OPINION
we would send the suspiciously slow to recover guys to PT daily, till they finally gave in and went home.
But they had a point. Only their fellow combat vets could ever understand their struggles. Only their fellow vets had faced down the same fears, had dug their foxholes under air and artillery assault, had forced themselves to stand up and advance when every survival instinct was screaming,“ Stay down! Hide!”
But they would talk to me about many other things from their wars. The older ones had been seasick on the long, slow troop transports, crammed in and always wary of torpedoes or enemy bombers. They slept in canvas slings and when the ship rolled heavily, they could fall onto their neighbors. They threw dice and they told tall tales and they played cards, for thousands and thousands of miles. I tried to get one of my favorites, whose nickname was Eddie the Evil, to teach me how to throw dice and how to bet.
He was absolutely affronted by this.“ Ladies do not throw dice.”
I said,“ Lady doctors do. Come on, I’ m from Kentucky, I’ ve been betting on the horses since I was old enough to reach the tellers’ windows.”
“ They let kids bet?”
“ They did when I was little. I had babysitting money. You had to be tall enough to see over their windowsill. Have you ever bet the horses?”
Eddie was in for the long haul. He had lost a leg in Guam, and he had diabetes and suffered from chronic stump chafing and sores. He had pretty much given up walking but had a home that was full of stairsteps. So, he would agree to PT to strengthen his hips and his good leg, and he’ d taught scores of medical students and residents how to clean, soothe and wrap his stump. Eddie said,“ Baptists don’ t bet the horses – at least in Gainesville.”
I said,“ Do Baptists talk to their preachers about what it was like in the war?”
This silenced him. Finally, he said,“ My old church –‘ fore I had to move in with my daughter – we had a Men’ s Bible Study. We were all vets.”
I nodded.“ So you all understood each other.”
He said,“ We could complain all day.”
I didn’ t want to let him off the hook. I said,“ But could you talk to them about the awful parts?”
He shook his finger at me.“ You just want to hear about those.”
I said,“ No, but I do know that talking to my good buddy docs helps me deal with our awful parts – the young guys dying right and left of that horrible virus, the sad old guys who can’ t remember even who they are. We worry about them. It helps to talk to my buds.”
“ The VA psych man – saw him once.” I said,“ What was that like?”
He snorted.“ Wouldn’ t give me nothing but some damn medicine that dried my mouth out to sand. Told me it was all in my head, and it would help to have it come out, but our time was up. I never went back.”
I said,“ I just hope you can talk to your Bible guys about things that really bother you, things that you have nightmares about kinda things.”
He said,“ You just not gonna leave this alone, are you?”
I told him,“ When people get the idea that your troubles are‘ all in your head,’ they are dead wrong. Your troubles live in your head and in your guts and in your sleep and in your mood, every day.”
He looked at me and I saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.
I said,“ It’ s never‘ all in your head.’ It’ s real life up there. It’ s what you lived through. It’ s what you endured, and you got scars. And we got scars from all these young guys dying on us every single day. That’ s real life.”
He said,“ Well doc, I can see you been around us awhile.”
I thanked him. I said,“ My dad made five island landings with the first wave. He was the FAC. Yet here I stand – pretty much, that’ s what makes me believe in God.”
He said,“ Amen to that!” We shook on it.
Dr. Barry is an internist and Associate Professor of Medicine( Gratis Faculty) at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, currently retired and mulling her next moves.
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OPINION December 2025 33