, white-glove
Irish Catholic girl, gone to war.
Now, suddenly, medics are
bursting through the doors carrying litters with the wounded and
dying, their eyes wide with pain
and desperation. Focus: scissor off
the fatigues and boots, scan the
body to assess the gaping wounds,
insert a chest tube, catheters, an
IV, try not to notice that’s a person down there with a name and
a mother back home. This is here,
now. Keep his throat clear as he’s
pushed into surgery and pivot
to the next bloody litter as more
medevac helicopters thwackthwack to a landing outside.
“The abnormal becomes normal,”
she says when she speaks again.
“War becomes normal. Death becomes normal. You do what you
have to do. We worked hard. Played
GREATEST PERSON
OF THE WEEK
hard. We tried to find as much humor and laughter as we could.”
‘WE WEREN’T SATISFIED’
Outside, an elevated train rumbles
past the window that looks out on
a dreary North Philadelphia neighborhood. Marsha is now the director of a non-profit, the Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and
Education Center. She struggles to
explain what has drawn her back,
HUFFINGTON
11.11.12
Marsha takes
a coffee break
outside of the
Philadelphia
Veterans
Multi-Service
& Education
Center.