Monday MRI Flashback

Monday afternoon, my chemo started late, so by the time I was done I had only 45 minutes to eat and sign-in for my 7:15pm MRI.  The MRI was scheduled for the Radiology Outpatient Center (ROC) that use mobile MRI scanners that reside in huge trucks.  In my multiple MRIs the past nine years, I never had an MRI from the ROC.  The waiting room was beautiful, the staff was very professional and caring, and the best part was I had no wait.  After getting my scrubs on the technician walked me through an outdoor hallway and up six steps into the mobile unit.  Everything looked the same, except the room was just a little smaller, and then the technician told me the test would take 90 minutes, not my usual 45.  When I was comfortable on the MRI bed, he put earplugs in my ears and wrapped my head with a soft material.  The same weird spinning and knocking noises started, but as they got much louder, I was glad for the earplugs. 

Twenty or so minutes into the test, I had my first flashback.  We were riding low in a Huey copter and I could hear the enemy fire at 4 o’clock.  I raised up my M16 and started to yell, “Enemy fire 4 o’clock”, but my arm hit the inside of the MRI tube and the technician ask me if I was okay and I said yes.  Realizing where I was I laid back down and for the next 60+ minutes, I again rode in the Huey, or sometimes I was back in Europe in a huge Chinook helicopter with my feet resting on the biggest nuclear weapons in our arsenal.  Toward the end of the test, I was doing night jumps out of the thin-skinned C-141 where the engine noise was deafening with the jump door open as I watched for the green light and then fell through darkness wondering if I’d ever get time to pray. 

I rode my scooter home with tears streaming down my face; I had gone back to memory moments I had worked hard to push away.  We came back to a country that didn’t want us back.  The first time I wore one of my fatigue shirts, so proud of my Captain Bars and Ranger Tab, someone spit on me.  Forty plus years ago I wrote the poem that follows as I sat on my bed and listened to two friends make a decision that would cost them their lives.  Many of you may never understand the patriotic pride that drove boys like me or like my dad who fought in WWII and Korea to ensure we have the freedom so many take for granted today, but I hope this poem gets you to an edge of understanding. 

Second Tour – Got to Go Back

you what?
“it’s all I know”

you have an electrical engineering degree
“it’s all I can remember”

you worked every summer since you were 15
“it’s all I’m good at”

your crazy
“I can’t leave them alone”

we left too many to count
“I have to go back”

I can’t let you go back
“It’s all WE know”

It’s all we know
“yea, it’s all we know”

shi! – let’s go…….